Thursday, January 21, 2010
A little late but it took me this long to track down: Steve Dallas channels the King of Pop. Thanks Adam G for scanning this from his extensive Bloom County collection and sending it. Click for full size.
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
|
Also tagged anxiety, billie jean, bloom county, comics, eighties, fan art, michael jackson, steve dallas, white people
|
DJ Kool Herc describes “Apache” by The Incredible Bongo Band as the national anthem of hip-hop. “Apache” includes a famous drum and percussion break that has reliably put bodies on the dance floor through hip-hop’s prehistory:
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
|
Also tagged apache, breakdancing, copyright, digging the crates, dna, double dee and steinski, drum n bass, drumming, Evolution, funk, goldie, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, history, kool herc, mashups, memes, missy elliot, nas, pop, questlove, roots, Sampling, seventies
|
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Is lip-synching to a recording a form of music? It’s definitely dance, of a specific kind. But is it music, or just mime? I feel instinctively that Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” routine on the Motown 25th Anniversary is a musical performance, one of the all-time great ones. So I guess I consider lip-synching to be [...]
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
|
Also tagged ashlee simpson, attention, billie jean, lil wayne, lipsynching, michael jackson, moonwalk, purists, singing, tv
|
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Here’s Revival Revival’s arrangement of Lionel Richie’s classic “Dancin’ On The Ceiling.” Ohhh What A Feelin’ Revival Revival vs Lionel Richie vs Michael Jackson mp3 download, ipod format download Vocals, guitar and bass by Babsy. Beats, loops and production by me. The beat is from “Billie Jean.” We love this song. Here’s the original.
Filed in Music
|
Also tagged autotune, billie jean, eighties, guitar, lionel richie, michael jackson, pop, remixes, revival revival, rock, Sampling, typography
|
I can’t breakdance. I want to learn. It looks like fun. When I worked for the Parks Department I was involved in their afterschool programs. One of them met in the Alfred E Smith Recreation Center in the housing project of the same name. In the basketball gym, Roc-a-fella (the b-girl, not the record label) [...]
Filed in Dance, Improvisation, Music
|
Also tagged breakdancing, disco, electronica, fan art, funk, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, michael jackson, nyc, turntablism, youtube
|
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
My family does not, as a general rule, dance. Maybe individually. Very rarely together. It takes a wedding or bar mitzvah or other major state occasion to get even some of us on the dance floor. When left to our own devices, it doesn’t happen spontaneously. At least not until last Thanksgiving, when we tried [...]
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Today the Michael Jackson fan art I have on my mind (and on the iPod) is “Please Don’t Stop The Music,” sung by Rihanna and produced by a couple of Norwegian guys. It includes a sample of MJ singing “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.” The sample includes both his quasi-Swahili chant and his unearthly woo-hoo. It [...]
Filed in Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
|
Also tagged beatboxing, digging the crates, eighties, fan art, funk, Improvisation, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, pop, recursion, remixes, rihanna, Sampling, seventies, songwriting, soul, soul makossa
|
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Here’s one of my favorite bits of South Park.
Filed in Dance, Interfaces, Music, Music Teaching, Video Games
|
Also tagged america, beatles, electronica, gender, guitar hero, masculinity, Recording, remixes, rock, rock band, simulation, south park, Video Games, visualization
|
It’s no accident that music and games share the verb “to play.” Both music and games are semi-structured forms of social learning. As far as I’m concerned, the most exciting thing happening in the video game world is the explosion of music-based games like Dance Dance Revolution.
Filed in Dance, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Software, Video Games
|
Also tagged ddr, guitar hero, Improvisation, japan, jazz, king of the hill, miles davis, Music, music notation, Video Games, visualization
|
Here’s a more specific post on programming various well-known beats. The brain is a pattern recognition machine. We like repetition and symmetry. But we only like it up to a point. Once we’ve recognized and memorized the pattern, we get bored and stop paying attention. If the pattern changes or breaks, it grabs our attention [...]
Filed in Composition, Music, Music Teaching
|
Also tagged drum machines, drumming, electronica, hip-hop, looping, meditation, Music, programming, questlove, recursion, repetition, rhythm, time
|