This video recently made the rounds on Facebook: I was thinking about “Clair de Lune” and how strange and complicated the rhythm is. I was humming it to myself and couldn’t figure out where the downbeats were. I have previously used Ableton Live to help me learn a classical piece aurally, so I figured I …
Continue reading “Learning Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” with Ableton Live”
See also: the saddest chord progression ever. And also check out this deep dive into the groove of “I Want You Back.” We customarily think of descending melodies and chord progressions as being sad–they call it the “lament bass” for a reason. You may be surprised to learn, then, that the happiest song of all …
My favorite Bob Dylan song is “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding.)” It’s not the one I listen to the most, and it’s not the one I’ve given the most effort to singing or playing. But it’s the one that sounds the most “Bob Dylan-y,” the one that combines all of his many influences into the …
One of my favorite guest verses in all of hip-hop is the one that Chance The Rapper does on Kanye West’s beautiful “Ultralight Beam.” The song is built around an eight bar loop. (See this post for an analysis of the chord progression.) Chance’s verse goes through the loop five times, for a total of …
Continue reading “Chance the Rapper’s verse on “Ultralight Beam””
QWERTYBeats is a proposed accessible, beginner-friendly rhythm performance tool with a basic built-in sampler. By simply holding down different combinations of keys on a standard computer keyboard, users can play complex syncopations and polyrhythms. If the app is synced to the tempo of a DAW or other music playback system, the user can easily perform good-sounding …
Writing assignment for Design For The Real World with Claire Kearney-Volpe and Diana Castro – research about a new rhythm interface for blind and low-vision novice musicians Definition I propose a new web-based accessible rhythm instrument called QWERTYBeats. Traditional instruments are highly accessible to blind and low-vision musicians. Electronic music production tools are not. I look at the history …
In a previous post, I used the Groove Pizza to visualize some classic hip-hop beats. But the kids are all about trap beats right now, which work differently from the funk-based boom-bap of my era.
This summer, I’m teaching Cultural Significance of Rap and Rock at Montclair State University. It’s my first time teaching it, and it’s also the first time anyone has taught it completely online. The course is cross-listed under music and African-American studies. Here’s a draft of my syllabus, omitting details of the grading and such. I welcome your questions, comments …
Continue reading “Prepping my rap and rock class at Montclair State”
The Groove Pizza is a playful tool for creating grooves using math concepts like shapes, angles, and patterns. Here’s a beat I made just now. Try it yourself! This post explains how and why we designed Groove Pizza.
I’m working with Soundfly on the next installment of Theory For Producers, our ultra-futuristic online music theory course. The first unit covered the black keys of the piano and the pentatonic scales. The next one will talk about the white keys and the diatonic modes. We were gathering examples, and we needed to find a well-known pop song that …
