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.