Author Archives: ken

Improv Friday

Posted on November 14, 2010 by ken

Yesterday, I made my first contribution to ImprovFriday, an online live-improvisation event that happens every weekend. It’s a harmonitronica piece called “Never Enough Time,” which doesn’t actually feature any harmonica until about a minute into the piece. It began completely … Continue reading →

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Halloween Harmonitronica

Posted on November 1, 2010 by ken

I have a few new harmonitronica pieces online, all created with some new equipment I’m testing out. I’ll write more about this separately, but I have outgrown (or rather, my music has outgrown) the basic delay pedals I’ve been using. … Continue reading →

Posted in Harmonitronica | 1 Comment

Discreet Music, Continued: Ignorable Versus Boring

Posted on October 23, 2010 by ken

An email correspondent asked what I meant in my previous post when I said that Discreet Music is not boring, since it’s not something you could really listen to all the way through. Perhaps a better word would have been … Continue reading →

Posted in Harmonitronica | 1 Comment

Complex Simplicity and Discreet Harmonica

Posted on October 17, 2010 by ken

Benoît Mandelbrot died on Thursday. I hadn’t realized the founder of chaos theory, the man who coined the word “fractal” to describe a concept he had discovered, was still alive. Fractals haven’t even been around for 30 years? But yes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Harmonitronica | 4 Comments

Old-Time and Open-Source

Posted on August 28, 2010 by ken

The other night at a bluegrass jam in Red Hook, a couple of hipsters came in and started singing some old-time songs. They played loud and fast and not terribly well, and didn’t leave much room for others. They played … Continue reading →

Posted in Harmonitronica, Music | 6 Comments

I’m baaaaack….

Posted on August 21, 2010 by ken

Yes, I’m wrapping up one of the longest (and most rewarding) (and most frustrating) jobs I’ve ever done, and looking forward to a summer and fall of music. (And other things, as well, but more about that later.) Remember harmonitronica? … Continue reading →

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A Weekend Spent FAWMing at the Mouth

Posted on March 2, 2010 by ken

Over the weekend I wrote, recorded and posted six songs in two days, to finish February with fifteen new songs. Three of them are not “harmonitronica,” but I do have an even dozen of those, plus a few that I … Continue reading →

Posted in Songs, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Mobile Music

Posted on February 24, 2010 by ken

My eighth song for FAWM is “Interstate (A Mobile Tribute to Ralf und Florian),” which was created entirely on handheld devices, and recorded in the car driving home from upstate this past weekend. Don’t worry, I wasn’t doing anything stupid. … Continue reading →

Posted in Songs, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

“Now Yoko’s gonna do her thing, all over you.”

Posted on February 17, 2010 by ken

Thanks to rosiebird, who wonderfully let me know that it was happening, but then sadly had to work and could not come, I saw Yoko Ono at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music last night, with mary_wroth. I don’t even have … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Finally, a February snow song

Posted on February 12, 2010 by ken

On Wednesday I posted my fifth song for February Album Writing Month, “People Will Not Realize the Peril.” I started every previous FAWM (hard to believe this is my fourth!) with a song about snow. The first year was “Song … Continue reading →

Posted in Songs, Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments