This Vox explainer video about John Coltrane’s most iconic tune is making the rounds right now. It’s well made and engaging. You should watch it! “Giant Steps” is a beautiful tune, one that rewards as much scrutiny as you care to give it. But it also had some negative effects on jazz as an art …
Author Archives: Ethan
Learn diatonic harmony from a classic breakbeat
“Blind Alley” by The Emotions is a funk/soul tune best known as a crucial source of breakbeats for golden age rap songs. Beyond its sampling value, “Blind Alley” is also a fabulously useful tool for teaching how you make chords in the key of F major.
Ableton Loop 2018
I’m recently home from Ableton’s stupendous “summit for music makers,” and I’m still mentally unpacking it all. Loop was quite a different experience from last year, when Ableton held it in their home city of Berlin. This year, they moved it to Los Angeles to make it easier for people in Latin America and the …
Making music with students’ found sounds
Every semester, I have my music technology students do a project using found sound. They record environmental sounds with their phones, and then they create tracks that incorporate those sounds somehow. The only rule is that they have to use at least one found sound–it doesn’t have to be their own. Otherwise, they can use …
White people with acoustic instruments covering rap songs
I turned this post into an academic journal article with proper citations–click to read it in Visions of Research in Music Education. Also see the Adam Neely video! White people appropriating black music is America’s main contribution to world culture. Black music itself is a big deal, too, but it is dwarfed by the commercial …
Continue reading “White people with acoustic instruments covering rap songs”
Young Thug meets Elton John
My favorite rap song of the moment is Young Thug’s “High,” which prominently samples Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” https://soundcloud.com/inabundnce/young-thug-rocket-man-remix
Blogging about blogging
I started posting writing online long before I had any academic ambitions. I wrote for self-promotion, self-expression, and because I wasn’t sure what else to do with myself. I did a lot of what I would now call a reflexive and reciprocal process for research into music and related topics. As it turns out, this …
Happy Earth, Wind and Fire Day
Today is September 21st, the subject of one of the most joyful recordings ever made, which comes with an all-time-great music video. The song in turn inspired my favorite work of fan art. pic.twitter.com/HR06yeUPFv — demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) September 22, 2016
Funky Minuet in G major
In my continuing quest to learn the classical canon through remixing with Ableton Live, I’ve taken on Bach’s Minuet in G major. Which is apparently not by Bach at all, but rather by some guy named Christian Petzold. Live and learn. A minuet is a dance, but in 2018, it’s hard to dance in triple meter. …
Simple songs
I’m interested in a particular kind of pop song: mainstream-ish tracks that are so minimal in their melodic or lyrical content that they barely qualify as “songs,” yet manage to still be musically compelling. My paradigmatic examples: “That’s The Way (I Like It)” by KC and the Sunshine Band “Around The World” by Daft Punk …