A little over a year ago I wrote an article about Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ track “Blurred Lines,” and the allegations by the estate of Marvin Gaye that Thicke and Williams had copied Gaye’s 1977 hit, “Got to Give it Up.” The two songs have striking similarities, in particular the falsetto singing and percussion groove, but “Blurred Lines” is not plagiarism. In fact, if Thicke and Williams had truly copied “Got to Give it Up,” “Blurred Lines” would have been a much more interesting track.
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The Road to 31 Days
Years ago when I was still an undergrad I was introduced to the music of Harry Partch. After hearing Barstow and attending a lecture on his instruments and tuning system, I wanted to learn more about just intonation. The idea of it fascinated me, despite that I really had no idea what it sounded like.
About a year later I acquired a small, banged up harpsichord and purchased a book by Alain Daniélou, Tableau Comparatif des Intervalles Musicaux. Using the book and a guitar tuner that displayed cents, I tuned an octave of the harpsichord according to the numbers in Daniélou’s book. When I pressed down C, E, and G on the keyboard, I heard something I had never noticed before: a just major triad.
Daniélou’s book includes hundreds of different intervals. After almost 10 years the book still rides shotgun in my musical research.
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The Big Chorus Show
The 2014 Barbershop Harmony Society International Convention was recently held in Las Vegas during the first week of July. As always, quartets and choruses travel from around the world to compete against one another. This year, Musical Island Boys from New Zealand won the quartet contest, and The Vocal Majority from Dallas/Fort Worth prevailed in the chorus contest. Normally the quartet contest is what gets everyone talking about, but this year the chorus contest was the primary talking point leading up the convention.
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Richard Buckner Living Room Concert
Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to see Richard Buckner live. When I lived in San Diego I saw him about three or four times. However, this time was different; instead of a club or bar, this performance was in a fan’s living room, and I was able to experience this talented artist in an entirely new way.
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A New Band of ‘Bots
Back in November 2013, I saw Compressorhead (the robot band) perform live in Union Square. Although robots will always be super cool, I was disappointed that someone would build a 78-fingered guitarist to perform “I Love Rock and Roll” and “Blitzkrieg Bop.” The music performed by robot bands should either be impossible or extremely difficult for humans to execute. Otherwise, what’s the point of building the machines?
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Composers are people too…
And like people we make mistakes. In fact, we make mistakes when we write music. Sometimes (and often I would wager) composers are not completely aware of what we’re doing when we compose. Sure, we set up structures, devise patterns, create systems and boxes for our music to exist in. But as of late, I’ve been finding that these tools we make and utilize in the process of composing are there to assist the composer, rather than the listener; and sometimes a choice made in our process that we might consider integral or pivotal to the work, is virtually–if not completely–imperceptible to the listener or the performer.
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Reflections on Nirvana
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s unfortunate suicide. I remember when I had received the news of Cobain’s death: I was in eighth grade and I had just purchased In Utero only a week before. Not only was it the first Nirvana album I had bought, it was really the first time I bought an album because I liked the way it sounded. I often cite that action as the beginning of my personal, independent experience as a listener and consumer of music. Continue reading
Music & Place
It’s peculiar how extra musical circumstances can affect one’s musical experiences. For me, places and locations strongly affect my response to songs, and changes in my life can and will change how I react to music. Recently, my move across country completely altered my experience of Tom Waits’ song “Downtown Train” from his 1985 album, Rain Dogs.
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Why people matter; or, why I’m changing music notation software
I’ve used Sibelius Software since 2002. When I started taking my own composing seriously I had decided it was time to purchase scoring software so I downloaded both Finale and Sibelius previews and tested them both out. I chose Sibelius because it was easy to figure out—I struggled to learn the most basic things with Finale (like note entry). Eventually I learned Finale because my undergraduate institution required two semesters of Finale, but besides that brief dabbling, I’ve been a die hard Sibelius user and I haven’t looked back.
It’s my friends’ band (so of course my review is positive): Old Man Wizard’s UNFAVORABLE
At the beginning of November Old Man Wizard released their first album, Unfavorable. I’ve known the guys from Old Man Wizard for sometime (the bassist & I did our four years of music school together), and I even remember when they formed. From the start I had enjoyed Old Man Wizard. Their songs always had a good sense of development, and they combine the timbres of metal music with an extensive harmonic vocabulary and melodic interest. Additionally Old Man Wizard’s songs portray the events and lives of human beings and age-old professions, rather than vague, abstract concepts.
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