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Same Walk, Different Music
Steve Reich, “Double Sextet: II. Slow”The composer Steve Reich is a formalist whose austere works show an artist confident that feeling in music comes from structure in music. From his earliest piece scored for tape loops, “Come Out”, to his percussion opus “Drumming”, to his many chamber pieces for mixed ensembles, Reich designs music that… Continue reading
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Database: Beatrice On Arrangment As Story
“I kind of see [arrangement] as a bit of a story with repeating phrases. And every time you tell the phrase again you’re telling it in a slightly different way so it feels like you’re getting to know the story deeper and deeper and deeper. I like to do that by repeating sections but when… Continue reading
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Keywords: Scaling
(Photo: Marcello Gennari) Scaling entails all the ways to build upon, extend, and multiply a musical idea to achieve its appropriate form. Scaling is a response to the question: How can I transform this music into a dimensional space over time? Scaling techniques are many, including: repetition, multiplication of parts, call and response, counterpoint, and… Continue reading
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Database: Chlär On Using AI To Stimulate Ideas At A Rudimental Level
“I started implementing AI in my sequencing aspect of the sound because I found it fascinating that with techno we have both very primitive-sounding results where it’s really drum-driven, loopy, and tends to trigger a primitive aspect of our human condition. But at the same time it’s exploring technology to a very extreme extent. The… Continue reading
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Keywords: Programming
(Photo: Frederick Stubbs) Programming music is like making marionettes dance by pulling on their strings. Unlike acoustic musicians who pull their own strings, the electronic music producer is one level removed from the action, conducting puppet parts from afar. Programming entails many processes, including playing or drawing MIDI, finagling audio samples, plotting effects trajectories over… Continue reading
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Brett’s Sound Picks: Russell Hartenberger’s “Arlington” (2024)
Russell Hartenberger, who was my music teacher, is a giant of contemporary percussion. For over fifty years he’s performed with the Nexus ensemble and composer Steve Reich, authored definitive books about percussion practice and rhythm, and taught generations of musicians. He’s also a composer of subtle chamber music that synthesizes the shared through lines of… Continue reading
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