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Frames Of Attention: Deciding On Musical Materials
One of the primary tasks involved in building a piece of music or a piece of writing is figuring out as early as possible in the process what materials you’re working with. Our process won’t reveal itself until we’re further along it, so there’s so sense worrying about that until we get there. But our… Continue reading
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Notes On Weezer’s Cover Of A-Ha’s “Take On Me”
“Weezer isn’t stuck in roles, so we just do what we want to do, what makes us excited.” -Rivers Cuomo, Weezer I’m listening to Weezer’s cover of “Take On Me”, a synthpop hit from 1984 by the Norwegian band A-Ha. I like both versions of the song: the original was exceptional—a song almost sublime in… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Paul Bertolli’s “Cooking By Hand” (2003)
“ “Most of all, I’ve learned that the art of cooking consists largely of ‘watching’ with all the senses.” “To keep a pear in mind as it ripens is to practice cooking in its simplest form. It is through such observance of any food from the point of purchase throughout its preparation and later in… Continue reading
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Music Production Notes: Creating Separation Between Different Stages Of Composing
I work on projects in distinct stages for various reasons, not least of which is simplifying my workflow so I have some idea of what I need to do each day. (Oh I’m editing today? Okay great.) This has an inherent benefit: it creates separation between different ways of working. For my current project, I… Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: 100 Music Production Movements
Move from a blur to clarity. Move from sharp attack to slow. Move from everything sounding at once to a single sound. Move from bass-heavy to treble-light. Move from sparseness to density. Move from thick to transparent. Move from on-beat to off-beat. Move from left-panned to right-panned. Move from macro to granular. Move from… Continue reading
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Improvising To Find Something Interesting
One of the quandaries I find myself in when I sit down to play keyboard is how to come up with something interesting—and by interesting I mean something that I haven’t quite heard before. I begin by just playing. My hands go towards the minor keys, but I’m not thinking about keys if I can… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Annie Duke’s “Thinking In Bets” (2018)
“What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge.” Annie Duke, Thinking In Bets, p. 27. Continue reading
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Synthesis Thinking
The most striking difference between composing for acoustic instruments and virtual synthetic tones has to do with expectation. When I sit down to play piano, I have an excellent idea how it will sound ahead of time and how the instrument—whether it’s a real piano or a virtual one—will respond to my touch. The layout… Continue reading
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