August 13ths

8/13/2016

We hate ear worms, but they constitute the “encyclopedia of similarity” that we use to make comparisons. How often is our first response to something new “It reminds me of...”            

Somehow I got infected by an ear worm of Turning Japanese by The Vapors the other day out of nowhere. Then later on there was a song playing in a store that sounded just like it.

8/13/2018

Time spent practicing doesn’t necessarily equate with artistic merit. Most rock musicians throughout history only spent enough time to be as good as the musicians they admired, and some went beyond that and became cultural icons. What’s missing now might be soul, and a spiritual feeling in the music. You can’t practice that—you have to develop an inner life first.    

I think jazz is a music that is made better the more it is practiced and studied. Musicians who had an interest in jazz, or dabbled in it, usually became better musicians, as its roots are deeper. Classical influences have a similar effect. How often have we heard the superlative, “She was classically trained…”? Knowing how to read, how to play some piano, are all good things that take time. But I don’t see that people are doing it these days, at least not to the degree that we did in the 70s and 80s. 

[8/13/2026: If you're now 21 and have been playing music for a few years, you're probably generating music with AI.  If in fact pop music is now more about the production, AI gives you that without anything else. You're not going to bother even buying a keyboard. Because of tariffs they're too expensive. An 88 Nord is over $6000. I can't imagine many people are buying grand pianos. I also wonder how much art is in AI music beyond the lyrics. Imagine an art fair where there are booths that are just machine prints of AI generated art. Maybe it will work at some point in the future on the strength of the ideas alone. Postmodernism will never end].     

8/13/2024