Sunday, February 21, 2010
The best tool for understanding where music comes from is evolutionary biology. Songs don’t spontaneously spring into being any more than animals or plants do. They evolve, descending from reshuffled pieces of existing songs, the way our genes are shuffled together from our parents’ genes. The same way that all life has a single common [...]
Filed in Composition, Evolution, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged cassettes, dna, Evolution, family, genealogy, memes, midi, Music Theory, sample maps, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting
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Monday, December 28, 2009
I don’t get to movie theaters much. But as part of the new family plan to enjoy ourselves on Christmas, I went to see Avatar in 3D with a bunch of relatives. I went in intending to dislike it, and came out having thoroughly enjoyed myself. So much for my hipsterish snobbery. What’s interesting to [...]
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Sampling
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Also tagged aliens, america, anne mccaffrey, avatar, capitalism, gaia hypothesis, green, james cameron, mashups, memes, military, movies, native americans, pop, racism, roger dean, scifi, south park, the abyss, the matrix, white people, yes
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Saturday, November 28, 2009
If you’re in a band, chances are you feel like you’re supposed to be writing your own material. If you write your own songs, you can make more money from the publishing rights in addition to your album sales (should you, improbably, be selling albums.) Writing your own stuff isn’t just a financial consideration. The [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged arrangement, big band, chet baker, copyright, count basie, duke ellington, frank sinatra, harmony, Improvisation, jay-z, jazz, john coltrane, lego, looping, memes, miles davis, modules, Music, Music Theory, my favorite things, reharmonization, remixes, Sampling, swing, symmetry, the sound of music
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Monday, November 23, 2009
One of the biggest copyright failures of copyright law ever is the The Verve’s song “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” The distinctive string sample comes from an orchestral arrangement of “The Last Time” by The Rolling Stones. Doesn’t sound much like the Verve, does it? Here’s the Andrew Oldham Orchestra‘s version, the sample will jump right out [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Music Business, Sampling
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Also tagged allen klein, andrew oldham, bitter sweet symphony, copyright, digging the crates, fail, hip-hop, james brown, law, pop, remixes, revival revival, richard ashcroft, rock, rolling stones, Sampling, staples singers, the verve, uk
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The title is a lyric by Kanye West on Common’s track “They Say.” A hundred percent of my musical energy right now is coming from and going into sample-based music. To wit: Records I Can’t Sample Me vs Michael Jackson vs Herbie Hancock vs Missy Elliot vs Kanye West vs Fab Five Freddy mp3 download, [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged common, copyright, electronica, Evolution, hip-hop, homebrewing, jonathan lethem, kanye west, mashups, memes, Music, property, remixes, Sampling
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