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This is really all I need in life

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That time I sort of got arrested

Hey kids, don't drink and drive. It could cost you $10,000. Photo by the super cool documentary photojournalist Jessica Dimmock (whose work on a group of young heroin users is pretty stunning) for the Ad Council.

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30 Rock Guest Star Wall

The other day I was shooting on a Silvercup stage and couldn't help gawking at a wall filled with signatures and graffiti from guest stars on NBC's 30 Rock, which was shot there. Two of my favorites, Tom Hanks & Moby:

Another fun occurrence from the day was listening in on a table-read for The Michael J. Fox Show on the stage next to ours. Oh, and of course Betsy Brandt running around the studio hugging people at random was pretty cool too.

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Sting's Bass line on Roxanne

I was stunned recently by the rhythmic interplay between Sting's bass line and sung line on the song Roxanne. I literally had to stop walking, close my eyes, and concentrate to really grasp it all. This song is a master class on how to coordinate a few musical elements and yet never become boring. See also Stewart Copeland's shifting the snare from beats 2 & 4 to 1-2-3-4 at around 2:50. Pure Genius Anyway, If you're like me you have to see it to believe it, so I set about to score them out. Here's a few measures with the guitar part thrown in.

Unfortunately playing bass and singing like Sting is much harder than it looks.

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Cool Fader Magazine Profile by Kyle Dean Reinford

When asked to document his inspirations as a photographer, Kyle Dean Reinford decided to shoot other artists doing their thing. 

From the Fader Magazine photo story, he caught me at home studying the score of a new musical.

Other featured artists include James Bay and Folk Band, Bear’s Den, Eric Ryan Anderson, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, and Sarah Stanley. 

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How I Process Rejection

Some people bake. Some drink enough to forget. This is my story: Yesterday my agent received a fairly flat rejection from a high-profile director on an upcoming project involving music. Vague enough for you? Over the past month I'd worked countless hours on a pretty random collection of instruments for the show, and its tempting to think it was all for not. Except that it wasn't. In honor of my last month's work I made this:

In Order of Apperance

Guitar

Banjo

Clarinet

Trombone

Trumpet

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Audition Tapes from NBC's "The Office"

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Stop Working For Free

In a brilliant New York Times Op-Ed, Tim Kreider offers the following fill-in-the-blank form letter for artists:

Thanks very much for your compliments on my [writing/illustration/whatever thing you do]. I'm flattered by your invitation to [do whatever it is they want you to do for nothing]. But [thing you do] is work, takes time, it's how I make my living, and in this economy I can't afford to do it for free. I'm sorry to decline, but thanks again, sincerely, for your kind words about my work. 

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Rich English People Music

Few words capture the spirit of Christmas-in-England like this photo and text from the back of a Christmas with Ronnie Aldrich LP:

If you were a rich, jet-setting dreamer for whom the holiday time of Christmas offered a week of snow-white pleasure at some fabulous winter resort anywhere in the world

If you spent your day on skates and skis, and rode over mountain passes in a cable car and met a beautiful girl you wished to later wine and dine

If you both skied by torch light that night and were caught in a storm and took shelter in a log cabin to wait out the weather, and there was a phonograph machine there

Then, this is the record that would keep you both in love. 

  btw, the music is quite good

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New Video With Domino Magazine's Sara Costello

In honor of Target's new Threshold collection, Sara Costello threw a killer party for a gathering of Brooklyn-based artists, designers & general do-gooders. My banjo and I showed up for a little moral support. All pieces featured are from Target's new line. On the technical side, this video (a spinoff from the larger commercial campaign) was directed by Philip Andelman and shot by Girl's (HBO) Jodi Lee Lipes. Sara's 5 entertaining tips from Domaine Home

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Ice Ice Baby vs Under Pressure

Somewhere in the third year of music school a student realizes they can use their burgeoning skills of music notation for good or evil. Today I use mine for good and put an end to a nagging childhood debate. As Vanilla Ice points out in the video below, the bass lines for his Ice Ice Baby & Queen + David Bowie's Under Pressure are not identical. But didn't you always wonder what the difference was? Here they are notated:

For those counting at home, the last 8th note in the first measure of Ice Ice Baby constitutes the only variation. Mr. Ice was not technically wrong:

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Interesting Video About the Demise of Coffee

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New Ad Where I Pretend to be a Violinist

I play a bunch of different instruments; violin is not really one of them. Yet anyway. 

Photo: Jeff Riedel 

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

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David Foster Wallace on That/Which/Who/Whom

For writers, the abstract rule that that introduces restrictive elements and which introduces nonrestrictive elements is probably less helpful than the following simple test: If there needs to be a comma before the rel. pron.,  you need which; otherwise, you need that ... Misusing that for who or whom, whether in writing or speech, functions as a kind of class-marker—it's the grammatical equivalent of wearing NASCAR paraphernalia or liking pro wrestling.

- David Foster Wallace  

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A New Blues Tune

Its hot today. So why not sing about it.

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Béla Bartók's Business Card

The Hungarian composer's card consisted of his signature plus an impromptu composition, the likes of which he often passed to friends and fans. Eager to hear this little ditty, I played it out below. Typical Bartók.

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String Orchestration Cheat Sheet

Rimsky-Korsakov's quick reference chart for scoring orchestral strings