November 2nds

11/2/2005

Music listeners are again opting to buy singles, not albums...As Malcolm Gladwell suggests, we are designed to "thin slice"). The invention of the iPod apparently reshaped how people consume content—short and mobile. 

Pix on Michigan Avenue (warm evening)

 

11/2/2015

The string fetish of bassists now up to 24 strings. Then there’s the one or two-string bass, which I love because it’s the polar opposite. But you can still have a 2-string bass on the 4-string that you have, simply by using two adjacent strings at a time. It’s a good strategy to get you thinking in more narrow ranges and in double stops, and off the root, which may be exactly what the music needs. Tuned in fifths the 2-string would be good for melodies and intervals of fifths and sixths. It is obviously not as versatile as a 4-string, but even then it is one too many. Tuned in unisons you could get a nice chorusing effect on a 2-string. The bass balalaika has only three strings and works beautifully for the music.  

11/2/2020

AI is another way of avoiding the music itself, same as collecting guitars but never playing them. What you're avoiding is the feeling of ineptitude, or simply the thought of failure when you realize the work involved. Someone shifting the task to something more computer-centric makes it more contemporary, and perhaps more popular because you're focused on the promise of celebrity at the wishing well of technology. Admittedly, pop music is driven by 13-18 year-olds, in 2020, those born in teh early aughts.  

11/2/2021

We need something that sounds like cubism; We don’t need regurgitated digital files without processing or shaping the raw materials. In terms of conceptual "Level 4," we can call it music arte povera—like Richard Serra using scrap rubber. But music can access pop culture trends more readily because it can be cranked out faster these days without any physical work in a studio. What we want is some kind of absorbing craft that takes weeks or months to complete. If the metaverse can be this space where the digital materials are shaped, then that’s something really new. In any event it has to sound like cubism looked.  

11/2/2024

Song heard in a dream:

Stopped at Fine Arts Building. Haven’t been here in 5 years. The Studebaker Theater is back open. Used to see films here. Stopped at Exile in Bookville book shop. The door chimes and the sound of the protests outside fit right in with the hip hop playing.  

In music I I like the Video 45s, videos exactly 45 seconds long, as a send-up of this. But I also do video albums, where I can set the song sequence, as one would on an LP, as a reaction to the PL (Playlist).]

The Karolinka Club