Author Archives: amateurmusicology
The Makerspace as 21st Century Bauhaus: A Black Mountain College in Every University
At the 10th Annual Black Mountain College ReVIEWING conference (September 2018), I moderated a panel with three innovative makerspace leaders — Adam Rogers (NCSU), David Romito (UNC), and Lauren Di Monte (U of Rochester). We talked about how the modern … Continue reading
Musical Circuits Goes to Moogfest 2018
From Digital Bits to Analog Waves: Breadboarding an 8-bit Synth Using only digital logic and handful of wires and resistors, we will breadboard a circuit that creates complex analog sounds. Theoretically speaking, we will wire an R2R (resistor to resistor) … Continue reading
Four Four Time @ CDI
An interactive, collaborative constellation of four MIDI sequencers, each of which can play four notes in its own time with variable pitches, note lengths, and tempos. Participants can join in the real time creation of complex musical patterns working at … Continue reading
Circuit Bending for Beginners
Because unmaking something is a great way to make something new. Circuit Bending for Beginners Unmake a musical keyboard and discover how plastic parts connect with electronic circuits to make music. See how the piano keyboard actually works, how a … Continue reading
A Postmodern Drum Machine
“How does time function in postmodern music? Postmodernism is profoundly temporal, but it uses, rather than submits to time. Its music shapes time, manipulates time. Time, like tonal sounds and diatonic tunes and rhythmic regularity and textual unity, becomes no … Continue reading
Silence, Chance, Cage, Code
“Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.” ~ Stéphane Mallarmé, 1897 John Cage is well known as the composer who formalized the use of silence as a compositional element on par with any other note or sound. He was … Continue reading
