Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Update: check out my own newest visualization scheme, the radial drum machine. See also a more scholarly review of the literature on visualization and music education. Computer-based music production and composition involves the eyes as much as the ears. The representations in audio editors like Pro Tools and Ableton Live are purely informational, waveforms and [...]
Filed in Composition, Interfaces, Math, Music, Music Theory, Software, Visual art
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Also tagged bjork, euler, interfaces, linkedin, looping, melodyne, Music, music notation, networks, notation, reason, Recording, recycle, roger penrose, topology, visualization
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011
When teaching guitar, I find that my students need the most help with groove. Students come to me expecting to learn chords, scales, riffs and ultimately entire tunes. I do teach those things, but after a little guidance, anyone can learn them on their own just as well from books, videos, web sites and so [...]
Filed in Music, Music Teaching, Music Theory
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Also tagged attention, funk, groove, guitar, hip-hop, linkedin, meditation, rhythm, swing, time
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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 dance, drum machines, drumming, hip-hop, hone, honey drippers, james brown, led zeppelin, looping, programming, rhythm, rock, time
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My friend Adam, a non-musician but devoted music fan, asked me why sampling is good. He’s used to hearing me defend sampling from the accusation that it’s bad, but he’d never heard a positive argument for it. In case you’ve ever asked the same question, here’s my answer.
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged beyonce, brian eno, chi-lites, copyright, disney, Evolution, fan art, fans, grateful dead, intellectual property, janet jackson, joni mitchell, kickstarter, lil wayne, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, midi, monkeysphere, Music, public domain, remixes, Sampling, songwriting, swv
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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 Composition, Music, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged dna, electronica, Evolution, funk, hip-hop, james brown, memes, midi, mutation, recursion, recycle, remixes, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting, visualization
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Turntablists use record players to play records in ways they weren’t meant to be played. By speeding up, slowing down and reversing the record under the needle, a whole universe of new sounds becomes possible. The record player as musical instrument is still in its early stages of development. DJs already invented the instrumental sound [...]
Filed in Hardware, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged a tribe called quest, afrika bambaataa, apache, dj, dj premier, grand mixer dst, grandmaster flash, herbie hancock, hip-hop, Improvisation, looping, mashups, music notation, peter piper, rahzel, remixes, rhythm, rockit, run-dmc, Sampling, scratch, turntablism, visualization, wu-tang
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The most-sampled album in history is probably James Brown’s compilation In The Jungle Groove. It includes the original “Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” along with a sampling-friendly remix. It also includes some other much-loved funk tracks. None of them have been sampled as heavily as “Funky Drummer” but there are some contenders. The compilation [...]
Filed in Evolution, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged drumming, Evolution, funk, james brown, lil mama, michael jackson, Music, percussion, primates, queen, remixes, rhythm, rnb, Sampling, seventies, sixties, soul, steven mithen, stone age
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“The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” by James Brown and the JBs is one of the most-sampled recordings in history. “The Funky Drummer” is a cornerstone of hip-hop and other sample-based electronic music, but for the first decade after its release it was an obscure tune. It’s a nice groove, but as a song, [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged algorithms, audio editing, black thought, copyright, digging the crates, eminem, freestyle, funk, godel, hip-hop, james brown, looping, memes, mos def, Music, programming, recursion, remixes, rnb, Sampling, soul, susan blackmore
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