Panel Discussion: Future of Music

From apps to guitar gear to distribution platforms

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The recent San Francisco MusicTech Summit held, on May 28, a panel on “The Future of Music Creation Tools,” featuring **Daniel Walton** of app developer Retronyms, **Sam Valenti** of the Ghostly label and new [Drip.FM](http://Drip.FM) platform, sound designer **Dot Bustelo**, and musician **Dweezil Zappa**. The panel was moderated by Billboard magazine writer **David Downs**. The panelists come at it from various, complementary directions, from iOS apps to guitar gear to distribution platforms, and there’s a heavy emphasis on practical applications, which in this heady field can be usefully grounding.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/sfmusictech](https://soundcloud.com/sfmusictech/future-of-music-creation-tools). More on the panelists at [zappa.com](http://zappa.com), [retronyms.com](http://retronyms.com), [dotbustelo.com](http://dotbustelo.com), and [ghostly.com](http://ghostly.com).

Repetition, Change, and Somewhere in Between

A track by Chicago's Vapor Lanes

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

**Vapor Lanes**’ “Appearing” is little more than a few notes on repeat, but that little goes a long way. The cycle of these notes is such that one can get vaguely lost in the proceedings, wondering where one is at in the rotation, whether there has been melodic variation. Repetition is a form of change because the brain fills in the resulting blanks. A track like “Appearing” plays with those faculties by introducing just enough variation — a late-arriving bass line of sorts, tweaks to the original phrasing, intermittent grace notes — to throw off the listener’s memory. The notes settle into the background because they hover halfway between fuzzy and percussive, each sounding like a harpsichord made of dusty synthetic feathers, each isolated event a soft utterance that gently merges into the track’s white-noise foundation.

https://soundcloud.com/vaporlanes/appearing

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/vaporlanes](https://soundcloud.com/vaporlanes/appearing). Vapor Lanes is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Birds Amid the Birds (MP3)

Eight minutes of birds and what they sing amid

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Eight minutes of unadulterated, unmediated bird song, ripe with chirping, and contextual circumstance. Listen through intently for what is amid the layers of song, the dappling of these percussive, repetetive chirps as they are repeated by countless other birds further and further into the distance, and listen again for everything that happens amid them, the moving of objects, the passing of cars. Over time, a scene takes shape — no linear narrative, and the birds sing on.

https://soundcloud.com/bovinelife/raw-chaffinch

Track by **Christopher Dooks**, originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/bovinelife](https://soundcloud.com/bovinelife/raw-chaffinch). Dooks lives in Glasgow and Ayr, Scotland. More from him at [dooks.org](http://www.dooks.org/).

A 22-Minute Wave (MP3)

Peaceful and annoying, sinuous and pulsating

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Many works of exploratory sound and music are recipes for what the works contain, from the names of modular patches to Fluxus-like instructions. In the case of **Roman Strange**’s “pure 528 hz for 22 minutes. for love and dna repair.” the track is exactly what it suggests itself to be. After 30 second of slow build, and before a 30-second fade, this is 528 hz for 22 straight minutes. It is peaceful and annoying, sinuous and pulsating, languorous and full of inward momentum. Adds Stange in a brief liner note: “there are no hippy drums or new age stuff.”

https://soundcloud.com/romanstange/pure-528-hz-for-22-minutes-for

Originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/romanstange](https://soundcloud.com/romanstange/pure-528-hz-for-22-minutes-for). Stange is based in San Francisco, California.

Tape-less Tape Music (MP3)

A mechanical field recording by Leicestershire-based Matt Nix

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20130614-tapemusic

There are two hard mechanical punches, in between which sits an extended, attenuated tension. The hard punch and near-silent attenuation complement each other, and bring each other into relief. On repeated listen, the crunch presents a mental image along the lines of an ancient marble step: at first a single, hard, square jut, but on closer inspection one riddled with tiny fissures — steps within steps. As for the space in between the two punches, it is an engineer’s rendering of still water that runs deep, the quiet clearly the result of something that might, at any moment, snap.

https://soundcloud.com/mattnix/transport-whine

What it all is is the sound of a tape cassette machine’s transport, pictured up top in a patent drawing and described by the recordist, **Matt Nix**, as a “whine,” which seems quite appropriate. The recording, just 1:12 in length, is accompanied by Nix’s utilitatian haiku:

>total shut off won’t go quietly
>
>motor whine and belt slip

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/mattnix](https://soundcloud.com/mattnix/transport-whine). Nix is from Leicestershire, Great Britain. Tape mechanism image via [google.co.uk/patents](http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US4257547).