Final repost (for now) from the always insightful History is Made at Night blog. Jackie Wilson’s Melisma – 20 notes for the word ‘for’ ‘The extent to which the music is integrated with the literal meaning in soul is apparent in some of its basic stylistic conventions, the call and response structure, for instance, where a [...]
Short Takes: “Jackie Wilson’s Melisma – 20 notes for the word ‘for’” (from History is Made at Night)
The “hidden music” of Zen practice
I started sitting zazen last month. Two or three times a week, I go to the San Francisco Zen Center and practice 30 minutes of “sitting absorption.” And practice is the right word because I have yet to feel that I am doing it right. Still, it’s refreshing and I keep coming back. About ten [...]
Is the future of jazz in its past?
THIS IS AN ADDENDUM TO AN EARLIER POST ON DECIPHERINGCULTURE.COM: Regenerating Jazz Is the future of jazz in its past? There’s a lot of talk lately about why jazz has been losing its audience despite decades of efforts to build infrastructure. There is hardly a university music program that does not include a jazz studies [...]
“Miles Davis vs Jazz”
Pablo Picasso: “In painting you can try anything. As long as you never do anything over again.” Miles Davis: “Now, nothing in music and sounds is ‘wrong.’ You can hit anything, any kind of chord. … Music is wide open for anything.” Pablo Picasso: “You see me here, and yet I’ve already changed. I’m already [...]
The influence of animals on the development of music
Numerous scholars have emphasized the influence of the sounds of the natural environment on the development of musical expressions by humans. In his landmark study of the music of the Kaluli of New Guinea, Steven Feld found that before he could begin to understand the Kaluli’s music, he had to first turn his attention to [...]
Exploring the boundary between sound & music 2:1
Interesting article from Music Think Tank If a Tree Falls in the Woods Can You Call It Music? By Keith Andrew Recently I was reading some material on the controversial yet highly influential experimental composer John Cage –most widely known for his ‘piece’ 4’33” which if you are not familiar with, is 4’33” of silence. A [...]
Exploring the Boundary between Sound & Music 1:3 [Soundwave ((4)) green sound debuts in San Francisco June 6, 2010]
When I teach classes that look at music in cross-cultural settings, I always begin by having the class come up with a working definition of music . The goal is to arrive at a definition that is broad enough to apply to all forms of experience thought of as music but precise enough to distinguish [...]
Has the Internet created a tyranny of musical choice?
In a thoughtful and thought-provoking follow-up to his article “The Barriers Of Music Consumption” Hypebot Associate Editor Kyle Bylin discusses whether the plethora of choices that have occurred with the shift in the music industry from the top-down major label model to the bottom-up “participatory culture of the Internet. Has an overload of choices caused an [...]
The Barriers Of Music Consumption (@ Hypebot.com)
“The Barriers Of Music Consumption” by Hypebot Associate Editor Kyle Bylin raises some important questions about how the digital age has changed our relationship with music. A must read, Bylin puts forth a provocative examination of how changes in the modalities of music consumption have affected the nature of individuals’ experience of the music they choose [...]
Transgressive Women from Myth and Fairy-tale: Tales from the Velvet Chamber
Guest Post by LA Slugocki I am the project editor/writer for Tales from the Velvet Chamber: An Anthology of Revisioned Fairy-tales and Myth, A Call for Writers. The inspiration for this book comes from many different places — I’ll start with The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. For those who haven’t read the [...]
