Guberman, Daniel. Post-Fidelity: A New Age of Music Consumption and Technological Innovation. Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp 431–454 Guberman divides the history of recorded music into two distinct sections: the fidelity era, stretching from Thomas Edison through the invention of the compact disk, and the post-fidelity era, beginning with the [...]
Filed in Dance, Hardware, Internet, Music, Music Business, Recording, Technology
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Also tagged audiophiles, cell phones, hip-hop, linkedin, mp3, nyu, pop, Recording, sodcasting, technomusicology
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Chapman, Dale. “That Ill, Tight Sound”: Telepresence and Biopolitics in Post-Timbaland Rap Production. Journal of the Society for American Music (2008) Volume 2, Number 2, pp. 155–175. Chapman examines the impact that Timbaland has had on popular music production, and what his significance is to the broader culture. While Timbaland himself is no longer the [...]
Filed in Key Musicians, Music, Race and Identity, Recording, Sampling, Software, Technology
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Also tagged anxiety, hip-hop, Internet, linkedin, missy elliot, pop, posthuman, production, technomusicology, timbaland
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Auto-tune was already a well-established studio tool by the time “Believe” came out, though it was unknown outside the music industry.
Filed in Music, Recording, Software
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Also tagged autotune, cher, electronica, Music, pop, posthuman, quora, Recording, Software
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The first time I heard Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” was courtesy of Motorcycle Guy, a prominent Brooklyn eccentric who drives around on a tricked-out motorcycle bedecked with lights and equipped with a powerful sound system. I encounter him every so often and he’s always bumping some good funk, soul or R&B. One night, he was [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Dance, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged a tribe called quest, big daddy kane, bjork, boy george, boyz ii men, cameroon, charles hamilton, copyright, david mancuso, digging the crates, duala, eighties, Evolution, fugees, funk, geto boys, jay-z, kanye west, kool moe d, lord tariq and peter gunz, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, poor righteous teachers, pop, rihanna, songwriting, soul makossa, thriller, will smith
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both rhythmically and harmonically. The best basslines interlock with the drums and other rhythm instruments to propel the groove, without you [...]
Filed in Composition, Dance, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged 808, art blakey, bass, beatles, black sheep, bootsy collins, charles mingus, daft punk, digable planets, duke ellington, electronica, funk, groove, herbie hancock, hip-hop, james brown, janet jackson, jazz, john coltrane, kanye west, ladysmith black mambazo, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, morphine, paul simon, pop, rock, sequencing, talking heads, teddy riley
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, and The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Just about everything [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Dance, Music, Music Business, Music Teaching, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged digging the crates, doctor who, eighties, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, pop, production, Recording, rick astley, songwriting, uk, whitney houston
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This song represents a lot of firsts for Michael Jackson. It was the first single from Off The Wall, and the first recording MJ made that he had complete creative control over. Many of his hits were written by Quincy Jones or Rod Temperton or the guys from Toto, but Michael wrote this one himself. [...]
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged beyonce, disco, drumming, harmony, hip-hop, jay-z, mase, Math, michael jackson, mixolydian, Music Theory, pop, public enemy, Sampling, seventies, slick rick, tritones
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I wrote a general post about what makes a hot beat hot. As a followup, here’s how to program some generic patterns and a few famous breakbeats. The basic unit of dance music is a sequence of sixteen eighth notes, two measures of four-four time. Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 represent the sixteen eighth [...]
Filed in Music, Music Teaching, Software
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Also tagged drum machines, drumming, funky drummer, hip-hop, hone, honey drippers, james brown, led zeppelin, looping, programming, rhythm, rock, time
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I’ve had a lot of music teachers, formal and informal. The best one has been the computer. It mindlessly plays anything I tell it to, over and over. Hearing an idea played back on a continuous loop tells me quickly if it’s good or not. If the idea is bad, I immediately get annoyed, and [...]
Filed in Composition, Math, Music, Music Teaching, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged beatles, country, electronica, fela kuti, hip-hop, jazz, looping, memory, modules, recursion, remixes, rza, structure, symmetry, theodor adorno
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Meet guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers, one of my favorite musicians in the world. He founded Chic along with the late bassist Bernard Edwards, and he’s on Twitter. Nile Rodgers has led an action-packed life. As a teenager, he played with the Sesame Street band, and then with the Apollo Theater house band, where he [...]
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged bass, bernard edwards, chic, david bowie, disco, duran duran, eighties, funk, gremlins, guitar, hip-hop, madonna, nile rodgers, pop, Sampling, sugarhill gang
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