improvisation
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On How Composers Listen To Their Own Work
Having recently finished a project and waiting for it to be mastered, I found myself spending a few minutes each day listening to the pieces. I did this listening while doing other things like making toast or tidying up the apartment, and more often than not I listened from another room, letting the sounds move Continue reading
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Reflections On Several Musical Projects: Thinking About What Worked (For Now)
Reflecting on some recent musical projects of mine, I noticed a number of techniques and strategies I used to build them: I used my own (sampled) sounds. I’ve written here before about my frustrations with making electronic music. But using my own sounds makes the process personal and somehow more sensible. I improvised a performance Continue reading
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On The Music Making Of Jon Hopkins
“My general view is just to have absolutely no planning in place at all and just to let my instinct kind of run wild a bit.” – Jon Hopkins Lately I’ve been enjoying the music of English composer Jon Hopkins. His recording Immunity (2013), shortlisted for last year’s Mercury Prize, is a tour de force Continue reading
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From The Archives: Bill Bruford’s “Bruford And The Beat”
“Sometimes faults can be turned to good advantage. A musician is the total not only of his good things but his faults too. And when you can understand your faults and live with them and turn them to creative use, that can be of interest.” – Bill Bruford The two things that made the drummer Bill Continue reading
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On A Not-Knowing Knowledge
The jazz guitarist John McLaughlin says that when he played with Miles Davis in the late 1960s, Davis gave him some advice before a recording session for In A Silent Way (1969): “Play like you don’t know how to play guitar.” McLaughlin, of course, went on to great heights of jazz-Indian music fusion with his Continue reading
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Observations On A Musician Playing Guitar
A tune beyond us as we are, Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar; Ourselves in the tune as if in space, Yet nothing changed, except the place Of things as they are and only the place As you play them, on the blue guitar, Placed, so, beyond the compass of change, Perceived in a Continue reading
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On Grateful Sound: Thinking Through “Dark Star”
I have a secret: over the past few weeks while riding the subway with headphones on I’ve been listening to the Grateful Dead. And maybe not coincidentally, I haven’t shaved in about two weeks. So as I write this I’m wondering–Are these twin facts somehow related? Do they point to a strange metamorphosis taking place Continue reading
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Microthought: A Santoor And Tabla Duet
Tensioned melody over rhythmic cycled drum– Pandit strings motives. Continue reading
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On Music In Its Context: Noise Musicians Improvising In The Subway
The Union Square subway station in New York City is a pretty loud place. As the N, R, L, 4, 5, and 6 trains pull into the station there’s some serious, 90-plus decibel metallic screeching happening when the cars hit their breaks and come to a stop. Given this noisy soundscape, I was both surprised Continue reading
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On The Filtering Of World Music: A Nexus Percussion Performance
Formed in 1971, Nexus is a Toronto-based percussion ensemble that has been making hard to classify music using a massive array of instruments for over three decades. Their repertoire spans experimental free improvisation, West African and North Indian drumming, contemporary classical pieces (including commissioned works from the likes of Toru Takemitsu and Steve Reich), original Continue reading
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