I did a bunch of posts on here a while back about how I like it when Bach gets chromatic and weird, and ever since then, people have been recommending me more of his weird chromatic music. Somebody on Twitter recommended that I check out the Duet No. 1 in E minor from the third volume …
Tag Archives: rhythm
Building the Amen break
I continue to refine my new groove pedagogy method: teach a complicated rhythm by presenting a very simplified version of it, then a less simplified version, then a less simplified version, until you converge on the groove in its full nuance. Imagine a pixelated image gradually gaining resolution. My goal with this is to have …
No one can agree what time signature “Row Row Row Your Boat” is in
“Row Row Row Your Boat” is one of the simplest songs in the world. Little kids sing it. It’s obvious what time signature it’s in. Or so you would think. But people are arguing about it on Reddit, and more people are arguing about it on Twitter, and there is no consensus. Is it in …
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The first day of Contemporary Music Theories at the New School
Here are the tracks we listened to on the first day of Contemporary Music Theories at the New School. The class is a requirement for music majors, and as its name suggests, it is intended to give a broad-based understanding of music theory, not just Western tonal theory. We started things off with excerpts of …
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I Wanna Be Your Lover
In addition to drumming with the Roots, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is a brilliant DJ, and he wrote a Twitter thread about his top ten most reliable dance floor fillers. Prince figures heavily in the thread, first because he once tipped Quest $100 for having the audacity to slip Miles Davis’ “Milestones” into a DJ set. …
Warp factor
In this post, I dig into a profound and under-appreciated expressive feature of Ableton Live: warp markers, the “handles” that enable you to grab hold of audio and stretch it precisely. Warp markers have practical applications for getting your grooves sounding the way you want, but they also open up unexpected windows into the nature …
Lonely Woman
I have always had a hard time with Ornette Coleman, but I love “Lonely Woman”, because it manages to be both extremely weird and extremely catchy. Notice that at 2:09 during Ornette’s solo, someone goes “Woo!” Rightly so.
Dilla Time in “Chameleon”
After reading and re-reading Dan Charnas’ Dilla Time, now I’m listening to music with new attention to rhythmic subtleties. I have especially been digging into the relationship between J Dilla and Herbie Hancock–Dilla sampled Herbie on “Get Dis Money” and “Zen Guitar.” That digging made me go back to my favorite Herbie tune with fresh …
Get Dis Money
Since reading Dilla Time, I have been listening to J Dilla nonstop. In particular, I keep coming back to “Get Dis Money” by Slum Village. I first heard it on the Office Space soundtrack. It didn’t really grab me at first. In fairness to me, it’s a pretty weird piece of music! Let’s dig in.
Dilla Time
I recently finished reading Dan Charnas’ book Dilla Time. It’s a good one! If you are interested in how hip-hop works, you should read it. The book’s major musicological insight is elegantly summed up by this image: “Straight time” means that the rhythms are evenly spaced and metronomic, like a clock ticking. (Think of a …