Music Diary

Composer Steve Reich, along with Terry Riley and Philip Glass, form the core driving force in the modern classical music genre of ‘minimalism’. In the music the harmonic structure and density are sparse and relatively simple, with shifting elements and slow thematic development. Much of the action in minimalism is with the slowly evolving polyrhythms, which are deceptively straightforward but in reality menacingly complex and intriguing. This week marks Steve Reich’s 75th birthday, so I wanted to share a few memorable video clips. The sheet music at the top is for his 1972 piece ‘Clapping Music’, an intriguing study in…

If you look through rock music history, there are loads of albums that are called ‘masterpieces’ or ‘necessary listening’ or ‘classics’ … but FAR fewer that actually deserve the accolades. One of those is certainly ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd. The 1973 recording is interesting musically, has plenty of thematic material that develops throughout the recording and has some fun and catchy songs. Pink Floyd has been notoriously stubborn in their desire to limit digital downloads of individual songs, wanting listeners to hear the music in its full and original album format. As a result their material…

If you haven’t heard of the musical sub-genre ‘dubstep’, or artists like Deadmau5, Tiesto, Skrillex, and so on … I have a suggestion: GET WITH IT!!! Seriously, this no-words-needed, drum & bass inspired techno dance show electronic style of music is all the rage with kids, to the point where I was only slightly surprised to see the dubstep-heavy Wheetobix commercial from the UK. In full disclosure, my younger son is a full-on dubstep fan, and saved his summer yardwork money to buy a ticket to see Skrillex … so I know all of this stuff all too well! Source:…

I have written several times (such as here, here and here) about Quiescence Music, the site headed up by piano instructor Edward Weiss that takes a casual, hands-on and emergent approach to learning to play and compose based on the New Age style. During that time, I have shared some of the materials from Quiescence with my family, and had my pianist son play around with some of the approaches. While he is already an advanced pianist and has solid techniques, the approach Weiss teaches in terms of exploration is similar to how I have always encouraged my kids to…

There was some sad news in the New York Post overnight, that soul and funk legend Sly Stone is broke and living out of a van in Los Angeles. Here is a snip: But those days are gone. Today, Sly Stone — one of the greatest figures in soul-music history — is homeless, his fortune stolen by a lethal combination of excess, substance abuse and financial mismanagement. He lays his head inside a white camper van ironically stamped with the words “Pleasure Way” on the side. The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, the rough Los Angeles…

Back in December of 2009 I wrote about the initial unveiling of the YouRock Guitar. It was released in 2010, but if you look around for reviews you will find them starting in mid-2010 but mostly from spring 2011 right up until now. Why is that? A few reasons I can see. First, because You Rock Guitar can be used as a Guitar Hero controller, it has dealt with the drop-off in interest in THAT market segment. It has also faced criticism from those who look at the plasticky design, low-grade on-board sounds, and the gimmicky ‘you rock’ mode that…