One of the best discoveries I made while researching the Groove Pizza is the mathematician Godfried Toussaint. While the bookshelves groan with mathematical analyses of Western harmony, Toussaint is the rare scholar who uses the same tools to understand Afro-Cuban rhythms. He’s especially interested in the rhythm known to Latin musicians as 3-2 son clave, …
Category Archives: Music
The Groove Pizza
Update: this post is out of date. See the current Groove Pizza here. Walking to the subway this morning, I had a bright idea for how to make the Drum Loop more kid-friendly by representing the radial grid as a pizza. Here’s a very quick concept sketch: To really make this work, I wouldn’t just …
Reflections on the MOOC
This week marks the conclusion of the first iteration of Play With Your Music, the music production MOOC I’ve been contributing to this past semester. Creating and running the MOOC has been a learning experience for everybody involved. It certainly has been for me. I do most of my music teaching one on one, and …
Thesis presentation
Here’s the presentation I’ll be giving of my masters thesis next week, enjoy.
Can science make a better music theory?
My last post discussed how we should be deriving music theory from empirical observation of what people like using ethnomusicology. Another good strategy would be to derive music theory from observation of what’s going on between our ears. Daniel Shawcross Wilkerson has attempted just that in his essay, Harmony Explained: Progress Towards A Scientific Theory …
Toward a better music theory
Update: a version of this post appeared on Slate.com. I seem to have touched a nerve with my rant about the conventional teaching of music theory and how poorly it serves practicing musicians. I thought it would be a good idea to follow that up with some ideas for how to make music theory more …
My collection of transcribed rhythm patterns
For my thesis, I’ve been gathering good drum machine patterns: classic breakbeats, genre templates and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Here they are, enjoy.
Analyzing the musical structure of “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel
We’re asking participants in Play With Your Music to create musical structure graphs of their favorite songs. These are diagrams showing the different sections of the song and where its component sounds enter and exit. In order to create these graphs, you have to listen to the song deeply and analytically, probably many times. It’s …
Continue reading “Analyzing the musical structure of “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel”
Teaching audio and MIDI editing in the MOOC
This is the fifth in a series of posts documenting the development of Play With Your Music, a music production MOOC jointly presented by P2PU, NYU and MIT. See also the first, second, third and fourth posts. Soundation uses the same basic interface paradigm as other audio recording and editing programs like Pro Tools and …
Continue reading “Teaching audio and MIDI editing in the MOOC”
Teaching expressive use of audio effects in the MOOC
This is the fourth in a series of posts documenting the development of Play With Your Music, a music production MOOC jointly presented by P2PU, NYU and MIT. See also the first, second and third posts. After PWYM participants have tried mixing using just levels and panning, the next step is to include audio effects …
Continue reading “Teaching expressive use of audio effects in the MOOC”