What’s up with Ethan

Here’s a quick update on what is going on in my life. First, most importantly: Milo is walking but not yet talking; he’s waving, but not yet high-fiving; he’s eating with a spoon, but only getting the food into his mouth two thirds of the time. He’s totally delightful. Since I graduated from the NYU …

Announcing the Peter Gabriel edition of Play With Your Music

You may have noticed a lot of writing about Peter Gabriel on the blog lately. This is because I’ve been hard at work with Alex Ruthmann, the NYU MusEDLab, and the crack team at Peer To Peer University on a brand new online class that uses some of Peter’s eighties classics to teach audio production. …

Why is son clave so awesome?

One of the best discoveries I made while researching the Groove Pizza is the mathematician Godfried Toussaint. While the bookshelves groan with mathematical analyses of Western harmony, Toussaint is the rare scholar who uses the same tools to understand Afro-Cuban rhythms. He’s especially interested in the rhythm known to Latin musicians as 3-2 son clave, …

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, …