I’ve toyed around with several iPhone and iPad music apps. Many are intriguing and fun, but few have inspired me into making “real” music. In preparation for the next Disquiet Junto project, I downloaded Nodebeat and tried some improvisation. The app combines randomness and control in an intriguing way. I also like the fine microtonal …
Category Archives: Improvisation
Inside Morton Subotnick’s studio
Update: one of the photos below currently appears on Mort’s Wikipedia page. Pretty cool. The seminar I’ve been taking with Morton Subotnick is sadly drawing to a close. As part of the end of the semester, we were invited to Professor Subotnick’s home studio, a few blocks from NYU, to get a demonstration of the …
Programming languages as musical instruments
Alan Blackwell and Nick Collins. The Programming Language as a Musical Instrument. In P. Romero, J. Good, E. Acosta Chaparro & S. Bryant (Eds). Proc. PPIG 17, pp. 120-130. Any musician who wants to be competent with digital production tools has to take on qualities of a programmer. Music notation is itself a “programming language” …
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Improvisation in music games
Joshua Pablo Rosenstock. Free Play Meets Gameplay: iGotBand, a Video Game for Improvisers. Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 20, pp. 11–15, 2010. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and games like them have done a wonderful service to non-musicians. The games give a good sense of what playing an instrument in a band is like. The interface is …
Round Midnight
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. Carmen McRae was a good friend of Monk’s, and for my tastes, she sings this song better than …
How does jazz work?
Rather than attempting the impossible task of explaining how everything in jazz works, I’m going to pick a specific tune and talk you through it: “Someday My Prince Will Come” by Miles Davis, off the 1961 album by the same name. First, here’s the original version of the tune from Snow White. Once you’ve got …
What makes jazz great?
Improvisation Charlie Christian – “Waiting For Benny” [iframe_loader width=”480″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/PHnBiT1Jp_4″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
What are some ideas for making jazz more popular?
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. …
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What are the greatest basslines ever?
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both rhythmically and harmonically. The best basslines interlock with the drums and other rhythm instruments to propel the groove, without you …
How do I learn to improvise music?
Improvising music is like giving a speech off the cuff. Before you can do it, you need to know some vocabulary and grammar. In music, the vocabulary is riffs, phrases, scales, sequences and other melodic building blocks. The grammar is music theory. It’s not necessary to learn either one formally, you can figure them out …