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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...

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How do key signatures work?

I put off Western notation in my New School Fundamentals of Western Music class as long as I could, but the semester is almost over and we can’t avoid it any more. As expected, most students are...

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Teaching dynamics and loudness

I recently covered dynamics and loudness in music theory class. I only spent a small part of the time talking about forte/piano, crescendo/diminuendo and so on, because those terms are...

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Classical music as ancient alien power source

Classical music is both familiar and strange to me. My parents played classical radio constantly when I was growing up, and I have primal memories of Robert J Lurtsema intoning “This… is Morning… Pro...

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Glenn Gould wanted me to make this remix

Glenn Gould thought people should make their own edits of classical recordings. He explains this idea in greater depth here. I read it and thought, challenge accepted! Here’s a recording of Gould’s...

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Songs vs Grooves

Anne Danielsen’s book Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament is one of my favorite works of musicology. In the book, Danielsen distinguishes between songs and grooves....

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Swing primer

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah” – Duke Ellington Aside from the blues, swing is the United States’ most significant...

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An intro to remixes

One of the most significant developments in the past fifty years of popular music is the idea of using existing recordings as raw material for new musical expression. The remix began as a way to make...

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I was weirdly obsessed with this jazz tune when I was twelve

I mainly grew up in a classical radio type of household, but my folks had a couple of jazz albums too, including Duke’s Memories by Abdullah Ibrahim. It included an obscure Ellington tune called “Way...

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The Kronos Quartet play Jimi Hendrix

I have mixed feelings about the Kronos Quartet arrangement of “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. On the one hand, it’s cool that they even attempted it. On the other hand, is the attempt successful? It’s...

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