groovology
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Keywords: Dub
Dub is the echo traces of a sound that just happened, a response following its call, extending the traces as they float on rhythm trajectories. Sound engineers in Jamaica (King Tubby, Lee Perry) were the first to hear dub’s potential, building gear to harness it, hearing the negative space opened up when you mute one Continue reading
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Timing Techniques: Listening Over People, Rhythmically Resisting, And Super Rhythm
There’s a spot in the show where I have a solo—a moment to set the time for everyone else. The conductor thinks he’s in charge, but no, he’s actually following me in my moment of laying it down, which is simultaneously my moment to test a hypotheses. The hypothesis is this: at some point in Continue reading
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Lessons From Dilla 7: Master A Single Instrument
Dilla used just a single instrument to make his tracks. Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: “Tympanum of the Other Frog” In John Corbett’s “Microgroove”
In the preface to his excellent book Microgrooves (2015), critic and musician John Corbett recounts listening to the sounds of frogs by a pond with his father when he was eight years old. Corbett’s dad told him to focus on the sound of one particular frog among the full chorus. “Now, he said, keeping that Continue reading
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Loose Stuff: Listening To J Dilla’s “Jay Dee a.k.a. King Dilla”
Listening to J Dillas’s “Jay Dee a.k.a. King Dilla”, a collection of brief instrumental tracks recorded by Dilla early in his career using an E-mu Systems SP-1200 drum sampler, you can hear that the key to his grooves’ grooving is their looseness. I have read a fair bit online from people speculating on what it was Continue reading
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On Instinctive Travels And Paths Of Rhythm
Releasing five recordings between 1990 and 1998, A Tribe Called Quest pioneered new narratives for hip hop, eschewing the idiom’s traditional postures in favor of an “alternative” sound both musically and lyrically. In fact, upon its release, the group’s debut, Peoples’ Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990) confused critics: Rolling Stone famously said Continue reading
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Notes On An R&B Concert
We arrived somewhat late into D’Angelo’s set at the Forest Hills Tennis club on a warm early evening in June, but we could hear the bass frequencies from several blocks away. Emerging from the stairwell into section six of what used to be a tennis court felt like entering a party with everyone facing a Continue reading
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