Men of Letters is an unusual project I’ve been working on with my friend Brett Miller. The original intent was to create creative, versatile music that could be used in a commercial setting (video games, film, TV, etc.) but I think it went a bit beyond our original intentions.
This is very different stuff for both [...]
I just gave a productive lesson to a student concerning the modes of the major scale. We’d gone over them in the past but this was the first time I think he really had a lightbulb moment and GOT it. I won’t bore you with too many of the mundane details concerning diatonic music theory, [...]
I don’t know if I ever heard Ernesto play guitar the whole time we were in college together but he’s been posting a lot of great stuff on youtube and facebook and it needs to be shared.
Also check out his project “Death And The Maiden” where he tackles some of the greatest string quartets in [...]
The blues are over.
I don’t usually shop on ebay. I have had notoriously bad luck with ebay the last few times I’ve bought or sold anything on it. It’s a good place for old stuff you can’t find, but people generally know what they are selling these days and they know how to subsidize extra [...]
Once again I’m a year too late to something, but considering most of the music I “discover” is already 30 years old, I guess a year isn’t so bad. Actually, I was first advised to check out Dub Trio way back when I was home on break from college. A friend of a friend told [...]
This is an old blog post that I decided to go back and update. Some of the ideas I expressed here have evolved since the first writing, so I wanted to reflect that. I’ve totally removed the bit about making organized practice routines because, as it occurs to me, they’ve never been so successful. I’d [...]
I was having a conversation with someone yesterday about how, some less-skilled artists we know seem to be more successful than other, more technically-able artists (and I am including “musician” in the umbrella term “artist” here). Somehow in the midst of conversation this nugget of wisdom popped out of my brain:
Most people don’t know anything [...]
Once a year, I think, I get on lowquality.net and ramble about gear. I’m not a big gear head, really. I like what I like but I am not particularly fussy. I can usually get the sound I am after with just about anything. It can be a challenge but its also rewarding to make [...]
Not to be confused with the Florida-based Death-metal band fronted by the late Chuck Shuldner, I was just turned on to a different Death that is totally more my speed. The all-black Detroit punk band predates the Bad Brains by 1/2 a decade– yeah, do the math, that means they have afros, how bad ass [...]
I could have used this about ten years ago. Derek Sivers, Berklee alum and inventor of CDBaby.com, gives a pep talk to the entering class of 2008.
