Four Weeks in Detroit

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My name is Marilyn McNeal and I am a musician and electronic music producer who is working on experimental music, American roots music, sounds art and sound design.

SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/marilynmcneal/sets

Twitter https://twitter.com/popularmagicsf

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/rootsmusic76/videos

Tumblr http://loveoftheunderdog.tumblr.com/

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I decided to come to Detroit for four weeks to explore the city and it’s history firsthand while spending time working on some new music. Fortunately, my music studio is portable: laptop, soundcard, headphones, sequencer / controller so I can work on producing new soundscapes and song wherever I go. I use Ableton Live for most things but enjoy exploring iOS music making with my ancient iPad 2. Apps I am using are: Auxy, Loopy, Garageband, Arturia iSEM, Boom 808, Bebot, Sector, Fiddlewax and Mogees. I have BeatWave and am excited to play with it. My friend Jeff just turned me on to Yamaha’s TNR-i app. Looking forward to exploring that too. photo credit: Garrett MacLean

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Video I took in an abandoned building in the Poletown neighborhood of Detroit.

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Video I took in an abandoned building in the Poletown neighborhood of Detroit.

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Sound check at #DIA #music #mauquiros #tango #astorpiazzolla #theoblivionproject #detroit #diegorivera #art by theoblivionproject https://instagram.com/p/5UsYQpoeo6/

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THE OBLIVION PROJECT is dedicated to the performance of the music of Astor Piazzolla. Over the past decade we have appeared in concert halls and jazz clubs for very enthusiastic audiences.

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Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, three early techno music pioneers known as The Belleville Three. Here is a great article on Beatport about documentaries about Detroit techno. My greatest discovery in Detroit has been the origins of techno music. I had heard music influenced by early Detroit techno but didn't know anything about the origins. this trip really opened my eyes. Thank you, Detroit.

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Video: The Detroit Graduates

Attention shifted away from Detroit after it emerged from bankruptcy. For five high school students, life has moved on, sometimes in unexpected ways, as the city struggles to get back on its feet.

I saw this video and posted it in November 2015. Below are posts from four weeks I spent in Detroit while I was researching techno music and working on my own music.

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Great article on electronic dance music (EDM) production

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I found dETROITfUNK,, a photo blog about Detroit while I was doing some research.

Another one is DetroitMoxie,/p>

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I biked by this building at least eight times during my stay in Detroit. I finally looked it up and learned about its amazing history. The building is called The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Building. It was constructed at W. Grand River and Cass in downtown Detroit in 1897 as a meeting place for GAR activities. The GAR was a social club and community center for veterans from the Civil War. In 1934, the city of Detroit took control of the building because the Civil War vet population was dimishing and the building was underused. The city moved a division of Detroit’s Welfare Department into the building. "In the early 1940s, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department turned the GAR Building into a rec center and meeting hall for groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and after-school dance troupes. But as Detroit started to bleed jobs and population, Mayor Coleman Young shuttered the GAR Recreation Center in 1982. For nearly three decades, vandals, urban explorers and thrill-seekers would storm the castle. Some taking only photos, others raiding the castle for artifacts and wiring." EXCERPT FROM: Detroit Free Press, Dan Austin Brothers Tom and David Carleton and their business partner Sean Emery worked with the city of Detroit to purchase and rehabilitate the building. Here's an article from August 2014 discusses the progress the new owners have made in restoring the building.

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I was eating outside of Whole Foods and I happened to have my violin with me. A woman sitting nearby told me about Urban Strings. One of my goals is to meet the founder and possibly volunteer next summer. ABOUT URBAN STRINGS "Urban Stringz II Youth Ensemble (USII) was founded in 2007 by Cecelia Sharpe, music educator and conductor. The mission of Urban Stringz II is to enhance student’s musical talents and abilities in addition to exposing them to our culturally rich and diverse society. We recognize the tremendous value exposure to music education plays in helping to form and shape the foundation of the lives of young people, and with the absence of music programs in many schools, USII fulfills that need for students."

[fourweeksindetroit]

My name is Marilyn McNeal and I am a musician and electronic music producer who is working on experimental music, American roots music, sounds art and sound design. SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/marilynmcneal/sets Twitter https://twitter.com/popularmagicsf YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/rootsmusic76/videos Tumblr http://loveoftheunderdog.tumblr.com/

[fourweeksindetroit]

I decided to come to Detroit for four weeks to explore the city and it's history firsthand while spending time working on some new music. Fortunately, my music studio is portable: laptop, soundcard, headphones, sequencer / controller so I can work on producing new soundscapes and song wherever I go. I use Ableton Live for most things but enjoy exploring iOS music making with my ancient iPad 2. Apps I am using are: Auxy, Loopy, Garageband, Arturia iSEM, Boom 808, Bebot, Sector, Fiddlewax and Mogees. I have BeatWave and am excited to play with it. My friend Jeff just turned me on to Yamaha's TNR-i app. Looking forward to exploring that too. photo credit: Garrett MacLean

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I lucked out and through two old friends who had moved to Detroit 8 years ago, I landed on Farnsworth Street, in a section of Detroit called Poletown East. Farnsworth has a unique story of renewal that centers around the efforts of a man named Paul Weertz. The Detroit Metro Times did a great piece about Paul in May 2015. Check it out here. Among other things, Paul was a math and science teacher at Catherine Ferguson Academy, a Detroit school for teenage mothers. The story of this successful school was told in the 2010 documentary Grown in Detroit. Pictured above is a building Paul owns on Farnsworth and Moran that was home to an experimental art center called The Yes Farm and is now a bike shop open on Sundays.

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The porch of the house where I was staying. Farnsworth is a friendly, close knit block.

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One of the first things I encountered on my ride in to the city from the airport was the appearance of burnt out, boarded up and run down buildings and houses . . . everywhere. A radio program on WDET provided some numbers that put what I was seeing in perspective. WDET is Detroit's public radio station run through Wayne State University. In Detroit, there is 40 square miles of vacant land, 100,000 vacant lots and 80,000 empty buildings. The situation of the run down and vacant houses is referred to as "urban blight." There has been a lot of attention in recent years to Detroit's decline. Here is a Wikipedia article covering the topic.

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Award winning story about how Detroit's financial troubles developed. Project credits Editors Nancy Andrews — managing editor/digital media Christopher Kirkpatrick — business editor Eric Millikin — multimedia arts director Lead reporters Nathan Bomey, John Gallagher — staff writers Graphic Artists Martha Thierry — assist. editor multimedia arts Moses Harris, Kofi Myler, David Pierce — staff artists Brian Todd — web editor Contributing editor Nancy M. Laughlin — managing editor/news Contributing reporters Peter Gavrilovich, Kristi Tanner Copy editors Gerry Skora, Elizabeth Vandenboom Picture editor Rose Ann McKean Videographers Romain Blanquart, Kimberly P. Mitchell Print designer Tim Good