ecstasy of influence
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Influence And Style Traces: Moondog’s “Pacific Ocean (Rain Forest) (no date) and Steve Reich’s “Nagoya Marimbas” (1994)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich Continue reading
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On Twitter And Thinking
You may well know this already, but I’ll say it anyway: Whether you broadcast or receive, Twitter can be a compelling tool for thinking. Reflecting on its virtues, a few points come to mind: Twitter is brief. One hundred and forty characters is just enough of a text allotment to say one thing and then Continue reading
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On The Trickle-Down Of Electronic Dance Music Aesthetics V: Coldplay’s “A Sky Full Of Stars”
Though it has been fashionable to criticize the English band Coldplay for one reason or another–they’ve been too popular, their music is too sentimental, their singer Chris Martin overuses his falsetto voice–they do what they do well. Their music uses pop materials precisely, and for many listeners, Martin’s concise and catchy vocal melodies are worth Continue reading
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On The Drumming Of Tony Allen
In his memoir Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat (co-authored with Michael Veal, Duke University Press, 2013), the eminent Nigerian drummer recalls the influence of American jazz innovators on his own musicianship. It was in the playing of the African Americans such as Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, and Max Roach that Continue reading
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On The Ecstasy Of Musical Influence: Hearing Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase” In Tim Hecker’s “Live Room”
One mark of a composer’s influence is how often their sound reappears in the work of other artists. By this metric, the American composer Steve Reich has been highly influential. His pulsating, percussive soundworld is pervasive in the music of both his imitators and heirs alike. The Canadian electronic musician Tim Hecker makes creative use Continue reading
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On Influence And Voice
This is a post about influence and voice. It’s about how each of us is influenced by one another–by other writers, musicians, teachers. By voice I don’t mean our actual speaking voices (though those can have their influence too). I mean that something in the character and essence and presence of each of us that Continue reading
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On The Influence Of One’s Musical Teachers
In his New Yorker piece “Every Good Boy Does Fine”, pianist Jeremy Denk reflects on taking piano lessons from the time he first took up the instrument at the age five through his college years. Denk’s teachers helped him learn to better practice, interpret and think musically. “Learning to play the piano” says Denk, “is Continue reading
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On Pantha Du Prince And Bell Laboratory’s Elements Of Light
“I think techno music at the moment is just an infrastructure. Basically, it’s not a musical term anymore. It used to be more like straight, technical funk. Nowadays, it is more of an infrastructure where you have certain beat patterns that you can call techno music. But in the end, it’s a social and economic infrastructure. The name Continue reading
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On Finding Cross-Sensory Inspiration: The Spell Of Michel Bras
The Michelin-starred, self-taught French chef Michel Bras may as well be a music composer, such is his multi-sensory approach to his culinary craft. In the ambient and thoughtful documentary Inventing Cuisine: Michel Bras (2008), directed by Paul Lacoste, we see Bras at work on the kitchen–poaching fish, peeling veggies, brooding over his (fascinating) sketchbooks, and Continue reading
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