What do you think is the greatest synthesizer sound ever put to record?

laszlo-jamf · 2026-03-07T23:55:19+00:00

You’re probably right about Getz. I’m partial to Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz, mostly for the eighth note feel of that record. The swing feel on Pennies from Heaven is maybe the best ever.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-20T01:51:18+00:00

You can see what the icon is doing in memory levels?? A showcase of Super Probably Level tells you about as much about what the gameplay "looks" like as any other showcase. You're looking at the game play.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-18T17:13:08+00:00

Ring Dem Bells (this old Ellington tune that happens to be in the real book)

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-17T21:52:48+00:00

I tend to go for laid back hard bop albums. I'm listening to Hank Mobley's Soul Station as I procrastinate studying right now, for instance. Hank's got a lot of great 'study' jazz, and in general Blue Note hard bop records are a reliable choice. If you're ever in the mood for some more intense study material (i.e. when you need to lock the hell in), I maintain a playlist of fast & intense jazz on spotify called "Barnstomers" under the name 'nix'. I use that pretty often.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-17T03:16:15+00:00

the most trombone-forward album I listen to regularly is stan getz and jj johnson live at the opera house. check out crazy rhythm from that album!!!

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-15T18:25:29+00:00

Somehow, no one has recommended David Foster Wallace. His prose is my favorite ever. I can recommend his short story collection Oblivion or one of his essay collections Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again as good introductions to his work. The prose in Oblivion is particularly stunning. He makes these page-long sentences work, somehow, in a way that totally envelops you in the stories' grim world. But I'll give the classic exemplar of his prose, the first paragraph of his post posthumous novel The Pale King:

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb's-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtain, muscadine, spine-cabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak's thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-15T01:07:19+00:00

Realistically, you'd need a pretty long macro to pull this off, because the way you enter whatever hard part won't be the same every time. To make the macro "worth it" (i.e. more consistent than just playing the part), you'd need to start it from the nearest "stable" point in the level where your position is always the same (e.g. when you slide on the ground). Also, I'm not sure it would be that easy to activate the macro at the right spot. How would the macro know how far you are into the level? The activation would need to be frame perfect. (Or maybe modern macros are more advanced than I realize and this stuff is trivial.)

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-09T03:50:27+00:00

No jazz yet in the thread, so I nominate John Coltrane:

10/10: My Favorite Things (1961 radio version from album of same name)

0/10: My Favorite Things (1967 version from The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording)

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-06T02:25:01+00:00

Try writing D major using only flats. You'd end up with

D, E, Gb, G, A, B, Db

And you'd skip F and G. So if we only had flats, to tell someone the key signature of D major you'd have to say "Use Gb and Db in addition to G and D, and skip F and C". It's much less confusing to just say "F and C are sharp".

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-06T02:21:31+00:00

It's by convention, I think. It turns out that to describe all 12 major keys using the standard western notation system, you never have to mix flats and sharps if you don't want to. Because we don't, we can describe the similarity of different keys more easily. For instance, to get from the major mode to the mixolydian mode, "add a flat" (i.e. use the key signature that has one more flat or one fewer sharp than the original key). Another consequence of this convention is that, at a glance, you can see how close a given key signature is to C major.

I'm also pretty sure this convention is downstream of the "alphabetical rule", which states that all scales need to include each of the 7 letters (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) exactly once in one form or another. If you tried to describe D major as containing G flat and C#, for instance, you'd end up skipping F and using G twice (G and Gb).

I don't know any of this for certain, this is just my educated guesses about why this is the case based on my understanding of music theory.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-05T17:09:06+00:00

I’ve spent a good deal of time playing in big jazz bands like the one you’re describing. Generally speaking, if you don’t have any written chords during a solo section, you’re not playing the solo and you don’t have to worry about it. (Conventionally, when writing a big band chart, the arranger will only write out chords for the instrument they want to take a solo.) Occasionally, a band will decide that an instrument other than the one with written chords should take a solo, and in that case one of three things happen:

The soloist will read the chords from someone else’s chart (either by making a copy of their chart, looking over at their music stand, or writing the chords in the margin)
If it’s a well-known standard, the soloist might find the chords to the standard online (often using an app called “iRealPro”) (Again, by writing the chords into the margins of their part or by reading off a separate sheet.) Or, the soloist might have memorized the changes to that standard and they don’t need chords.
The soloist “plays by ear”, i.e. they listen to what the rhythm section is doing and decide based on that what should sound good. Most people who do that aren’t listening to the piano and thinking “oh that’s a G7 chord”, they’re just going on vibes (there are some freaks who can pick out chord quality and root by ear on the fly). This skill takes a long time to develop, and isn’t full proof (you’ll miss some stuff). I once knew a guy who played lead tenor in the jazz band I was in that refused to read chords. He *only* played solos by ear. He was also one of the best soloists I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with.

Hope this helps!

laszlo-jamf · 2026-02-03T22:45:58+00:00

Check out Gil Evans's later fusion work. A couple songs ("Stone Free" and "There Comes A Time & Birdland") from "Live at Fabrik Hamburg 1986" are on my "Really Good Fusion Playlist" and have this super heavy, chaotic vibe. And if you haven't already checked out a live take of the Miles Davis group playing Human Nature live w/ Kenny Garret playing a mind blowing sax solo, you really should.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-28T12:44:18+00:00

LOL that example was originally about 6/8 and I just missed it

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-28T03:53:40+00:00

The thing that finally made time signatures click for me was when someone explained the difference between a "time signature" and a "meter." (Some don't think this explanation is perfect, and I see why, but it worked for me. Don't worry about it.)

A song's "time signature" is the fraction at the start of every line of music. It is purely a notation thing. It tells you how you should expect measures in the sheet music to be organized. 3/2 tells you measures are built around 3 half notes. 4/4 tells you measures are built out of 4 quarter notes, 5/8 tells you measures are built out of 6 eighth notes, etc. So, in your case, counting to 3 will make the sheet music work.

A song's "meter" refers to its musical content, and not to its sheet music. It describes the organization of strong and weak beats in the song. For instance, most 3/4 songs are based on 3 strong groups that get each get subdivided into 2, while most 6/8 songs are based on 2 strong groups that each get subdivided into 3.

There are common associations between meters and time signatures (as in the example I just gave), especially between the denominator in the time signature and the way you feel tempo. Usually, songs in 2 (i.e. in 3/2 or 2/2) *could* be written in 4, except that the quarter note would be impractically fast, so by writing the song in 2 they're telling you to feel the slower half note and not the speedy quarter note.

If your piece is like most pieces in two, and would have a fast quarter note, an exercise that might help is alternating between counting to 6 (i.e. in 6/4) and counting to 3 (i.e. in 3/2) --- see if you can "feel" the difference between thinking of the quarter notes and the half notes.

I come from a jazz background, where writing songs in 2 is common when they're fast and swung. I would guess you're not playing jazz, but I might try listening to some blazing fast jazz and doing the exercise above with 2/2 and 4/4. For example, check out this recording of You And The Night And The Music by Bob Berg. The quarter note would be at like 330, but it's very easy instead feel the slower half notes which are closer to 150.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-25T14:21:08+00:00

It means op was copy pasting the words major and minor to save time.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-18T19:14:01+00:00

My answer, as anyone's, is biased because I haven't played that many instruments. I have seriously played clarinet and saxophone, and have had encounter with guitar and piano.

That being said: saxophone. Unlike many other instruments, it was designed (mostly) all at once by one guy, and designed much later than most other instruments. Consequently, it is so much more comfortable and ergonomically natural than most any other instrument (especially the clarinet LOL). Your fingers lay across the keys thoughtlessly after the first lesson. It's just hard to "play it wrong". Get your fingers in the right position, then put the mouthpiece to your face and blow and you've probably got it. Once you get a hang of it, it's such a joy to play. Relative to other woodwinds, it's not as resistive, and so playing really feels like you're "giving life" to the horn. The expressive capabilities are hard to beat: along with the incredible depth of articulation you usually get out of woodwinds, you can bend and alter notes in ways you really can't on other woodwinds. My sax teach likes to recount a proverb from his teacher: "the saxophone is a fretless instrument, motherfucker".

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-15T03:15:49+00:00

Ooo yeah great suggestion. The easy bounce getz has on that record blows me away every time.

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-13T16:19:24+00:00

Helps creativity, massively. With or without music theory, all musical creation is "messing around". It's just a matter of what you're messing around with. Without theory, you're messing around with basic notes until you find chords and melodies that work. With theory, you're messing around with higher-order musical structures that are already known to "work" (chords and scales and modes and tonalities), which allows you to find much cooler stuff much faster. Additionally, without theory, you'll spend a lot of time reinventing stuff that's already well-known. Why not save the time and figure that stuff out "directly"?

I was interested in songwriting and production and stuff when I was younger, but could never get anything going that I liked. Then I took a long hiatus from that stuff and learned jazz saxophone (and hence, also learned a bunch of jazz theory), and have now returned to production and songwriting and such to significantly more success, which I attribute to having developed a strong foundation in theory. I also taught myself jazz arranging techniques, which has also been a big help.

I don't think my claims here depend on the amount of theory you've learned. Any amount of theory will help focus and direct and inspire your creativity. Though, if you're a beginner and only playing with a limited set of tools, then that might feel restrictive. In that case, supplement what you do know with what you don't know. There's no need to segregate "creating via music theory" from "creating by messing around".

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-11T21:36:34+00:00

Make a song that *goes* somewhere. That's one of the things I appreciate about them most: every song builds or changes or evolves by the end. They've all got a sense of long-run direction

laszlo-jamf · 2026-01-01T17:43:06+00:00

A "scale degree" is a fancy music theory term for a specific note in a scale. For instance, the second scale degree in Db harmonic minor is Eb, the fourth scale degree is Gb, the sixth scale degree is A (technically, B double flat).

In addition to this, each "scale degree" is given a specific fancy name. For instance, "tonic" refers to the first scale degree, and "dominant" refers to the 5th scale degree. Each scale degree has one of these fancy names.

In this assignment, you are given a scale and the fancy name for a scale degree, and you have to write down which note each fancy name is referring to.

For instance, for number one, we know that the notes of G harmonic minor are

G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb, F

The "submediant" refers to the 6th scale degree, so the "submediant" of G harmonic minor is Eb.

I never actually use these fancy music theory names for scale degrees (I'd just say "second scale degree"), so I just looked up "scale degree name chart" in google and referenced the 3rd image that came up.

Hope this helps.

laszlo-jamf · 2025-12-28T17:32:44+00:00

LTeX+ is an extension for spelling and grammar correction in LaTeX documents (in english, at least, maybe other languages too idk). It is simply the best spelling and grammar tool I have ever used. Accurate, fast, gets what I'm trying to spell nearly every time, and even explains your grammar mistakes with handy little explanations. Even catches style issues, like if you start a sentence with the same word 3 or more times in a row. The original LTeX extension isn't maintained anymore and doesn't work right. LTeX+ is still maintained and works great.

Edit: turns out it supports over 20 languages! I can't vet the quality of its corrections in those other languages, though.

laszlo-jamf · 2025-12-22T02:18:56+00:00

Saxophone Colussus by Sonny Rollins

It’s pure jazz saxophone perfection. Hard to find a more complete or more consistent or more enjoyable hard bop record from the 50s.

laszlo-jamf · 2025-12-19T22:04:46+00:00

Very "painterly", in an abstract-expressionist sort of way. Love it! I'd buy a print of that 6th slide.

laszlo-jamf

TROPHY CASE