Category Archives: Harmonitronica

New pieces and notes about my harmonitronica work — electronica and ambient pieces created almost entirely with the harmonica.

Harmonitronica Geekout: The Hole Story

Posted on February 2, 2012 by ken

Last night I posted my third song for this year’s February Album Writing Month. “This Hole,” along with the previous song, “I’m Not Not Very Concerned,” combined harmonica with loops created in Korg’s iKaossilator, an iPad application.

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Epyphony

Posted on January 7, 2012 by ken

A day late, here’s this week’s ImprovFriday contribution: Epyphony (Three Kings Suite). We three kings disoriented are Guided by an unmoving star Beacon calling morse reminder Hopelessly following yonder star I was always fascinated by the legend of the kings, … Continue reading →

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Send your music out into the world and it will come back to you more wonderful than before

Posted on December 3, 2011 by ken

This was the first week in many months that I was able to contribute a piece to ImprovFriday. And it reminded me why I’ve missed it so much. ImprovFriday is a worldwide online collective of improvisational musicians, using all kinds … Continue reading →

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Fried, a Night

Posted on December 2, 2011 by ken

I’m wiped out after a long week of travelling and running around and wrestling with uncooperative software. But in my travels I acquired another analog synthesis gem, a Moog ring modulator. It’s hard to explain exactly what a ring modulator … Continue reading →

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Harmonitronica, Tradition and Musicianship

Posted on January 11, 2011 by ken

Many people, myself included sometimes, do not understand the connection between the acoustic old-time and blues and bluegrass that I love to play, and the harmonitronica I’ve been spending so much time on lately. For the last few weeks I’ve … Continue reading →

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Nine Sticks

Posted on January 11, 2011 by ken

OK, so you’re all used to the binary jokes by now — and there will be more of them come October. But this is a special moment for everyone that hasn’t happened before in my lifetime and will not happen … Continue reading →

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Fever Dreams

Posted on January 3, 2011 by ken

I celebrated the New Year in bed with a nasty fever, the kind where you sometimes feel well enough to watch TV (or streaming Netflix, in my case), and sometimes just lie there dozing and having bizarre dreams. The soundtrack … Continue reading →

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Waning Gibbous After Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2010 by ken

After a great, but hectic, holiday, I spent a little while today looking at the moon and doing a new harmonitronica piece, “Waning Gibbous.” It’s one of those that began with one idea and mutated completely into at least two … Continue reading →

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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 →

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