Understand Music

Quotation

«If you don’t fully understand music, you end up working for the technology instead of the technology working for you.»

The quote is taken from the Interview «Quincy Jones» published in 2020 by «MusicRadar». Last accessed on June 7, 2021.

Biography

Quincy Jones is a composer, record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, television station owner, magazine founder, multimedia entrepreneur, and humanitarian. And in all of these fields, his name has become a byword for quality. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. Follow him on Youtube, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, X.

Published on June 08, 2020

Last updated on June 27, 2022

Topics

Technology

Music Production

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Gear Talk Mixtape by Ale Hop

Mixtape

by Ale Hop

How does the relationship of artists with their gear affect the composition? Listen to a mind bending mixtape-collage with statements about the use of gear in electronic music compostion, eerie sounds, and weird loops by the Peruvian musician and sound researcher Ale Hop of the platform «Nuts and Bolts».

The mix was produced by the Peruvian musician and sound researcher Ale Hop, collaborator of «Nuts and Bolts», a platform that builds structures and circumstances that facilitate engagement with gear and gear-talk from a diverse standpoint. The piece was crafted as a sound-collage of excerpts from the Nuts and Bolt’s podcasts and tutorials from which we can hear fragments of conversations and insights about technology and music composition of artists such as Andrea Parkins, Jenny Hval, Jessica Ekomane, Jenny Berger Myhre, Jlin, Jessica Sligter, Guro Skumsnes Moe, and Sukitoa O Namau, mixed with selected music from the artists, and one track from Ale’s upcoming album The Life of Insects.

Tracklist

00:00 – Artist: Jessica Ekomane
Track: Common Fate

02:06 – Artist: Andrea Parkins
Podcast episode: Nuts and Bolts #2

02:52 – Artist: Jaleh Negari
Track: Clouds
Album: Arch Waves (Eget Værelse, 2016)

04:16 – Artist: Jenny Hval
Track: In the Red
Album: Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones, 2016)

05:36 – Artist: Jenny Hval
Podcast episode: Nuts and Bolts #1

06:12 – Artist: Nadah El Shazly
Track: Palmyra
Album: Ahwar (Nawa Recordings, 2017)

07:43 – Artist: Jenny Berger Myhre
Track: Lage Setning Av Et Ord
Album: Lint (Canigou Records / The Lumen Lake, 2017)

08:28 – Artist: Jenny Berger Myhre
Nuts and Bolts Tutorial: How to make a DIY Instrument? or «Acoustic Laptop»

09:02 – Artist: Sukitoa O Namau
Nuts and Bolts Tutorial: Hydrophone and Amplification Circuit, Y

09:05 – Artist: Sukitoa O Namau
Track: Nari 私の炎
Album: Nari (URUBU, 2018)

11:42 – Artist: Jessica Sligter
Track: The Dream Has Died
Album: Polycrisis.yes! (2018)

12:00 – Artist: Jessica Sligter
Podcast episode: Nuts and Bolts #3

13:00 – Artist: Aya Metwalli
Track: بعد العشا

15:22 – Ale Hop Nuts and Bolts
Interview: Gear-Interview October 2019

15:24 – Artist: Ale Hop
Track: The Way to the Ocean
Album: The Life of Insects (Buh Records, 2020)

18:01 – Artist: Jlin
Track: Carbon 7 (161)
Album: Black Origami (Planet Mu, 2017)

18:07 – Artist: Jlin
The Innovator Podcast episode: Nuts And Bolts #2

19:45 – Artist: Jana Winderen
Track: Out of Range Commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur, Redaktion Hörspiel / Klangkunst, 2014

20:38 – Guro Skumsnes Moe Podcast episode: Nuts and Bolts #2

21:33 – Artist: MoE and Mette Rasmussen
Track: Tolerancia Picante
Album: Tolerancia Picante (Conrad Sound, 2019)

Biography

Ale Hop (Alejandra Cárdenas) began her career in the 2000s in Lima’s underground music scene. Her body of work includes diverse formats such as live shows, albums, multimedia artworks, and research. Whether alone, maneuvering an intricate repertoire of electric guitar techniques, or in collaboration with other artists, her live performances have a physical and emotional character. She recently launched two collaborative projects: Agua Dulce, with percussionist Laura Robles; and Near and Remote Activation Practices, with Argentinean artist Tatiana Heuman, experimenting with self-built South American instruments. She also co-founded the festival Radical Sounds Latin America (which she co-curated 2019–2021) and today directs the editorial platform Contingent Sounds, which aims at facilitating critical discourses and artistic research. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, X, Bandcamp, Spotify, or on her Website.

Links

Luke Turner: «Nuts & Bolts Podcast – Female* Musicans & Their Gear, Ep. One: Jenny Hval» (The Quietus)

Published on August 18, 2020

Last updated on September 29, 2020

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Technology

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Modern technology is heavily laden with cultural and political asymmetries

Quotation

by Khyam Allami

«Modern technology, as much as it seems neutral and empowering, is heavily laden with cultural and political asymmetries that often go unnoticed and unchallenged. In the field of music, its hegemonic reality is destructive, though wrapped in bows of promised modernisation and advancement.»

The quote is taken from the article «Microtonality and the Struggle for Fretlessness in the Digital Age» by Khyam Allami published 2019 in the CTM Magazine – Persistence. Last accessed on March 29, 2021.

Biography

Khyam Allami is an Iraqi-British multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, researcher and founder of Nawa Recordings. Primarily an Oud player, his artistic research focuses on the development of contemporary and experimental practice based on the fundamentals of Arabic music, with a focus on tuning and microtonality. Currently he is completing an M4C/AHRC funded PhD in composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University. Follow him on Youtube, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, SoundCloud, or on his Website.

Published on January 29, 2019

Last updated on June 27, 2022

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Technology

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