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On Tempo
Tempo—or bpm: beats per minute–is music’s invisible engine. As listeners and makers we focus on the music’s rhythms, and if it has one, its beat. We hear the syncopations and steady-pulse timelines. We hear the time (typically) divided up among low and high pitched instruments like kick drums, snares, and hi hats. And specific rhythms—four-on-the-floor… Continue reading
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Six Notes On Music Production Workflows
Produce accidents and cultivate disorders. As much as you might want to be in control of the creative process, your most powerful skill is finding ways to produce accidents of timbre, rhythm, melodic/harmonic juxtaposition and relationship, and arrangement. For example, musical accidents might transpire when two rhythms are misaligned, when a melody’s counterpoint is inverted,… Continue reading
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Lessons From The Creative Electronic Music Producer
Two years ago I pitched a book idea to the editors of Routledge’s Perspectives In Music Production Series. At the time, I had written an article for their volume, Producing Music (Routledge, 2019), and since then had amassed dozens of production-related essays on this blog. My pitch was that these essays could anchor an inquiry… Continue reading
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