Mark Foley

Musical Space: Stravinsky, Star Trek and a Musical Revolution

Mark Foley — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Igor Stravinsky’s revolutionary ballet The Rite of Spring was premiered 100 years ago this May.

Musical Space: The Most Culturally Important Instrument Since The Electric Guitar

Mark Foley — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:40:01 +0000

The drum machine is the most culturally important new musical instrument since the electric guitar.

Electronic drums have been around for generations, and the early ones sounded like the cheesy rhythm attachments on home organs.

Musical Space: Story Of A Comedic Musical Staple

Mark Foley — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:52:34 +0000

“Shave and a Haircut” is a ditty that has been a part of American culture for more than a hundred years; a sort of musical meme that worked its way deeply into our collective brain. You’ve heard it a million times.

Musical Space: How John Hammond Shaped American Pop Music

Mark Foley — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:47:51 +0000

You might not have heard of John Hammond, but in terms of cultural significance he was arguably the world’s most influential record producer.

At the beginning of his career in the 1930s, largely because of his deep convictions about racial equality and civil rights, Hammond helped shape the the jazz scene.

Musical Space: The Loudness War

Mark Foley — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:53:27 +0000

Makers of pop music have always engineered their songs to sound big and loud. Motown records, for instance, have a legendary, huge sound. Sometimes, though, loudness can be overdone, and this problem seems to be getting worse.

The technology behind this is a device called a compressor. Its job is to keep a volume level consistent. This is great when you want, say, a vocalist to remain audible above the other instruments.

Musical Space: How Beck Is Getting Us To Rethink Recorded Music

Mark Foley — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:14:33 +0000

For two decades now, Beck Hansen has been keeping his music fresh and compelling by never letting it be defined by genre or convention. He gets his listeners to rethink pop formulas by deconstructing, combining and transcending them. Every release by Beck is different from the last one; previous albums have merged and reexamined rock, hip-hop, latin and folk styles. With his latest release, Song Reader, Beck has outdone himself.

Musical Space: Why You Can't Sing 'Happy Birthday' Anytime, Anywhere

Mark Foley — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:24:07 +0000

“Happy Birthday to You” is one of the best known songs in the world, but one rarely hears it in a movie or on TV.

There is a monetary reason for this: “Happy Birthday To You” is copyright protected, and to use it can cost a producer as much as $30,000.

It is incredible to me that the song is not in the public domain, but this is one of those strange stories born at the intersection of popular music and copyright law.

Musical Space: Merch

Mark Foley — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:57:01 +0000

Now that CDs aren’t making money, more of a musician's income is from selling "merch" - merchandise: T-shirts, stickers, guitar picks, etc.

Merch might not be the main part of a band’s revenue stream, but I think it has become a bigger part of the musical experience since the beginning of the digital age.

Merch is essential for the true fan. An MP3 is a transitory and abstract thing; a concert T-shirt on the other hand is tangible and enduring.

Musical Space: Hip Hop

Mark Foley — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:02:19 +0000

Sampling in Hip-Hop reached its height in the late 80s and early 90s. The legality of using samples from someone else’s song was vague; a lot of djs risked being sued, and ended up doing amazing things by putting together quotations of wildly different familiar music.

Four examples of samples that ended up being used by the band De La Soul:

Musical Space: John Cage

Mark Foley — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:30:00 +0000

John Cage, one of the most influential and revolutionary composers of the 20th Century, was born almost exactly 100 years ago. He was very well schooled as a composer, but it seems as though his mission was to reject nearly every compositional technique he was taught, and instead push the boundaries, even the very definition of music. His results were, to say the least, interesting.