I have been enjoying Adam Neely’s videos for a few years, so it was pretty exciting when he asked me to help out with his recent examination of white supremacy and music theory. It was even more exciting when he invited me to do an interview on the problem of the white rap cover. See …
Category Archives: Video
Remixing a solo saxophone recording by Catherine Sikora
Many years ago, I played some jazz with Catherine Sikora. She was a fierce and excellent saxophonist then, and her playing has only grown in the time since. In the past few years, Catherine has been releasing a series of albums of solo and duo improvisation. That takes a lot of confidence! Her lines are …
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The Chord Dictionary
I made a big spreadsheet with all the chords in it. It’s not all the possible chords, but it’s the ones you most commonly encounter in Western classical, jazz, rock and pop. I also made some videos explaining how chords work, with handy aQWERTYon visualization. Enjoy!
I’m making a bunch of music teaching videos
Partially to prepare for remote teaching my courses, and partially to keep myself from losing my mind, I’m putting a bunch of new videos on YouTube. I’m starting with material I’ve done many times in classes and conference presentations, and then will be branching out into newer stuff as I go. I imagine that these …
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Live film scoring with No Country For Old Men
My New School class was recently observed by another faculty member. She suggested that I have the students do more music-making during class (currently they make lots of music, just outside of class.) I like this idea. So my plan is to do a live film scoring exercise using No Country For Old Men by …
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Ableton Loop 2017 panel on music tech and education
Ableton just published the video of a panel I was part of at Ableton Loop 2017 with Dennis DeSantis, Jack Schaedler and Mel Uye-Parker. We talk about music tech and education. Very cool stuff. You can also read my detailed accounts of Loop 2017 and Loop 2018.
When does a speech turn into a song?
Daniel Jacobson, a musician in Ireland, was inspired by this post to give the following speech:
Circular rhythm visualization talk at Spotify
Today I got to talk about rhythm visualization in general and the Groove Pizza in particular at the Spotify Monthly Music Hackathon. Click the image to see my talk, I start at 1:23:47. Here are my slides: Circular rhythm visualizations from Ethan Hein Want me to come to your school, company, meetup or whatever, and …
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Björk live at Kings Theater
While my son’s birth has been the most joyous event of my life, he has put a serious damper on my and Anna’s concert-going. I tell my musician friends: I’ll happily come to your gig, as long as it’s on a Sunday afternoon with walking distance of my apartment. Well, today, Björk obliged us by …
Listening, hearing, and the infinite loop
Rob Walker wrote a blog post listing different strategies for how to pay attention. (Update: he later wrote a whole book about it, I’m quoted in it.) Deep attention makes the difference between looking at something and actually seeing it. Rob is talking mostly to visual artists and designers, but his methods work well for …
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