Yesterday was the first day that I’d repeated the previous day’s musical idea quite so closely. I’ve repeated myself before. Sometimes intentionally, but just as often “by mistake” (let’s call it “without conscious intention” instead). Similar tempos, similar grooves, pretty close on the tone-center, same mode. Melodic motifs—now there’s a pitfall. I’m discovering that I’m …
My Daily Song Project turns 0.4167 today. It feels like far too long since an update. People have asked: “what’s your process? how’s it going?” It’s high time I answer. It’s going fine, thanks. Heh, no, I’m not going to leave it at that. Read on for the gritty details.
Musicians without Borders As you may know, my profession (as of this writing) is web development and my passion is music. (This, of course, is an oversimplification, but it maps neatly to this Venn diagram.) It’s time to take a look at something music-related that also relates to OIRED’s work in international development. One of the teachers of the week-long workshop …
I recently experienced a few days of more concentrated pop-music exposure, and at the tail end of it I had a realization I found a little surprising. Subconsciously, I’ve been holding the music that makes it to places like the radio and the grocery-store background soundtrack to certain minimum standards. Understand that I think of …
I’m mainly thinking of my fellow improvising vocalists as I write, but this can probably apply equally well to any improvising musician, or any vocalist, or any other instrumentalist, or any artist if you want to stretch it. If you’ve ever felt like “everything I do is pretty much the same…” (in some way that you’re discerning) …