I hear music as labor now— which struck me when I was standing in line at Whole Foods the air conditioning wasn’t working and staff were complaining while stocking shelves it’s hot up here and I noticed the blues playing on the sound system the guitar solo that couldn’t end the drums slap-shuffling the baseline dutifully… Continue reading

You drive a hard bargain using algorithms to try to know what we like and who is like us sound is just a trace of other measures other metrics music a signifier of crowd thinking a playlist for every mood but you keep getting it wrong it being me me being my taste predictable yet… Continue reading

Pop is simple form predictably returning the young showing off their catchy hooks classical is complex form elite and large-scale snobby about its origins  country is conservative thought regular guy sound ideology disguised as sentimentality  metal is a blade sharpened through distortion and volume angry about its isolation  dance is four-on-the-floor lost in relentless moments… Continue reading

It’s 5:28pm and I’ve done everything but work on the music which waits for guidance waits for me to fix it align its relations let its logic sing. Continue reading

It happens to be raining the busking band playing the epic ballad four purple chords B flat sus 2 Gm7 F E flat a progression repeated the sax singing the melody blowing variations and now I hear how a song is sad when the chords keep falling. Continue reading

Listen so quietly that music’s voice whispers listen so intensely that music’s style dissolves listen so quickly that music’s motives unravel listen so openmindedly that music’s aims multiply listen so nonchalantly that music’s sounds wander listen so hopefully that music’s solution sings. Continue reading

How do your ideas come to be— from a single source that branches into many outputs or from many inputs that funnel into a single output? How do your thoughts move— from 12 to 1 or 1 to 12 from multitudes or a solo? Is your knowing like a tangle of wires or one plug… Continue reading

It’s the space between the marimba bar and its resonator where sound leaps from vibrating wood to metal column one oscillating to another horizontal plane to vertical from here to there the space is just as we do when we listen a leap from being struck by music to being moved by it becoming sound’s wave. Continue reading