Can the computer be an improvisation partner? Can it generate musical ideas of its own in real time that aren’t the product of random number generators or nonsensical Markov chains? In Joel Chadabe‘s “Settings For Spirituals,” he uses pitch-tracking to perform various effects on a recording of a singer: pitch shifting, chorus, reverb. The result …
Category Archives: Music
The definition of music
There is no single universally agreed-upon definition of music. We know it when we hear it, but what you might hear as music, I might hear as noise. Who’s right? We both are. The entire high modernist movement of the twentieth century was devoted to finding out just far you can push the limits of …
Rockism
As a kid, I liked everything: rock, hip-hop, classical, jazz, pop, dance, country, whatever. In my teenage years, however, I succumbed to the pressures of a racist society and turned into a devout rockist. I dutifully renounced pop, disco, techno, even hip-hop, anything that was “inauthentic.” I swallowed the rockist dogma that grants legitimacy to …
Friends don’t let friends clap on one and three
Here’s my final project for NYU’s Psychology of Music class, enjoy. Feel free to download this presentation or the full paper. Friends Don’t Let Friends Clap on One and Three: a Backbeat Clapping Study
The radial drum machine: background and inspiration
Update: I now have a functioning prototype of my app. If you’d like to try it, get in touch. My NYU masters thesis is a drum programming tutorial system for beginner musicians. It uses a novel circular interface for displaying the drum patterns. This presentation explains the project’s goals, motivations and scholarly background. If you …
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The backbeat: a literature review
Part of a study for Psychology of Music at NYU The backbeat is a ubiquitous, almost defining feature of American popular and vernacular music. Clapping or snapping on the backbeats is generally considered by musicians to be more correct than doing so on the strong beats. However, audiences have a tendency to clap or snap on …
My thesis proposal
For those of you curious about what I’m up to in grad school, this is the big thing. Pardon the stilted language, but, you know, academia. See the slideshow! Update: I now have a functioning prototype of my app. If you’d like to try it, get in touch. Title The Drum Loop: a Self-Guided Tutorial …
Is it boring to play repetitive music?
Quora user Andrew Stein asks: Musicians: How do you deal with playing songs that have very monotonous parts? I’m going to use James Brown’s Sex Machine as an example. Don’t get me wrong, I love the song. However, the rhythm guitar seems to be nothing but 2 chords played over and over and over with …
User Interface Design for Music Learning Software
Computers have revolutionized the composition, production and recording of music. However, they have not yet revolutionized music education. While a great deal of educational software exists, it mostly follows traditional teaching paradigms, offering ear training, flash cards and the like. Meanwhile, nearly all popular music is produced in part or in whole with software, yet …
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Remixing “Here Comes The Sun” in 5.1 Surround
For my final project in Advanced Audio Production at NYU, I created a 5.1 surround remix of the Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.” You can download it here. If you don’t have surround playback, you can listen to the stereo version: I was motivated to create a surround remix of a Beatles song by hearing …
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