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Resonant Thoughts: “Tympanum of the Other Frog” In John Corbett’s “Microgroove”
In the preface to his excellent book Microgrooves (2015), critic and musician John Corbett recounts listening to the sounds of frogs by a pond with his father when he was eight years old. Corbett’s dad told him to focus on the sound of one particular frog among the full chorus. “Now, he said, keeping that… Continue reading
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Working Knowledge: The Quieting Process
The perceptual key to effective writing—words or music, it doesn’t matter—is getting into a space of concentration. I call this the Quieting process: a narrowing of attention where the present is felt as a fully enveloping perpetual now. Yesterday’s work is gone—you can barely recall it!—and tomorrow remains a question mark. You’re left with only… Continue reading
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On Visual Resonances
Golf Course, Zen Garden Cymbal, Water Wavelets Artwork (Piet Mondrian, “Composition with Grid IX”), Ableton Push Controller Continue reading
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Curating The Week: Ways of Hearing Podcast, Magic And Perception, Playing Chopin
• A six-part podcast, Ways of Hearing. “Digital time is not lived time–it’s machine time.” • An article on how magic exploits the quirks of perception. “My team’s work reveals that the art of magic also relies on an analogous, but opposite grand illusion, in which we are blind to the prodigious clairvoyance of our… Continue reading
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Two Keys
The thing to do says the artist, is to begin anywhere— so get going and make something up. That’s how it starts. But there are two keys to ongoingness. The first key is withholding judgment about your beginning, going and making. The second key is moving it forward by asking “Why not this?” over and… Continue reading
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Willy-Nilly Listening
Though it may not be the most accurate way to describe what I mean, willy-nilly listening captures the random element of how I often encounter music as it accompanies other things. It’s overheard in that loud car that zooms past, it’s background for those TV shows, it’s keeping strangers on the subway at bay by filling headphones, it’s… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Robert Barry’s “The Music Of The Future”
“There is a specific temporality to social media. It is a time of perpetual manufactured crisis, in which we are constantly being prodded, reminded, and cajoled into updating, clicking our approval or disapproval, or merely checking in and registering our presence.” “But if social media constructs its own time, what kind of music would be… Continue reading
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