It's hard to even begin to quantify what the "most difficult piece of music" is, but if we look at it through the lens of Physical Virtuosity and Conceptual Virtuosity, we can at least get a good i...
Poème symphonique (1962) is a piece for 100 metronomes by Hungarian composer György Ligeti. I got a chance to perform the poème symphonique at Ableton’s music conference Loop in Berlin last week!
The vanguard of psychoacoustic music. Tartini Tones, Combination Tones and Heterodynes play with perception and push the boundaries of music. This video essay explores what they are, how to hear th...
The Star-Spangled Banner is an awkward, unsubtle piece of music, but in the hands of great musicians it can be quite effective. Why is the American national anthem the way it is? How did it come to...
I have grapheme-color synesthesia, which is a common form of sensory pairing. Being a musician, and understanding what semantics go into understanding and learning mu...
Tuning A to 432 hz may yield the answers to the question that so many people ask themselves - why does my music not feel the way that I hear in my head? Why is it that so much of the music that I h...
What do 200k notes in 6 seconds sound like? No, the result isn’t Black Midi - it’s way cooler than that. if you use the right math, you can create recursive melodies that rely upon the fact that yo...
In the 17th century, Athanasius Kircher described an instrument with which we humans have had an intense and abiding fascination. Why? Well, it's either for its taboo nature, or because we just thi...
We know the interval of a tritone today as "diabolus in musica," or the devil in music, but was it really always associated with evil? Are all of those metal musicians right in thinking that this i...
Quarter note triplets starting from the + of 1 are tricky and weird, and studying them can give great insight into the subtle psychology of how music is written.
My good friend Shawn Crowder is in town in between tours! He's 1/2 of my band Sungazer, and runs a language learning channel called Japanese in a Year, where he learns....Japanese in a year. We'll ...
Many thanks to Jesse Hampsch, Jason Blasingame, SwordOfPhoenix, L2112Lifz, MichaelBxl, Cuppa Tea, AL_2017, Noah S, and Golden K Music for your insightful questions!
Many thanks to Drazon spielt, Tom Korchak, jt33396, John Daniel, shrapnel, Cuix, Chris Kalos, reg4321, SANTIAGO RESTREPO, ThomasAleksanderVEVO, Ibrahim Hassan, Antonio Rivera Torres and Felipe Mont...
Many thanks to Chris LeMond, TheHarmonicPulse, SAMUCA CHIODINI, Jim Haugland, Denis, bj7xtas1, thebudsofmay, Zippy Leroux, user name, Yhoda, Joe Turgeon and Daniel Proctor for your insightful quest...
Many thanks to Bloodbath and Beyond, Tiago da Silva, TheMASDrummer, thescowlingschnauzer, Benjamin Stedman, M3Z4C, hyeguitar1, The Bolan, kevs musicandstuff, Marko Perälä and Hanna Turunen for thei...
Thanks to Rodrigo de Piérola, Reagan McCann, Olivia Andersson, Fergus, Stanislav Kogan, Jon Chen, Christian Hasselberger and Frisky Maulida for their insightful questions!
Thanks to Adam Emond, Mr. Way, Zac Jelke, Damdam Dadimson, Mackie Jones, Paul Mendoza, Hugh Gaenus, Wesley Lao, Kalen Austin, Robert Schuster, 1234lavaking, Samuel Wilson, anthony valdez, Nick Den...
Thanks to Dmitro Grunt, Rodrigo Pavez, Viktor Onopko, psl101, Jack Brooks, Sir Autismo, Michael Williams, Julian Fernandez, Smitty Wabablababerry, snipergurke1005, Zippy Leroux, Will Lacy, Andrew B...
Being a freelancer means I get to play a lot of different gigs in many different situations. Come and check out some of the stuff I do being a professional NYC-based musician.
What happens when your laptop fails the night before and you need to carry, like, 3 tons of equipment on the subway to the gig. I don't recommend doing this and then trying to film a vlog at the sa...
The crowd-funded R&B orchestra Little Kruta performed at a Sofar sounds, I did a reharmonized arrangement of a Beegees tune, and good vibes were had by all.
Every couple of months the New York/Nashville Connection puts on a showcase of some really kickass singers and their original R&B, pop and soul music. I got called for the NY one this past week, an...