June 2025·AI, composition, tools, ethics
On AI and Music...
Neither all bad nor all good. We would be crazy not to use it — but there is a large 'but'.
granular.forms
Thoughts on composition, listening, technology, and the creative process. Words that extend beyond the work itself.
Writings
June 2025·collaboration, process, teaching
On Collaboration...
What collaboration actually is, how it is learned, and why it might be the most important thing I do.
June 2025·creation, teaching, practice
On Creation...
Creation is in reach of everyone, at any age. I've had the privileged spot to watch this happen, as both collaborator and teacher.
January 2025·composition, politics, avant-garde, history, conservatism, republished
Conservative Trends (or You Can't Get Here From There)
Written in 1989 and published in a music journal under the name Carl Harrison. The arguments about cycles of experimentation and conservatism in music feel remarkably current. The names have changed but the dynamics haven't.
November 2024·health, Movember, prostate cancer, PSA test
The Real Scary Truth About Prostate Cancer – A Movember Story
You know what's the scariest thing about prostate cancer? Not the biopsy, not the treatments, not the side effects. A simple blood test that takes less time than ordering a coffee.
March 2018·composition, teaching, pedagogy, Klaus Huber
My (Belated) Klaus Huber Story
Centre Acanthes 1993: fresh in from a year in Denmark studying composition with Per Nørgård, Karl Aage Rasmussen and Hans Abrahamsen, I found myself in the south of France just outside Avignon...
October 2016·politics, film, 1980s, Zizek
Put the Glasses ON
My new motto. Ray Nelson's Eight O'Clock in the Morning, John Carpenter's They Live, and Slavoj Žižek's A Pervert's Guide to Ideology — on seeing what's actually there.
July 2016·art, music, teaching, Oscar Wilde
Nobody Cares If You Listen
I tell my young undergraduate students that they must persevere. Stay the course — because no one cares if they succeed. Especially us.
June 2016·Stockhausen, Jonathan Harvey, analysis, book
The Music of Stockhausen by Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey looks at and decrypts the early work of Karlheinz Stockhausen. 144 pages, approachable and succinct — a great book to have at hand.
June 2016·definition, Max, sonic arts, Imperfect Tense
define: patch
patch /paCH/ — a piece of material used to mend or cover a hole or a weak spot. A small piece. A temporary connection in a communication system. Where connections are made from anything to anything.
June 2016·teaching, Art Zoyd, collaboration, pedagogy, sonic arts
Teaching Sonic Arts: Collaboration
Reflections on co-leading an electroacoustic composition course at Art Zoyd Studios in Valenciennes, France — on collaborative teaching and teaching collaboration.
May 2016·sonic arts, teaching, definition
Defining Sonic Arts…
Or: Sonic Arts for Dummies (a work in progress). How do you describe Sonic Arts? What is it, how does it work? What do you do with it?
May 2002·collaboration, computer music, IRCAM
Musical Assistant or Producer? Sketch of a New Profession
A 2002 paper co-written with Manuel Poletti and Tom Mays for the Journées d'Informatique Musicale in Marseille. An early attempt to name and define what we were all doing — and why it mattered.