There’s no single standard method for notating pop, rock and dance songs. Some musicians write everything out in standard western notation; some don’t write anything down at all; many fall somewhere in between. One such compromise system in widespread use is the lead sheet: Other systems for song documentation include chord charts and the Nashville [...]
Filed in Composition, Music
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Also tagged ableton, beatles, carly rae jepsen, dance, diana ross, disco, eric b & rakim, funk, hip-hop, michael jackson, nile rodgers, rock, song structure, songwriting, visualization
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On Tuesday, July 17, I appeared on the Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio to talk about my pet topic, remixes and mashups. The great DJ Earworm was on the show too, which I was totally geeked out about. You can stream or download the show here. Or listen to my remix of it: [...]
Filed in Autobio, Copyright and Authorship, Sampling
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Also tagged copyright, dj earworm, electronica, Evolution, girl talk, hip-hop, mashups, memes, Music, npr, remixes, self promotion
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Here’s an email conversation I’ve been having with my friend Greg Brown about Kanye West’s recent albums. Greg is a classical composer and performer with a much more avant-garde sensibility than mine. The exchange is lightly edited for clarity. Greg: I’ve been listening to 808s and Heartbreak and Twisted Fantasy. I’m really enjoying them. Far [...]
Filed in Emotion, Key Musicians, Music, Recording, Software
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Also tagged 808, 808s and heartbreak, autotune, classical, distortion, fiona apple, frank ocean, hip-hop, jay-z, john adams, kanye west, posthuman, rnb, Sampling, singing, soul, watch the throne
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Guberman, Daniel. Post-Fidelity: A New Age of Music Consumption and Technological Innovation. Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp 431–454 Guberman divides the history of recorded music into two distinct sections: the fidelity era, stretching from Thomas Edison through the invention of the compact disk, and the post-fidelity era, beginning with the [...]
Filed in Dance, Hardware, Internet, Music, Music Business, Recording, Technology
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Also tagged audiophiles, cell phones, dance, hip-hop, linkedin, mp3, nyu, Recording, sodcasting, technomusicology
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Chapman, Dale. “That Ill, Tight Sound”: Telepresence and Biopolitics in Post-Timbaland Rap Production. Journal of the Society for American Music (2008) Volume 2, Number 2, pp. 155–175. Chapman examines the impact that Timbaland has had on popular music production, and what his significance is to the broader culture. While Timbaland himself is no longer the [...]
Filed in Key Musicians, Music, Race and Identity, Recording, Sampling, Software, Technology
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Also tagged anxiety, dance, hip-hop, Internet, linkedin, missy elliot, posthuman, production, technomusicology, timbaland
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Auto-tune was already a well-established studio tool by the time “Believe” came out, though it was unknown outside the music industry.
Filed in Music, Recording, Software
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Also tagged autotune, cher, dance, electronica, Music, posthuman, quora, Recording, Software
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The trumpet player Nicholas Peyton wrote a blog post recently: On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the future of the art form. If jazz is ever going to be popular again, it needs to regain its cool. Jazz was popular when it was intimately connected to popular culture. [...]
Thursday, November 17, 2011
There’s a certain jazz lick that’s so heavily used that it’s just known as The Lick. It’s the only jazz lick I know of that has its own Facebook page. Here’s a greatest hits compilation: Update: now there’s a volume two!
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged akon, bobby hutcherson, classical, cliches, digging the crates, Evolution, facebook, freddie hubbard, grant green, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, memes, miles davis, Music, player, reggae, rock, santana, stravinsky
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Thursday, November 3, 2011
I know this melody as the cartoon snakecharmer song. Here’s a kid playing it on bass clarinet: I’ve always wondered where the Egyptian melody came from. It turns out to be hundreds of years of old, and goes by many different names. You can find an excellent capsule history of it in William Benzon’s book [...]
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Music
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Also tagged beatles, cartoons, cliches, das racist, folk, jazz, linkedin, louis armstrong, memes, middle eastern music, quora, stereotyping, steve martin, they might be giants
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The first time I heard Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” was courtesy of Motorcycle Guy, a prominent Brooklyn eccentric who drives around on a tricked-out motorcycle bedecked with lights and equipped with a powerful sound system. I encounter him every so often and he’s always bumping some good funk, soul or R&B. One night, he was [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Dance, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged a tribe called quest, big daddy kane, bjork, boy george, boyz ii men, cameroon, charles hamilton, copyright, dance, david mancuso, digging the crates, duala, eighties, Evolution, fugees, funk, geto boys, jay-z, kanye west, kool moe d, lord tariq and peter gunz, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, poor righteous teachers, rihanna, songwriting, soul makossa, thriller, will smith
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