music production
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Music Production Notes: Creating Separation Between Different Stages Of Composing
I work on projects in distinct stages for various reasons, not least of which is simplifying my workflow so I have some idea of what I need to do each day. (Oh I’m editing today? Okay great.) This has an inherent benefit: it creates separation between different ways of working. For my current project, I Continue reading
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Production Workflows: From Experimentation To Performance
Working at the computer, I was trying my best to keep my experimenting and performing separate. I was going through sounds, exploring the endlessly morphing dimensions of the music software, listening and evaluating, reacting and thinking it through. But my impulse is always to get on with something—to build a prototype rather than mull things Continue reading
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Notes On Making Beats
“Rhythm is the most perceptible and the least material thing.” – Leopold Sedar Senghor (quoted in John Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility). I find making electronic beats difficult, which is strange because I have the dexterity to play them on a controller, and at least in theory, I know what makes a good one. Continue reading
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Timbrebuilding
“The power of art objects stems from the technical processes they objectively embody: the technology of enchantment is founded on the enchantment of technology. The enchantment of technology is the power that technical processes have of casting a spell over us so that we see the real world in an enchanted form.” -Alfred Gell, “The Continue reading
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Make It Exquisite
exquisite—beautiful, lovely, elegant, fine, magnificent, superb, well-crafted Make it exquisite. This phrase pops up from time to time as an end-goal for whatever I’m working on, a reminder that the made thing should be as well-crafted as I can make it and have some kind of attractiveness (at least for me, and hopefully for you). Continue reading
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Music Production Mindsets: Letting Something Help You Decide
When I first began dabbling in electronic music production around 2000 or so, I had a big Yamaha synthesizer hooked up to my computer. The keyboard had its own built-in sound presets, and I managed to configure its various MIDI channels to the DAW software (Logic) so I could select a different sound for each Continue reading
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Music Production Mindsets: Building Upon The Faintest Traces
Beginning a new piece of music is the most exciting moment, as long you don’t get ahead of yourself, get bogged down in as yet unnecessary details, and instead stay focused on the task at hand. But what is this task, exactly? For me, it’s being on the lookout for something enchanting. The other day Continue reading
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Music Production Mindsets: Using Ableton’s Capture
When I’m browsing and trying out synthesized sounds, wishing that I were doing something else (this happens about 30 seconds into the process—it is what it is), I inevitably end up playing a few chords or a scrap of melody to hear how they sound. I don’t consider this real music because I’m just throwing Continue reading
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On Automated Aesthetics For Opened-Up Impact: Jon Hopkins’ Music
“I like everything to evolve, I don’t like sounds to be static really… I like the idea of trying to create this musical world where everything is fluid and any sound can at any point just change.” -Jon Hopkins One of the most compelling qualities of Jon Hopkins’ music is how its elements shift, develop, Continue reading
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Notes On Notated Versus Produced Music
A percussionist recently got in touch to ask if he could buy a copy of one of my percussion scores, Zoom (1994) for some chamber performances this summer. (You can listen to me playing the music here, and my remix of it here.) I told him I’d check if I had a hard copy in Continue reading
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