Buried Roots...

While remnants of Jamaican culture can be found various forms and various locations across the globe, what is it about this relatively minuscule island nation that has made it stand out amongst the rest for decades?  The People from this nation win olympic events have a strong sense of self, pride, culture and belief and all of this has produced a sound comparatively unique to that of any other sound that has existed. Here in the midwest we have adopted rituals in our listening, playing, and general musicology that pays homage almost entirely to the traditions and practices that have organically and unintentionally lead to the development of reggae music, yet with the diaspora of the Jamaican people there are only few who have ventured this far inland to carry keep a source of authenticity accessible at hand. Here in Colorado if you search hard enough you can still find your buried roots music.

Critical Sound: Music Tech vs Improvisation and Emotion

This course has focused heavily on how technological advances have pushed music in new directions. I believe this to be true, and in my podcast you will hear about the innovations of Les Paul, inventor of sound on sound recording. You will also hear about legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and the innovative ideas and techniques that he brought to the Led Zeppelin sound. All of this will be accompanied by phone interview with guitar phenom Zack Wiesinger from Pittsburgh, PA who has grown up pulling his influences from those like Les Paul and Jimmy Page, but also learning a lot of the same lessons they did through trial and error. While all of the technical advances and new innovations have certainly helped push music to places it would have never been capable of prior there are a few things that I feel is more important than any music tech ever....talent, improvisation, and emotion. Truly great music would not exist even with the technology if it were not for talent and emotion. So dive in to this podcast, and learn a little bit about recording history and how it's shaped and affected some of today's talented musicians.

Porno-Groove: The Sweet Sounds of Adult Cinema

This podcast explores the musical sounds of adult cinema from the 1970's and 80's, and the evolution of it's sound, as modes of production and aesthetic styles of of popular music where changing around it. As porno-groove has become dated and obsolete in the adult film industry, it has made a resurgence as prime sampling stock for DJ's, turntablists, and producers. Just as these sounds began anonymously, they shall be carried on and shared anonymously, kept alive by obsessed music junkies and those reminiscent of a larger than life, stylistic era of yesteryear. Is is interesting how once un-appreciated and purposefully ignored music can find its niche in music collectors and enthusiasts generations later.

The Sound of Healing

[photo courtesy of Alex Grey, alexgrey.com]

In various philosophies varying from ancient Hinduism to modern-day String Theory, it's been said that everything is made up of vibrations. As a musician, I understand on a subjective level the effects of music on the soul, and I admit to turning to binaural beat programs when in need of a sleep aid. Whether it’s the placebo effect taking place, I cannot say, but the process of ritual, of tuning into the body’s responses is a genuine and unarguable therapy for a restless mind. But it occurred to me that there may be limitations to how a digital device can transmit acoustic vibrations. It may be necessary to turn to a source of live, on-the-ground vibrational therapy as I explore the applications of sonic healing.

How the multiple culture elements impact with the Chinese music.

This podcast focus on how the multiple culture elements impact with the Chinese music. I use several Chinese singers, like Leehom, Jay Zhou, Lina and so on to illustrate this topic. This Podcast also includes some Chinese,  but I did some translate to let my audiences understand it . In this podcast, I also state the question about what is the future of the current Chinese music.

Glitched Out

Glitched Out is here to take you into the world of glitched vocals. This podcast explores into a sound that loves to be as much as it can. Through the podcast I lay down how these are used. I also delve into some facts about Glitch to give a bearing on where glitched vocals could have come from. It's not everyday you get to listen to a sound originally meant to be a lyric spliced up until it sounds nothing like the original, and then put back together to make a new lyric.

Emo-pop

Sometimes referred to as power pop, emo-pop as a sub-genre of American alternative rock music, distinguishes itself from emo, its predecessor, by embracing the pop aspect of its music and by celebrating their commercial appeal (the emo aspect of emo-pop evident in the similarly expressive, emotive lyrics of emo). Emo-pop's commercial appeal welcomed newer emerging artists on to the music scene, who were once fans of the original emo-pop artists, who created emo-pop music of their own and posted mp3s of their music on MySpace. The movement began in the early 2000s and by the mid-2000s a new wave of emo-pop artists (like BoysLikeGirls) were releasing their first album and joining the movement while using their stylistic abilities to define their own musical identity in the emo-pop genre. 2006 was the year of this peak, in emo-pop music. This lead to a few years of exciting things happening within the genre for both artists and fans; from concerts, to album releases, to online posts, to interviews, to television appearances.It was an exciting time for me to discover music as it was for many other fans. Myspace was and is probably still an exciting place to discover and share music.

World of Classical Techno

By observing and listening to two very different forms of music, while creating this podcast I have put the two forms of music together.  By adding different interviews and views on the subject, I have hoped to capture my personal opinion on this topic, as well as, gain different artists view.  Classical Music and Techno in our culture today, have become a popular sound to mix together and the pure sound of minimal techno was taken back to a "striped down" version, which I believes come from the clean sounds of classical music.  The rhythms of both these forms of music do create an emotional and physical experience as studies show how classical music pinpoints parts of the brain releasing extra doses of serotonin in the brain.  In a couple of different interviews in my podcast they talk about how this may effect the brain and how other forms of music may be involved.

Music For Video Games

From their early days to the present, music and sound have always played a part in video games. But how does they actually function in games? What separates them from other mediums? In this special episode of the Aperture Science PODcast* Testing Initiative, join our latest guest, test subject #1313, otherwise referred to as Mikey, as he attempts to shed light on these questions and more. Will our young test subject succeed in his valiant attempts to explain how music for video games is applied in generative, non-linear manners and how players can interact with and affect how music plays during gameplay, or will he be doomed to suffer a horrible death as his Aperture Science Relaxation Vault and Death Trap tragically collapses all around him? The only way to find out is to click that button down there. The one right below this paragraph. It's just sitting right down there, waiting to be pressed. So, go ahead, press it. What are you waiting for? Do you hate buttons or something? What have they ever done to you? Just press the damn button! Don't make me send over our Aperture Science Military Androids to press that button for you, because trust me, you won't like it!

EDPx3750: Music For Video Games

*Podcast or Die

(Author's Note: It shouldn't happen, but if SoundCloud takes down my podcast due to copyright music, I'll make sure and email my podcast to you, Trace. That way you would still be able to listen to it. Again, it shouldn't happen, but I'll send it later anyway, just in case. Sorry!)

We Are Changed - Podcast on listening, the musicality of language, and the meaning in sound as music

This podcast focuses on listening deeply to the sounds all around us, but specifically to the relationship between music, language, and meaning. I explore the relationship between the structures of language and how they impart meaning, and the structures of music and the meaning implicit in them, as well as the junction of the two in the tonal qualities of the spoken word. Where is the emotion present in a sentence, or a specific sequence of notes and rhythms? Please enjoy this listening experience with a willingness to go where the words suggest and the music takes you. Thank you for listening.

Works sampled

• Anna Moffo - Rachmaninoff Vocalise no. 14
• Swingle Singers - Astor Piazzolla Libertango
• Phil Harris - Terry Gilkyson The Bare Necessities
• Jaap Blonk - Kurt Schwitters Ursonate
• Jaap Blonk - Cheekasynth
• Jaap Blonk - Free Verse at the Walker Art Center
• Bobby McFerrin - Antonio Vivaldi Concerto in g minor for Two Cellos
• Bobby McFerrin - Improvisation on Bach Prelude
• Vladimir Ashkenzay - Frederic Chopin Fantasie Impromptu
• Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jungling
• Karlheinz Stockhausen - The British Lectures On Sounds
• Steven Pinker - Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain
• Pablo Casals - Camille Saint-Saens The Swan from Carnival of the Animals
• Sun Ra - Space is the Place
• Lesley Gore - Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

A Universe Of It's Own Kind

My podcast is called A Universe of its Own Kind.  The podcast is about the culture that follows techno music; the main focus was the culture at live shows.  In the podcast I talk about how the event producers would try to create this alternative world for the audience to enjoy when they are at the event.  This type of world and culture at the event truly is one a kind. The two main festivals I focus on are Sensation and Electric Forest.

Alternative Engagement - A Retrospective

      Join Captain Cummerbund and his robotic automaton Jarvis as they haul the Earth's garbage to the Sun. Considering the current disregard for tangible copies of music, this podcast takes a retrospective look to the present-past from the future regarding alternative music's inventive approaches to engaging audiences through various means in addition to simply selling the recorded forms of their work. It highlights more recent examples of the innovative ways alternative artists are attempting to connect with their audiences. The podcast discusses different modes of production and distribution that have surfaced more recently. Included in this podcast are the pay-what-you-want systems employed by Radiohead, collaborative works by Beck, and musical app development in the case of Bjork. This podcast also illustrates the growing trend for musicians to push the boundaries of engagement to stay relevant in today's fast paced digital world.

Final Podcast: Trailer Music

Trailer music often goes unnoticed to the masses; it's unfortunate, as it's an excellent subgenre of production music. It offers soundscapes that will take you on grand, imaginative adventures that are unparalleled by most other kinds of music. In this podcast, I will briefly overview trailer music. A bit of the reasons why it has only recently received attention, the variety offered within the subgenre and a bit of hypothesizing into what exactly gives trailer music its unique appeal.