I’ve started making music regularly again, for the first time in years. Before I would sit down and noodle, creating snippets and lots of eight-bar loops, but none of it resulted in a start-to-finish track. I simply could not figure out how to get past a mental block that kept me from finishing, and then I’d get angry with myself and give up in disgust or move on to the next shiny object.

What changed? Last month I featured Drop Loot in my picks, and one of the things I like most about it is the soundtrack. So I looked up the composer, Benjamin Burnes, and was hit by a wall of releases … hundreds of them. This guy puts out a volume of music that is staggering, and lots of it is excellent! He even livestreams his composition sessions for anybody to watch.

His method is simple: time-bounding. Once a week, every week for eight years, he made a track from start to finish in two hours. He published an ebook about it, which I devoured in one sitting, and I became convinced that it was worth a try. So now I’m giving myself just two hours to make a track, and it’s working, even as it’s kicking my butt and showing me exactly where I need to improve. I could not be happier.

My Picks

Some things I have learned about generative AI

Professor Jon Dron collects his current thinking about AI, and I find myself agreeing with nearly all of it. He is one of the few people I’ve encountered who understands that interacting with an LLM involves humanity on both sides. Lots to learn from here, in a small package.

Teenage Wasteland

This documentary (available on Netflix) brings together a quirky teacher and his students as they reflect upon their experience exposing toxic waste being dumped in upstate New York back in the 90s. Their DIY film got national attention and is a testament to the power of great teachers and students. It also demonstrates how little things change with entrenched interests, sadly.

The Best Way to Get Past an Article’s Paywall

It’s important to pay for good content, and I do, across at least a half-dozen subscriptions. The idea that everything online should be free has brought us to an ad-infested, surveillance-heavy experience that everyone hates. As a teacher, however, when I am looking for something to share and it comes up in search results, I expect to be able to read it when I click on the link. It’s a bait-and-switch, where search engine bots get the full text, and the rest of us are blocked unless we pay. That’s not fair, and sometimes you just need to clip a dang article. Here’s how.

Fela Kuti and Africa 70, Live in Berlin 1978

I recently had the chance to see one of my favorite groups, the Budos Band, play live. Before the show they were playing Fela Kuti on the sound system, and I was reminded just how amazing his music is. This full concert features Fela with some of his best collaborators, including Tony Allen on drums.

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In the Groove

There are a few albums that stand out to me as turning points in my understanding of music. LTJ Bukem’s Logical Progression is one of them. As house, electro, and dance music exploded into dozens of exciting new subgenres in the early 90s, I loved all of it. There was breakbeat, with its frenetic rhythmic chops, and techno’s propulsive dance grooves, and then came drum and bass.

This style pairs super fast, intricate breakbeats with heavy bass lines, and it really punches you in the gut. Most of the stuff I had heard up until this 1996 release was aggressive and massively powerful. This collection went in a completely different direction. The high-tempo breakbeats remained, but they were accompanied by long, beautiful pads, vocals, and jazz-influenced samples. The chilled-out components felt as though they were in half-time, floating over the rhythm in a completely new and innovative way. I was floored.

This album represents a very special moment in time for me, when my brain expanded to comprehend a different way to think about music. Take a listen to the original Disc B mix, and see what you think.

Until Next Time

I’m hoping that my two-hour music challenges will continue to be fruitful. From where I’m currently sitting, I think it might work well for the foreseeable future. We’ll see. Rosy predictions can be funny, in a not-so-funny way. Still, sometimes it just takes a new perspective to unlock something that was holding me back. It’s not as though time-bounding is a new concept. I just hadn’t considered it as a part of my compositional process.

What other unlocks await?