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Between Knowing And Not Knowing: On Sonic Grey Spaces
I love those listening to music moments when I hear something between what I already know and what I don’t yet know that surprises and invigorates me. These moments can happen anywhere, but often than not I find them in polyrhythms: in inherent rhythms in polyphony or in dazzling chords and harmonic strata •º•º With… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Thomas Clifton’s “Music As Heard” (1983)
“The theoretical act involves ‘observing the self observing the music’ (37). “The logic and sense of music are different from the logic of propositions” (71-72). “Before becoming a cultural artifact, a style, or an object of study, music is a presence” (80). “But to inhabit the world of music, it is necessary to be able… Continue reading
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Busker
Think of a song as a mind-expander, a drug for losing yourself through its insistent propositions maybe that’s the thinking of the subway guitar guy who plays “Fast Car” each night choosing just the first bit that sounds like African kora looping around and around setting up what’s to come it’s so catchy but he never goes… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow’s “Portable Stereo” (2017)
“Listening to music on a smartphone is not like listening to music on a Walkman. Again, the phone’s functions undermines one another. We are perennially subject to interruptions and temptations. Dead time—waiting for the bus, waiting in line, and so on—is filled by checking Facebook instead of letting our minds wander. While the Walkman… Continue reading
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Aim
aim—[verb] point or direct at a target; from the Latin aestimare ‘assess, estimate’ When I’m playing music I’m continually aiming and re-aiming my attention as the music goes along, and my aiming happens on different levels of perception. Since I play mallet percussion, there’s a spatial aiming of my mallet-holding hands along the marimba keys,… Continue reading
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Listening To Studio Monitors
I’m at an electronics store, in the studio monitors listening room. It’s dark and the temperature feels about 50 degrees. I wish I brought hat and gloves—it’s frigid in here. The salesman turns on the song “Deacon Blues” from Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja, which is probably the most listened to album by people demoing… Continue reading
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Theory As Poetry: Rosalind Krauss’s “Grids” (1979)
The grid is an introjection of the boundaries of the world into the interior of the work; it is a mapping of the space inside the frame onto itself. It is a mode of repetition, the content of which is the conventional nature of art itself. As we have a more and more extended experience… Continue reading
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On Ray Hudson’s Verbal Poetics
“Not by accident, nothing capricious about it, nothing fortunate –it was insightful, questioning football.” – Ray Hudson If you are a soccer fan and you watch it on TV, as I do, you may have encountered the splendiferous voice of Scottish announcer Ray Hudson. Hudson played as a professional with Newcastle United from 1974-77 and… Continue reading
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Freestyle: Music Aphorisms 3
Your resistance to a music is a measure of the music’s capacity to destabilize notions you didn’t know you hold dear. The singer of the pop song assumes that if she repeats the chorus enough someone will believe her. Classical music’s contemporary uses illustrate how the music has always been, among other things, an aspirational… Continue reading
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On Spotify’s Vastness Versus Listening’s Smallness
The other day I was browsing through Spotify’s seemingly endless genre categories (a subject for a future blog post), marveling at how the company’s algorithms manage to carve music into so many micro-genres. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not just about rock, hip hop, EDM, and classical anymore: through Spotify’s eyes, there’s a musical… Continue reading
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