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, pop, rock, song structure, visualization
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Apple has long made a practice of giving away cool software with their computers. One of the coolest such freebies is Garageband. It’s a stripped down version of Logic aimed at beginners, and it’s a surprisingly robust tool. The software instruments and loops sound terrific, the interface is approachable, and it’s generally a great scratchpad. [...]
Filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged apple, beginners, drumming, garageband, guitar, interfaces, ios, ipad, keybs, linkedin, midi, Music, music teaching, Sampling, sequencing
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
John: “Instant Karma” I’d put “Oh Yoko” up there too. “Imagine” has a gorgeous melody, but the lyrics are like something an eighth grader would write.
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, pop, rihanna, soul makossa, thriller, will smith
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I always enjoy when hip-hop artists sample themselves. It makes the music recursive, and for me, “recursive” is synonymous with “good.” You can hear self-sampling in “Nas Is Like” by Nas, “The Score” by the Fugees and many songs by Eric B and Rakim. The most recent self-sampling track to cross my radar is “Unbelievable” [...]
Filed in Key Musicians, Math, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged digging the crates, dj premier, fractals, funk, hip-hop, impeach the president, keybs, lee byron, mandelbrot, nas, notorious big, nursery rhymes, patrice rushen, r kelly, recursion, rnb, Sampling, turntablism
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I don’t enjoy Girl Talk’s music all that much — I find it overwhelming, like watching someone flip channels on a TV. But I think he’s really important, and anyone who cares about music, technology, originality and ownership should be paying close attention. Adam Bossy raised an intriguing idea in his answer — describing an [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Dance, Key Musicians, Sampling
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Also tagged audio editing, copyright, girl talk, hip-hop, hipster, inspiration, linkedin, mashups, memes, pop, rock
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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 [...]
“Ye-yeah” and “baby” are open-ended expressions of love, enthusiasm and general positive energy. They might be specifically directed at a loved one, but usually they’re directed at everyone and no one and have no particular meaning at all. Pop lyrics aren’t about conveying specific information. They’re about sound for the sake of sound. The voice [...]
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, singing, soul, Video Games, wilson pickett, xkcd
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
John Lennon is said to have thought that “Dear Prudence” was one of his best songs. Who can argue with him? I could make a case for it as the best song by the Beatles generally, which puts it in the running for the best song by anyone ever. The song was written about Mia [...]