Ethan Hein's Blog

Tag Archives: soul

The Choice Is Yours

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

There’s a commercial on TV right now featuring a bunch of CGI hamsters that reacquainted me with this Black Sheep classic. I knew the song better as the one that goes, “You can get with this or you can get with that.” Thank god for Google, otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about anything. This is [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged advertising, black sheep, funk, hip-hop, iron butterfly, jazz, mccoy tyner, nineties, rnb, rock, sampling, tv | Comments (1)

Blue notes and other microtones

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

A big part of what makes the blues sound like the blues is blue notes. Most other American vernacular music uses blue notes too: jazz, funk, rock, country, gospel, folk and so on. In the video below, John Lee Hooker hits a blue note in just about every single guitar phrase. For such a foundational [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged autotune, blue notes, blues, guitar, herbie hancock, john lee hooker, microtones, music theory, tuning | Comments (0)

Impeach The President

Sunday, April 11, 2010

This post isn’t about Obama. I love Obama. I’m talking about a classic breakbeat, the opening few seconds of “Impeach The President” by the Honey Drippers, and the president in question is Nixon.

Filed in music | Also tagged big daddy kane, biz markie, de la soul, digable planets, drumming, eric b & rakim, funk, hip-hop, honey drippers, mick jagger, nas, nice & smooth, notorious big, sampling, slick rick, wu-tang | Comments (0)

Authenticity

Thursday, February 11, 2010

When I was younger I was obsessed with authenticity in music. I wouldn’t even play electric guitar because it felt too easy, like cheating somehow. I expended a lot of energy and attention trying to figure out what is and isn’t authentic. Now, at the age of 34, I’ve officially given up. I doubt there’s [...]

Filed in autobio, music | Also tagged acoustic, alicia keys, authenticity, autotune, bebop, big chill, bill monroe, bluegrass, blues, book, coltrane, electronica, emotion, harmonica, herbie hancock, howlin wolf, jay-z, jazz, judaica, klezmer, led zeppelin, lipsynching, michael jackson, motown, nyc, purists, rnb, sampling, synths, thelonious monk | Comments (7)

Michael Jackson fan art

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Today the Michael Jackson fan art I have on my mind (and on the ipod) is “Please Don’t Stop The Music,” sung by Rihanna and produced by a couple of Norwegian guys. It includes a sample of MJ singing “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.” The sample includes both his quasi-Swahili chant and his unearthly woo-hoo. It [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged beatboxing, book, dance, eighties, fan art, funk, improvisation, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, pop, recursion, remixes, rihanna, sampling, seventies, songwriting, soul makossa | Comments (1)

Clap your hands, stomp your feet

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The most-sampled album in history is probably James Brown’s compilation In The Jungle Groove. It includes the original “Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” along with a sampling-friendly remix. It also includes some other much-loved funk tracks. None of them have been sampled as heavily as “Funky Drummer” but there are some contenders. The compilation [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged book, drumming, evolution, funk, funky drummer, james brown, lil mama, michael jackson, music, percussion, primates, queen, remixes, rhythm, rnb, sampling, seventies, sixties, steven mithen, stone age | Comments (0)

Wow chicka wah-wah

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Say “oooh” as in “noodle.” Then say “aaah” as in “park.” When you say “oooh” your mouth is more closed, with less resonating space and a smaller opening. This configuration blocks the higher overtones of your voice. When you say “aaah” your jaw and lips open, creating more resonating space and letting more high overtones [...]

Filed in hardware, music, science | Also tagged book, electronica, envelope filter, funk, guitar, harmonics, jimi hendrix, keybs, metal, overtones, physics, physiology, pop, resonance, rock, seventies, sixties, speech, wah pedal | Comments (0)

The natural history of the Funky Drummer break

Monday, May 25, 2009

So far as I know, the most-sampled recording in history is “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” by James Brown and the JBs. It’s a great funk tune, but it’s not as catchy as James Brown’s big hits like “Sex Machine” or “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.” In fact, “The Funky Drummer” doesn’t [...]

Filed in music | Also tagged algorithms, audio editing, black thought, book, computer evolution, copyright, eminem, freestyle, funk, funky drummer, godel, hip-hop, james brown, looping, memes, mos def, music, programming, recursion, remixes, rnb, sampling, susan blackmore | Comments (1)

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Tag Archives: soul

The Choice Is Yours

Blue notes and other microtones

Impeach The President

Authenticity

Michael Jackson fan art

Clap your hands, stomp your feet

Wow chicka wah-wah

The natural history of the Funky Drummer break

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