Resonant Thoughts
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Resonant Thoughts: Paul Graham’s “Crazy New Ideas” (2021)
“Few understand how feeble new ideas look when they first appear. So if you want to have new ideas yourself, one of the most valuable things you can do is to learn what they look like when they’re born. Read about how new ideas happened, and try to get yourself into the heads of people… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Aurelio de la Vega’s “Regarding Electronic Music”
“The electronic medium seems to attract a long, motley caravan of young, inexperienced and often unprepared ‘beatnik type’ self-titled composers, who believe that the world began yesterday and they you only have to push buttons and prepare IBM cards to achieve magical results.” – Aurelio de la Vega, “Regarding Electronic Music” (1965) Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Allison Funk’s “On Pruning” (1999)
“Cut it way back. Do not be afraid to pinch the first, the only blossom. The berry cannot thrive in freedom. Have no mercy, gardener…” Allison Funk, “On Pruning” Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Milan Kundera On Composing, Writing, And Automatism
“Today one can compose music with a computer, but the computer always existed in composers’ heads—if they had to, composers could write sonatas without a single original idea, just by ‘cybernetically’ expanding on the rules of composition. Janáček’s purpose was to destroy this computer … My purpose is like Janáček’s: to rid the novel of… Continue reading
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Double Resonant Thoughts: Algorithms To Live By (2016) and Thinking In Bets (2018)
“Even the best strategy sometimes yields bad results—which is why computer scientists take care to distinguish between ‘process’ and ‘outcome.’ If you followed the best possible process, then you’ve done all you can, and you shouldn’t blame yourself if things didn’t go your way.” Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, Algorithms to Live By “What… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Gábor Lázár on Musical Sketches
“Usually I try to find a balance between a rhythmic pattern and filter modulations which together articulate some interesting quality. For me, sketch is a strange word because it means something like trying to manifest an idea. Of course I have some kind of idea, but many times I just look at my idea as… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Michael Crawley’s “Out Of Thin Air” (2021)
“To ‘follow someone’s feet’ is to share their rhythm and to feed off their energy, and leading or pacemaking is therefore often described by the runners in Addis as ‘bearing someone else’s burden.’ The runners are expected to learn to share their energy and to improve together.” “When runners ask, ‘Condition yet alle?‘ (‘Where is… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Sophie on The Molecular Level of Sound
“It’s about getting to the molecular level of a particular sound — realizing what that sound actually is made of, and why it behaves a certain way when processed or cooked. Then you use those molecules to build new forms, mixing and reappropriating those raw materials, and of course, it should be bloody delicious.” –… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: John Cleese’s “Creativity” (2020)
“So you just sit there and, eventually, as the mind quietens, odd ideas and notions relevant to your puzzle start popping in your mind. But they are…odd! And the reason they seem odd is that they’re not what our usual logical, critical, analytical mind is used to. They don’t arrive in the form of words,… Continue reading
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