I’m taking a sociology class called Learning Of Culture with Lisa Stulberg. It could just as easily be called Culture Of Learning, since it views school as just one cultural setting among many. Our first assignment was to read Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I agree with Toni Morrison’s cover blurb.
After reading just the first few pages, I couldn’t help but adopt Coates’ prose style. It’s infectious.
Dear Gentleman’s Quarterly,
You recently published a story, An Oral History of “We Built This City,” the Worst Song of All Time.
Continue reading “An open letter to GQ about “We Built This City””
In college, I played in a cover band called Harsh Mouse (because the band members all lived in Marsh House.) One of the high points of our repertoire was this song.
The song’s subtitle refers in part to its childlike simplicity. Still, there’s more going on here than immediately meets the ear.
Continue reading “Musical simples: This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”
Many of the Beatles’ most memorable ideas are variations on boilerplate riffs from rock, country, blues or R&B. The riff from “Day Tripper” derives from boogie-woogie. John Lennon cited Bobby Parker’s 1961 song “Watch Your Step” as the inspiration for both “Day Tripper” and “I Feel Fine.”
I’m continuing to gather materials for my upcoming ISMIR 2016 presentation on Why Hip-Hop Is Interesting. One of my big themes is the melodic content of rap. Emcees are deliberate in their use of pitch, whether they’re singing or rapping or some combination of the two. In the post, I’ll analyze segments of three great emcees’ flow. I made the graphics by loading acapella tracks into Melodyne, and then added the lyric annotations by hand using Omnigraffle. The selection of these tracks represents the intersection of “songs that I like” and “acapellas that are available to me.”
Emcee: Rakim Allah
Rakim Allah stands out among eighties rappers for the complexity and subtlety of his flow. Here’s an excerpt from verse one:
