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On The Intersection Of Preparedness And Randomness
“Chance favors only the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur One compelling aspect of electronic music production is the intersection of what we might call preparedness and randomness. Preparedness is being intentional and involves getting to know the tools I use when making music. This includes creating, altering, and saving sounds, effects (or chains of effects),… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Sönke Ahrens’ “How To Take Smart Notes” (2017)
“The reason why Watson and Crick or [the chemist August] Kekulé had these insights and not a random person on the street is that they already had spent a very long time thinking hard about the problems, tinkered with other possible solutions and tried countless other ways of looking at the problem. Our fascination with… Continue reading
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A Tenuous Grip: Notes On Finding Sounds, Listening, The Arbitrary, And The Infinite
I’ve become faster navigating around the DAW—finding sounds, recording and adding parts, creating effects chains, and working with automation. But slower to develop is my sense of what a track needs. This sense depends on two skills. The first is discerning how the music—its structure, parts, and textures—might be made more affecting and enchanting. My… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Nicholas Cook’s “Music” (2021)
“The knowledge in terms of which universities operate is based on observation, systematized into generally applicable principles, documented and archived. It is knowledge laid down for the future, a kind of cognitive capital (hence the term ‘knowledge economy’). It is what performance students are taught under the title of ‘theory’, which suggests you become a… Continue reading
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