Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thelonious Monk’s beautiful ballad “Round Midnight” is said to be the most widely recorded and performed jazz tune — that is, a tune that was written specifically for jazz, not an adaptation of a showtune or pop song. It’s a testament to its popularity that it’s one of exactly two songs that Dave Chappelle knows [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged ballads, bebop, bud powell, carmen mcrae, Composition, cootie williams, dave chappelle, dizzy gillespie, ella fitzgerald, hip-hop, jazz, john coltrane, krs-one, linkedin, miles davis, oscar peterson, Sampling, thelonious monk
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If you’ve been following my internet presence, you know how much I love flowcharts. So naturally, I was amused by this Randall Munroe cartoon: I was reminded of it walking down the street the other day, because someone in our neighborhood in Brooklyn was blasting a dancehall track from their car that sampled the “na, [...]
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged ableton, bananarama, beatles, flowcharts, katamari, mashups, memes, pop, rock, songwriting, soul, Video Games, wilson pickett, xkcd
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Saturday, February 26, 2011
This week I’ve been all about Kanye West’s “Lost In The World,” the most gripping track on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Kanye is one of the few commercial producers with a high enough profile to be able to license whatever samples he wants, so he carries the banner of memetastic collage-based music in the [...]
Filed in Composition, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged autotune, bon iver, chipmunking, gil scott-heron, james brown, jamie foxx, kanye west, lyn collins, manu dibango, michael jackson, Sampling
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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, Recording, remixes, rhythm, rock, rolling stones, Sampling, sixties, tuning
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The other day Brian Eno was on NPR talking about his process. He likes to have people walk into the studio without any preconceived ideas or written out material. Then he has the musicians improvise within certain constraints. Usually these constraints are more about a mood or a vibe than a particular musical structure. After [...]
Filed in Autobio, Hardware, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music
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Also tagged brian eno, buddhism, comedy, electronica, groovebox, guitar, Improvisation, intuition, meditation, revival revival, upright citizens brigade
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Saturday, December 5, 2009
Is lip-synching to a recording a form of music? It’s definitely dance, of a specific kind. But is it music, or just mime? I feel instinctively that Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” routine on the Motown 25th Anniversary is a musical performance, one of the all-time great ones. So I guess I consider lip-synching to be [...]
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged ashlee simpson, attention, billie jean, dance, lil wayne, lipsynching, michael jackson, moonwalk, purists, tv
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Working on Janet Jackson songs made me want to see if she did any tracks with Michael. Here’s what the internet has to say: Michael sings backup vocals on Janet’s early album Dream Street. Janet sings backup on Michael’s “PYT.” She’s in the part towards the end where he says “Pretty young things, repeat after [...]
Filed in Autobio, Music
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Also tagged Autobio, creativity, guitar, harmony, hip-hop, janet jackson, michael jackson, molly, Music, Music Theory, psychology, teaching, vest pocket psalm
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There are a lot of different musical instruments out there. Just about all of them share four basic components: a harmonic oscillator, a source of noise, a control surface for modulation, and a resonator.
Filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Music, Physics, Video Games
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Also tagged chiptunes, guitar, Music, Music Theory, overtones, Physics, resonance, synths, Video Games
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