The Book

Several readers have requested that I reorganize this blog so it’s easier to follow. Turns out the best way to read the entire thing is in forward chronological order — I had a book in mind the whole time I wrote it, and was careful to lay the groundwork for each concept before I presented…

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Premature Nostalgia: Making Friends With Equal Temperament

I just recorded a new song, and it’s a perfect example of how equal temperament and just intonation can get along together. Here’s the cut:   Reading this blog might give you the impression that I’m “against” equal temperament and “for” just intonation, or untempered music. True, discovering untempered music has been like sailing to…

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“Untempered” vs. “Just Intonation”

Even though I love just intonation, I have a couple of problems with the term itself. One is grammatical. It’s a noun, and sometimes I want an adjective, as in “the just intonation version compared with the equal tempered version.” Kind of awkward. How else would you say this? “Justly intonated”? “The version in just…

Calendar Page

I’ve added a new page with places and times you can come hear and see this music live. If you’d like to be on my regular mailing list, please let me know through the contact page. I send out a few emails a month, mostly about upcoming shows, occasionally with other news. I’m excited about…

Summary (So Far)

I messed around with electronics quite a bit as a kid. I’d put things together according to diagrams, and if they didn’t work, I’d change something and see what happened, and get a feeling for what was happening inside the black box. When I started doing audio electronics in earnest, I found the oscilloscope. Here’s…

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Beauty is Truth

It may be Keats’ most famous pair of lines: ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ I believe he’s right on the money. I think that when we experience beauty, it’s because we have seen a little deeper into the nature of things. This seems…

Back Story

Music is the thread that stitches my life together. I was born singing, as are we all. My parents loved to sing and they both had beautiful voices. They met in a musical play in college. I remember our house as being filled with music, especially jazz and harmony vocals. Stan Kenton, the Mills Brothers, Sons…