self-help
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Better
How to get better? is a question I think about when I’m playing music and something doesn’t go as I had planned or assumed it would. An errant note, a momentary lapse of concentration, a dropped stick, a shaker that goes flying out of my hand (yes, it happened once), noticing my timekeeping dragging, or Continue reading
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Working Knowledge: How It’s Sounding
If something sounds good today, return to it tomorrow. Chances are that it will probably still sound good: musical quality maintains its value over time. Conversely, if the music doesn’t sound good today, it won’t improve over time. Chances are that it will probably still sound bad tomorrow: musical problems persist over time. Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: 100 Ideas For Action In (Electronic) Music
1. Compose for that sensation whereby you forget that it’s the sounds you’re listening to that are creating this experience of forgetting in the first place. 2. Be guided by the effects of the musical thing, not the thing itself. 3. Starting with something harmonically simple, tweak it to make it harmonically complex. 4. What Continue reading
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On Diagrammatic Thinking
Here are some concepts that have helped me in my work: 1. Keep going straight until you have to turn. 2. Find the points of overlap among your projects. 3. Notice the resonances outwards from your initial idea. 4. Make things in series. Continue reading
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A Creative Heuristic That Has Helped Me In Music And Writing
Perform (improvise material to render a moment) + Multiply (expand material) + Edit and Refine (subtract material) = A Result That Surprises, Feeling Like More Than The Sum Of Its Parts Continue reading
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On Music For Thought: Dub (Re)Mixing As A Metaphor For Mindfulness
After reading Paul Sullivan’s excellent Remixology (Reaktion Books, 2014), a history of dub music and dub aesthetics from Jamaica to their infection of electronic musics in cities and scenes around the world, it struck me that remixing is an interesting metaphor for cultivating mindfulness. Dub pioneers such as Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby, The Scientist, and Continue reading
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On The Nature Of Blogs V: Reflections On Stability And Instability
A friend recently pointed out the use of the word “destabilize” in one of my Ventrilo-Dialogues. Here’s the video: He liked the idea of “destabilizing the notion of authorship” enough that he mentioned it to me several times. That got me thinking. And since it was me who wrote those words in the first place Continue reading
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Borrowed Thoughts: Notes On Four Words
curiosity ~ desire to know intuition ~ the faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without rational thought and inference kind ~ of a sympathetic or helpful nature wonder ~ rapt attention at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience Continue reading
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General Notes On Practice
Practice is the pudding’s proof. Practice tests the theory. Practice is physical, experiential, and embodied knowledge. Practice can’t lie. Practice is the best you can do at this moment. Practice reveals how much you know (and didn’t even know you knew). Practice is a level playing field. Practice is tradition’s transportation. Practice problematizes tradition, highlighting Continue reading
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