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Resonant Thoughts: John Ashbery’s “A Wave” (1984)
“The truth is discovered, a patch of it, dried, glazed by the sun, It will just hang on, in its own infamy, humility. No one Will be better for it, but things can’t get any worse. Just keep playing, mastering as you do the stepInto disorder this one meant. Don’t you see It’s all we… Continue reading
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Studio Observations: Listening To Improvisation
(Detail from Judith Leyster, Merry Company, c. 1629) A friend of mine, who isn’t a musician, enjoys my piano music. So occasionally I’ll email him an mp3 of something I’ve done to get feedback. Music inspires him to ask thought-provoking questions. One day he texted, Do you play music with your heart or your body? Uhh,… Continue reading
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Database: Shane Parish on Revoicing and the Game Of Subtraction
“My basic mantra when working up an arrangement, applying fingers to strings and frets, is ‘revoice, revoice, revoice.’ I will trial-and-error several versions of a phrase in search of resonance, playability, and emotional conviction.” “This approach is more of a game of subtraction, rather than construction. Instead of building up my arrangement from my own… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Daniel Poppick’s “The Copywriter” (2026)
“No art, no melody, no time that is not bound up in some dark labor” (24). “Everything has a schedule, if you can find out what it is” (28). “The time we have at our disposal every day is elastic, the passions we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it, and habit fills… Continue reading
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Aftertouch
Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman seated at a Virginal (c. 1670-72) In MIDI parlance, aftertouch refers to MIDI data that’s transmitted when a key or pad on an electronic controller is held down after the initial attack to control parameters such as volume, vibrato depth, or filter brightness. One of the first synthesizers to incorporate… Continue reading
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