Jazz Wax just posted a timely piece on Sonny Stitt on his interesting use of the experimental Varitone or Electric Sax. The goal of this 1965 instrument was to integrate the organic reed vibration sound generation process and electric manipulation and amplification of the sound. The instrument would provide a suite of on-board tools and… Read more »
Posts By: jp
Cat Samples – Soundiron’s Snack library
Want to sneak some subtle feline-ness into a mix? Here are some free cat samples to get started. It is amazing what you can do with a vocal cat if you can get her into a studio.
Onmouseover Is Over : Rethinking Hover In The Tablet Age
I have been doing some UI web porting for tablets and one of the issues that comes up right away is the lack of a ‘hover’ action and the need to unravel a lot of hover triggered content. No mouse, no onmouseover. Get it? This type of housecleaning can be a good thing – there… Read more »
The Tyranny of the Extroverts
An old essay called The Tyranny of the Extroverts resurfaced in my feed reader the other day. It got me thinking about some of the talented and shy developers and musicians I have had the privilege to work with over the years. These are the kind of people who trouble getting past an HR interview… Read more »
A Labor Day Tribute to Records Made by Sidemen
The “sideman” is not a member of the band. He is the faceless hired gun who willingly accepts the lesser piece of the action despite often making a vital contribution the sound. Some great musicians ultimately emerged from these behind-the-scene roles to become stars in their own right but many more did not. This is… Read more »
Alpha Music
The music that you hear when you are growing up can form the foundation of your sonic aesthetic. I am often relieved that my parents had eclectic taste and exposed me to some of the music I still enjoy today. I came cross Funk For First-Time Fathers recently and thought that this kid was pretty… Read more »
Get rid of multitasking if you want to not suck
I have come to the conclusion after years of multitask creep that it is not working for me. Yes, I can bang though a tons of low-level tasks while responding to emails, reminders, meeting requests, tweets, IMs and physical interruptions but I have found it increasingly impossible to concentrate on doing the more creative work… Read more »
Digging jsfx
Building an HTML5 browser based game or synth? Need some fresh sounds for those nav mouseovers on your step uncle’s used car site? This is the JavaScript library for you. (Requires browser WAV support) There is definitely something useful here. I am going to mess around with this more.
On Jazz Piano Solo
Nate Chinen recently wrote an article on NYTimes.com that is one of the best surveys of solo jazz piano I have read. I have been checking out pretty much everyone mentioned in this piece lately in an attempt to improve my solo playing. Three lesser known solo piano albums I also really like are: Phineas… Read more »
RIP Fran Landesman
Fran Landesman wrote the lyrics to one of my favorite “50s era” standards – Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most. Her evocative lyrics were inspired by passages in The Waste Land by T.S Eliot. APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring… Read more »
