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A Forest Xylophone Plays Bach
This is a charming video, but it also illustrates some deeper ideas: • Composition. It shows how a piece of music can be rendered on an unusual instrument and remain recognizable. • Instrument. It shows how a musical instrument can be fashioned out of descending wooden steps and a falling ball. • Agency. It shows… Continue reading
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Searches That Brought You Here
• What is the frequency spectrum of a hip hop kick. This search brought you to my 2012 post on bass frequency-heavy Beats By Dre headphones. What I wrote still seems to apply to why people wear them: “How to explain the popularity of the Beats? One explanation is that our bass-heavy musics–hip hop and… Continue reading
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Digs Disguised As Compliments: An Overheard Musician Joke
(The show is over and the musicians are packing up. One turns to another to “compliment” him.) “That was really something else!” Continue reading
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Freestyle: Sampling A Thought
Put an idea into the Grid sampler to hear what happens: Happens….Happens…Happens…Happens… It’s a two-part sound, a high tone followed by a lower one: ha—ppens. The ha sustains a pitch, while the ppens falls off after the plosive with a slight downward pitch bend. Isolate the ha and assign it to a pad. Drum it:… Continue reading
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Details At The End
Starting a piece of music is easy enough: you count it off (one, two, three, four!), or the conductor gives the cue, or you simply dive head first into the sound waters. It’s exciting because here you are—again (!)—and also, you’re not entirely sure how it’s going to go, which is what makes performing always… Continue reading
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Quietudes
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, and CD Baby. Continue reading
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On Making Beautiful Things
‘We make beautiful things’ he thinks, thinking about it means to be a musical maker. ‘The point is not to think but to arrest thinking’ as he fiddles with a sound on a string. ‘Beauty is ever-open to reconfiguration’ the idea accompanying a plucked note. ‘Beauty thrives on analogies’ while listening to the pattern, connecting… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Agnes Martin On Living By Perception
Agnes Martin, Friendship (1963) “You see, if you live by perception, as all artists must, then you sometimes have to wait for a long time for your mind to tell you the next step to take.” (“‘What We Make, Is What We Feel’: Agnes Martin on Her Meditative Practice, in 1976” available at artnews) Continue reading
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Brett’s Sound Picks: Paulstretching A-Ha’s “Take On Me”
(Paulstretch is software that slows down music to a fraction of its original speed, turning a pop song into a glacial soundscape.) Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Ray Dalio On Radical Transparency
“Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the efficiency of those feedback loops, because it makes what… Continue reading
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