I’ve now had a couple of opportunities to play around with an iPad, and to surreptitiously watch other people use it. I have strong and mixed feelings. The touchscreen interface is pretty wonderful and I have no doubt that it’s going to send the mouse the way of the floppy disk. But the walled garden …
Category Archives: Technology
What does live music mean in the laptop era?
This weekend my electronica band Revival Revival is doing some shows for the first time in many months. We’ll be doing a lot of what my non-electronic-musician friends consider to be cheating. The lead vocals and guitar will be live, as will some of the synths. Everything else will be canned, recordings played back from …
Continue reading “What does live music mean in the laptop era?”
The Grateful Dead and electronica
In keeping with my posts thinking of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix as electronic musicians, I thought I’d round out the techno-hippie trifecta with the Dead. Their fans might lean to the crunchy granola side, and they did some of their most endearing work in unplugged mode, but for the most part the Dead were …
Scales and emotions
See also a post about making chords from scales, and all of these scales in one giant flowchart. So maybe you want to write a song or an instrumental in a particular mood or style, and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the scales. Here’s a handy guide to the commonly used scales in Western pop, …
Inside the recording process
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 …
The case for sampling
My friend Adam, a non-musician but devoted music fan, asked me why sampling is good. He’s used to hearing me defend sampling from the accusation that it’s bad, but he’d never heard a positive argument for it. In case you’ve ever asked the same question, here’s my answer.
Imogen Heap and artificial harmony
Here’s a live rendition of Imogen Heap’s song “Hide And Seek.”
Copyright Criminals
This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:
How to get web traffic from Google
If you want to get your web page noticed but don’t want to spend a lot of money on advertising, your best bet is search engine optimization, or SEO. As of this writing, that mostly means understanding how Google ranks search hits, and adapting your web presence accordingly. Historically, search engine results were ranked based …
Resequencing the Funky Drummer’s DNA
The most sampled recording in history is (probably) the Funky Drummer loop from James Brown’s song “The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two.” Here I go deeper into how this sample can be reworked into new music. DJs call this practice chopping a sample. It’s much easier to chop samples with computers than with hardware …