This post is longer and more formal than usual because it was my term paper for a class in the NYU Music Technology Program. Questions of authorship, ownership and originality surround all forms of music (and, indeed, all creative undertakings.) Nowhere are these questions more acute or more challenging than in digital music, where it [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Key Musicians, Music, Music Business, Politics, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged ableton, afrika bambaataa, amazing grace, amen break, authenticity, bach, beatles, beyonce, biz markie, brian eno, classical, compulsory licensing, copyright, danger mouse, david shields, dj, dj earworm, dj premier, double dee and steinski, entropy, Evolution, fairlight cmi, fugees, girl talk, grandmaster flash, harold bloom, hip-hop, informationtheory, jay-z, jesse walker, john coltrane, jonathan lethem, linkedin, looping, marcus boon, mashups, memes, midi, missy elliot, mohawks, nas, nyu, originality, plato, plunderphonics, questlove, reason, remixes, richard dawkins, Sampling, sasha frere-jones, stravinsky, susan blackmore, theodor adorno, walter benjamin, william gibson
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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, pop, sodcasting, technomusicology
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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, pop, posthuman, quora, Software
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Tuesday, October 11, 2011
When you do computer-based music production and composition, you’re working as much with your eyes as you are with your ears. It’s only natural to start wondering about other music visualization systems. The representations in audio editors like Pro Tools and Ableton Live are purely informational, waveforms and grids and linear graphs. Some visualization systems [...]
Filed in Composition, Interfaces, Math, Music, Music Theory, Software, Visual art
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Also tagged bjork, euler, funky drummer, interfaces, linkedin, looping, melodyne, Music, music notation, networks, notation, reason, recycle, roger penrose, topology, visualization
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
I’ve tried a variety of different songwriting methods. I’ve written a set of lyrics and then tried setting them, or been handed a set of lyrics and told to make them work. I’ve come up with melodies and then set lyrics to them, found chords for them and so on. I’ve worked out basslines or [...]
Friday, December 17, 2010
I’ve always been more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy, but respect where respect is due, “Gimme Shelter” is a classic. It’s on my mind because Dangerous Minds posted the isolated tracks, and they’re a lot of fun. It’s fascinating to hear the separated vocals, guitars, bass and drums. The Youtube videos containing [...]
Filed in Music, Recording, Video Games
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Also tagged audio editing, guitar, keith richards, merry clayton, michael jackson, remixes, rhythm, rock, rolling stones, Sampling, singing, sixties, tuning
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Saturday, November 6, 2010
I was doing a frivolous Google search for the Simpsons episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph form a boy band. They’re in the studio singing, and they sound terrible, until the producer pushes a huge button labeled “studio magic.” Then suddenly they sound like the Backstreet Boys. While I was digging through the Google [...]
Filed in Music, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged audio editing, beatles, composing, history, mark katz, repetition, simpsons, van halen, walter benjamin
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, and The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Just about everything [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Dance, Music, Music Business, Music Teaching, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged dance, digging the crates, doctor who, eighties, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, pop, production, rick astley, songwriting, uk, whitney houston
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Classical music recordings are usually straightforward snapshots of live performances. Sometimes recordings are spliced together from multiple takes or overdubbed, but this practice is considered by classical musicians to be highly shameful. Glenn Gould had a very different attitude toward the studio. He loved working there, and viewed it as a more valuable creative outlet [...]
Friday, February 26, 2010
The vast majority of music that I hear is recorded, and if you’re reading this the same is probably true of you. Most people don’t have a clear idea what the recording process is like, especially using computers. Here are my adventures in recording. I grew up in the eighties. Cassette recorders were just starting [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Hardware, Improvisation, Music, Recording, Software
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Also tagged analog, audio, audio editing, autotune, computers, electronica, hip-hop, Improvisation, looping, mashups, Music, pro tools, remixes, revival revival, Sampling, sequencing, synths, tape, tape editing, visualization
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