-
Musical Ideas
The composer John Cage once said that the problem with improvising is that musicians only play what they know and therefore “don’t arrive at any revelation that they’re unaware of.” But improvising always reveals what the musician was unaware of; in fact, that’s its power. We want to hear the surprises that fleetingly illuminate, like… Continue reading
-
On Intuition and Technique
Wasily Kandinsky, Improvisation 35 (1914) Music production is a back-and-forth between two ways of organizing sound. The first way is intuitive, which means making by playing, improvising, trial and error, and following whatever sounds good. The intuitive is an example of what Daniel Kahneman called System 1 thinking, which is decision-making that’s fast and instinctive.… Continue reading
-
Database: Autechre On Music That Reveals Itself By Changing Piece By Piece As It Rotates
“I think a lot of people, when they’re constructing complex music, have this idea that for something maddeningly complex to change into something else that’s maddeningly complex you’ve got to do it suddenly. But there are millions of ways you can do it, because you can have your entire track changing piece by piece as… Continue reading
brettworks 