I recently saw Under African Skies, the documentary about Paul Simon’s Graceland, and it was spellbinding. The music is so beautiful, the politics are so agonizing. I watched it with my mom and sister, which is appropriate since Graceland was in heavy rotation through my childhood. Mom isn’t a big pop scholar and knew next [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Race and Identity, Recording
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Also tagged accordion, africa, apartheid, Bakithi Kumalo, bass, chevy chase, copyright, graceland, guitar, judaica, ladysmith black mambazo, Music, ownership, Politics, race, ray phiri, south africa
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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, dance, 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, pop, rock, sequencing, talking heads, teddy riley
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Since it was Easter yesterday, Anna wanted to listen to Bach’s St Matthew Passion while we pottered around the house. A certain passage grabbed my ear, a hymn called “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” — in English, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” This beautiful tune was immediately familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged bach, classical, easter, folk, genealogy, hymns, memes, Music
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Today in the NY Times there’s an article about NASA’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory. Check out this amazing video of the sun in action. The sun was on my mind today anyway, it being so nice and cloudless outside. But days like today also cause me anxiety. I’m a fair-haired sunburn-prone type, and my dad [...]
Filed in Physics
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Also tagged antimatter, beatles, electromagnetism, fusion, george harrison, gravity, nina simone, Physics, quarks, Science, space
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Back in 1966, Glenn Gould predicted that recorded music would become an interactive conversation between musician and listener. He described dial twiddling as “an interpretive act.” He was wrong about the dials, but right about the main point, that technology would make listening to music more like making music. Anybody with iTunes instantly becomes a [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Internet, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged dave brubeck, digging the crates, dj, dj earworm, django reinhardt, double dee and steinski, electronica, fan art, fugees, funk, girl talk, glenn gould, grandmaster flash, green lantern, hip-hop, jonathan lethem, kelis, ludacris, mashups, memes, michael jackson, mixtapes, mozart, nas, pop, pro tools, radiohead, recursion, remixes, sample maps, Sampling, sasha frere-jones, wayne marshall, youtube
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“Peter Piper” is the leadoff track on Raising Hell, the third album by Run-DMC. It was their big commercial and critical breakthrough. My stepbrother Dan had it on cassette and it pretty much defined the sound of my sixth and seventh grade experience.
Filed in Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged bob james, copyright, digging the crates, eighties, hip-hop, jazz, looping, memes, Music, nursery rhymes, run-dmc, Sampling, turntablism
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