Arend Lee Jessurun

Category: Uncategorized

  • Spotify is a Digital Landlord

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    Spotify, Apple Music, etc. are rent-seekers. A rent-seeker capitalizes on something freely available, that could have been freely given, and charges a premium for it. Spotify et al are digital music landlords over their vassals, big record companies, and the rest of us serfs, in this new age under an emergent system of oppression which…

  • A Dubious Account of the Invention of Poetry

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    It probably started with some weirdo writing down their thoughts, not using punctuation, but instead organizing thoughts line by line, slightly out of order, indenting some lines, but not others. Oh, and not indenting new paragraphs, because that would make those other indents look rather confusing, but instead showing new groups of new thoughts by…

  • How I Use Obsidian to Pair Lyrics and Melodies

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    Obsidian is a note-taking app that I fell in love with a couple years ago for its ability to connect notes with wiki-style links. In my songwriting practice, I like to use the Dataview plugin for Obsidian to help me link lyrics to tunes and combine lyric fragments. I do this by way of tagging…

  • AI Music Cannot Replace the Joy of Making Music

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    Mikey Shulman, CEO of AI music generation startup Suno, actually thinks people don’t enjoy making music anymore. “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” according to him. “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece…

  • Write About Three Good Things Everyday

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    On Mastodon, there’s a popular hashtag #3threegood things, which people use to create a gratitude list. I’ve been in the habit over doing a daily gratitude list of 10 items, as recommended by a 12 Step program I started several years ago, so I was excited to connect with others about good things in our…

  • My 2024 Recording Highlights

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    2024 was a slow year for me in terms of output. Dealing with fibromyalgia/long COVID greatly limited my ability not just to record, but perform music at all. All this has caused me to reflect on the gift of music and life in general. Recording is documenting life after all, and documentation is great for…

  • Lessons on the Importance of Trying to Share Each Good Idea

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    I don’t believe like some do that ideas are out there floating in the ether—that if you don’t use an idea that comes to you, someone else will. Sure, multiple discovery is a thing, but it seems to be a rare phenomenon. That being said, I have had ideas that I slept on, and songs…

  • The Best YouTube Comment I’ve Ever Seen

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    This comment may be the funniest “found humor” I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I have ever felt so much desperation as one Anthony Rotella. User anthonyrotella8791 on YouTube writes, regarding a chiptune remix, “Beautiful…please add another like…it is at 666 likes.” Beneath the comment is the downward-pointing arrow and the text “1 reply,” beckoning…

  • Imperfection Makes Radical Creativity

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    Imperfection makes radical creativity. It takes the creativity and makes it radical. The world of “good taste” is riddled with classism. Stodgy vocal pedagogues, early detractors from recorded popular and folk music would say (and still do), “You shouldn’t sing like that. You can’t.” They would rather people learn the “right” way to make music.…

  • Random MIDI Mutes and Semi-Generative Drums

    —

    by

    Arend
    in

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of silence in music, and I dreamed up this technique, using a sequencer to more-or-less randomly mute a signal. The idea was to program a beat but then have the sequence be periodically interrupted by silence. I was partly inspired by this tai hirose track. Now you…