Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Here’s a live rendition of Imogen Heap’s song “Hide And Seek.” It’s introduced by Zach Braff, but don’t let that dissuade you from watching.
Filed in music
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Also tagged authenticity, autotune, book, brian eno, harmony, imogen heap, improvisation, interface, keybs, midi, music, pop, remixes, sampling, synths
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The most sampled recording in history is (probably) the Funky Drummer loop from James Brown’s song “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two.” Here I go deeper into how this sample can be reworked into new music. DJs call this practice chopping a sample. It’s much easier to chop samples with computers than with hardware [...]
Filed in music, software
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Also tagged dna, evolution, funk, funky drummer, hip-hop, james brown, memes, midi, mutation, recursion, recycle, remixes, sampling, sequencing, songwriting, visualization
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Couple of exciting memetic hybrids circulating around the web right now. First, here’s a techno track using samples of Pixar’s Up, which is one of the best and saddest movies ever. Thanks Mike for alerting me to the remix’s existence. Remixing songs is all well and good, but remixing movies, that’s where it’s at.
Filed in movies, music
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Also tagged america, animation, audio editing, book, chris isaak, dj earworm, kevin kelly, lady gaga, memes, movies, pixar, pop, remixes, revival revival, sampling, up, video editing
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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 music
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Also tagged breakdancing, dance, disco, fan art, funk, grandmaster flash, hip-hop, michael jackson, nyc, turntablism, youtube
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See also a post about the Dead and electronic music. Whenever I play guitar, it comes out sounding a lot like Jerry Garcia. I can’t help it. From the ages of fifteen to twenty, my guitar-learning years, there was no musician I cared more about in the world than Jerry. It’s not about drugs. I’ve [...]
Filed in music
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Also tagged audience participation, depression, design, drugs, fashion, grateful dead, guitar, hippies, janis joplin, jerry garcia, midi, sixties, steal your face, tape trading, viral marketing
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Saturday, October 3, 2009
Okay, so we’ve all firmly established that he’s not exactly Mr Personality. President Obama called him a jackass. Even before he disrupted the MTV awards, a lot of my friends disliked him intensely. This dislike crosses racial, class and gender boundaries. And yet, I like Kanye’s music better than just about anything that anyone is [...]
Filed in music
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Also tagged autotune, depression, drum machines, emotion, hip-hop, kanye west, lil wayne, masculinity, pop, posthuman, remixes, t-pain, taylor swift
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Saturday, September 26, 2009
So as part of the competitive analysis for my developing book proposal, I’ve been looking at books about electronic music and hip-hop. I’m interested in books about the music itself, its production and content, as well as the lives of people making it and listening to it. Among the books I’ve read, the two real [...]
Friday, September 25, 2009
Not much context to offer on this except that I saw it on Wayne Marshall’s Twitter, it has Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, and it’s beyond delightful.
Filed in music, science
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Also tagged autotune, carl sagan, cosmology, meditation, nerds, physics, remixes, sampling, science, space, stephen hawking, video
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
Over the weekend we stayed with Anna’s sister Joanna, her husband Chris and their adorable new baby Lucas. Chris and I spent some of the time talking about electronic music and the internet. He’s a social media professional and a music fan but not a musician, and it was cool to hear his perspective on [...]
Filed in music, software, web
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Also tagged book, daft punk, delicious, design, drum machines, fun, interface, internet, inudge, minimalism, multitracking, reason, remixes, sequencing, social media, tenori-on, toys, visualization, web browser
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Björk knows how to balance the coldness of electronic production with hotly unpredictable vocals and instrument textures. Her approach is eccentric and her sound gets on some people’s nerves. It took me a couple years to be convinced by her. I’m glad I hung in there, because she’s been one of my best teachers in [...]
Filed in music
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Also tagged audio editing, bjork, book, depression, hipster, iceland, interface, lord of the rings, missy elliot, pro tools, recording, remixes, sampling, sequencing, timbaland, tolkien
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