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Keywords: Musical Idea Curating
If you compose music with a computer, eventually you’ll face the accumulation of what you’ve been doing over the years. Digital files, while invisible, add up, with only their names and dates as clues to how they might sound; you can’t be sure until you double-click, load, and play. Musical idea curating is periodically listening… Continue reading
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Database: r beny On Uncanny Valley Acoustic-Like Sounds
“Currently, one of my favorite synthesizers is the Korg Z1. 80% of the sound sources on this album are the Z1, whether heavily processed or not.” “I love the uncanny valley acoustic sounds that physical modeling synths produce and the [Korg] Z1 is just an absolute gem in that regard. For myself, physical modeling is… Continue reading
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Keywords: Musical Spells, Musical Clichés
Along the spectrum of possible musics the musician-composer-producer can make, two types are most important: that which casts a spell, and that which sounds cliché. Music that casts a spell has power: it creates a state of enchantment through its sounds and what they do. Enchanting music enchants by many means: through orchestration and timbre-textures,… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Benjamin Swett’s “The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography” (2024)
“I keep coming back to Cartier-Bresson and his paradoxical ethos of a technical prowess that cares not for technique. ‘People think far too much about technique,’ he says in one of his famous aphorisms, “and not enough about seeing.’” “Consider what happens when you take a picture—I mean, what is going on inside you, the… Continue reading
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Keywords: No Expectations
No expectations is an approach to workflow as open-ended and non-determined. The mindset celebrates continual play on your musical system’s edges: exploring tools, trying things out, noticing how the sounds feel and work on you rather than having preset, a priori ideas of how you should use them. Play a few chords, turn a few… Continue reading
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Database: Jack Stratton On Hyped-Up Versus Doing Their Little Thing Sounds
“For a while there—and I have to credit a friend with this phrase—we lived under the Rule of the Solo Button, where every instrument sounded lush and big. So you got these really hyped-up sounds—and it’s cool when everything’s hyped up. It’s kind of like the Chipotle burrito, where every element you could just eat… Continue reading
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