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Another great pioneer in the music world has left the building. If you’ve ever owned a Roland or Boss piece of gear (and I’d go as far as to say that’s everyone), then you’ll be saddened to know that the founder of those fine companies, Ikutaro Kakehashi, has passed. He was 87 years old. Kakehashi […]
Continue readingThe biggest thing that every musician and engineer lives in fear of is losing one’s hearing. To make matters worse, it happens naturally to all of us as we grow older, although its gradually enough that we can unconsciously compensate. That said, all it takes is a loud concert, or a sudden loud feedback, or cymbals in […]
Continue reading2,500 years ago the Greeks composed songs where the voice was accompanied by the lyre, reed-pipes, and various percussion instruments. Much was already known about these instruments thanks to the descriptions, paintings from archaeological remains, which Greek scholars then used to establish the timbres and range of pitches the instruments produced. The songs however were lost to time until a […]
Continue readingAll of us know that animals respond to music (my cats Roger and Chloe love to hang with me when I mix), but are there certain genres that they like better? A new study by the University of Glasgow in conjunction with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found out that shelter […]
Continue readingJohann Sebastian Bach is generally considered to be one of the great classical composers, with compositions that exhibit a technical mastery of harmony and counterpoint. One of the things he excelled at was writing short polyphonic hymns known as chorale cantatas (he wrote over 300), which are short 4 voice pieces rich in harmony. As it turns […]
Continue readingTo all my friends and readers, I wish you a happy holiday. I truly appreciate your support and I am humbled and honored that you take the time out of your busy day to read my musings. It’s a good day to take some time off, eat a nice meal, have a cocktail and watch some […]
Continue readingIf you’ve ever had something physically wrong with you yet the doctor wasn’t able to diagnose exactly what it is, you know how frustrating and time-consuming that can be. Soon there may be a new tool in the doctor’s bag that could make that situation a thing of the past – music. A new technology that […]
Continue readingJust about any music involves repetition, and we’ve proved by our listening habits over hundreds of years that we like it that way. It’s not just the songs, symphonies or operas that are so often built on patterns that repeat (like drumbeats, rhythms, melodies, or harmonic cycles), it’s also the fact that we love to […]
Continue readingThanks to Ryan Kairalla for having me on his Break The Business podcast. We talked primarily about succeeding as an independent artist, but strayed off into other subjects as well. On the podcast, Ryan also covered the legacy of boy band maker and fraudster Lou Pearlman. A very interesting listen! You can listen to it […]
Continue readingHere’s a study that every gigging musician should know about. It appears that music can profoundly influence how we taste things, but most significantly, it’s beer it holds the most influence over. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology by Dr. Felipe Reinoso Cavalho from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and KU Leuven, in collaboration with the Brussels […]
Continue readingI know that it’s common to feel like you’ve just heard the loudest sound in the world when leaving your local club after a metal band does its thing, or maybe compare that to the launch of Saturn V vehicle, but neither of those are even close. According to a fascinating article in the FiveThirtyEight, the loudest sound in […]
Continue readingWhat would you do if all of a sudden you began to “see” notes, staffs, clefs and a musical score pop up in front of you during the course of your every day life? Believe it or not, more people than you think have these types of music-oriented hallucinations where they see music scores whiz by. […]
Continue readingI don’t know why I have such a fascination with robots playing music. I’ve covered many instances on this blog over the years (like the guitarist with 78 fingers and the robot band that plays Motorhead), and each time they get better at what they do. I’d like to think that they’re never going to […]
Continue readingYou’ve probably never wondered why the drums and especially the bass hold down the rhythm section, but it turns out there’s a very specific scientific reason. A recently published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that perceptions of time are much more acute at lower registers, and those that play […]
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