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My Favourite Music of 2022

My Favourite Music of 2022

By Tim on December 31, 2022

My Favourite Music of 2022 Apparently, I need a deadline. On the other hand, waiting until the last minute gives me more listening time. Although I don’t pretend this is the best music of 2022, it is my favourite music of the year (as of right now). For whatever that’s worth. But if you find […]

Posted in music | Tagged 2022, Alvvays, Angel Olsen, Beth orton, Big Thief, Elvis Costello, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Mitski, music, Music Buddy, Orville Peck, Plains, Sadies, Soccer Mommy, Wet Leg, Wilco

My Favourite Music of 2021

My Favourite Music of 2021

By Tim on December 30, 2021

My Favourite Music of 2021 Some years, I have a hard time picking a favourite album. Not this year. Cassandra Jenkins’s An Overview on Phenomenal Nature came out in February and has been in heavy rotation ever since. She creates such a mood with these intimate and atmospheric songs and my love for this album hasn’t waned […]

Posted in music | Tagged 2021, Arlo Parks, Cassandra Jenkins, Dry Cleaning, Julien Baker, Justin Townes Earle, Lucy Dacus, music, Steve Earle, Still Corners, Sun June, The Hold Steady, The War on Drugs, The Weather Station | 2 Responses

Some Music I Loved in 2018

Some Music I Loved in 2018

By Tim on December 31, 2018

While I’m sure my musical diet becomes less and less relevant with each passing year, irrelevancy never stopped me before. So here goes. (And if you want to listen while you read, here’s a Spotify playlist.) I’m going to start with Boygenius, the EP that represents the theme of much of the music I listened […]

Posted in music | Tagged 2018, anna burch, boygenius, Elvis Costello, Haley Heynderickx, Jane Gowan, Laura Gibson, Lucy Dacus, Mitski, music, Neko Case, The Beths, The Real Shade, Wye Oak

The Music I Loved in 2017

The Music I Loved in 2017

By Tim on December 30, 2017

  The Music I Loved in 2017 The older I get, the harder it is for me to keep up with all the new music that comes out. Both parts of that sentence are hard for me to admit. Fortunately, I’m practiced at denial. So, with that caveat, here’s a look back at my year […]

Posted in music | Tagged Aimee Mann, Alison Crutchfield, Alvvays, best of 2017, Big Thief, Cigarettes After Sex, Craig Finn, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Jason Isbell, Jay Som, Molly Burch, music, Sharon Jones, The Mountain Goats, The National, The War on Drugs, Valerie June, Waxahatchee | 1 Response

Good Listening in 2016

Good Listening in 2016

By Tim on December 30, 2016

  Since I devoted most of the year to promoting my new book, Bad Singer, perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking I spent more time talking about music than actually listening to it. But it only felt that way. In fact, when I look back, I listened to a lot of great music this year. […]

Posted in music | Tagged 2016, Angel Olsen, Basia Bulat, Bon Iver, car seat headrest, David Bowie, Esme Patterson, Garbage, Hamilton Leithauser, k.d. lang, Kevin Morby, Laura Gibson, Laura Veirs, Leonard Cohen, Lucy Dacus, Margaret Glasby, Mitski, music, Neko Case, Nick Cave, Tanya Tagaq, Thao, Tindersticks, Wilco

Media Round-up #3

Media Round-up #3

By Tim on December 30, 2016

Bad Singer is still popping up in the media so here’s another round-up as 2016 comes to a close. Year-end Lists “A music fan who can’t carry a tune to save his life, Falconer digs into the science of singing, offering himself up as a guinea pig along the way. He might be a terrible […]

Posted in Bad Singer, books, music | Tagged amusia, bad singer, books, how we hear music, music, music and the brain, music science, tone deafness

A Bad Singer Playlist

By Tim on May 3, 2016

A Bad Singer Playlist “Writing about music,” Martin Mull quipped, “is like dancing about architecture.” Part of the problem, of course, is that the reader wants to hear what the writer is going on about. And, inevitably, I refer to many, many songs in Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We […]

Posted in Bad Singer, music | Tagged bad singer, Elvis Costello, isobel campbell, Joe Strummer, Johnny cash, Mark Lanegan, music, Neko Case, Otis Redding, rolling stones, Shuggie Otis, timbre, tone deafness, Wagner

The terroir of sound

The terroir of sound

By Tim on April 16, 2016

The terroir of sound Timbre — the terroir of sound — is crucial to how we hear music. But we don’t talk about it much because, unlike pitch, it has so far proven to be immune to measurement. The fine folks at Hazlitt, the excellent digital publication, have posted a Bad Singer excerpt that explains timbre’s role in music.

Posted in Bad Singer, music | Tagged bad singer, how we hear music, music, music cognition, music science, terroir of sound, timbre

The music I loved in 2015

The music I loved in 2015

By Tim on January 11, 2016

The music I loved in 2015 I spent 2015 finishing up a book called Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music. So while I thought a lot about how we listen to music, I didn’t have as much free time to actually listen to it as I usually do. Sure, I […]

Posted in Bad Singer, music | Tagged Courtney Barnett, how we hear music, music, Wilco

The Globe and Mail names Bad Singer to most anticipated books list

By Tim on January 10, 2016

The Globe and Mail names Bad Singer to “most anticipated books” list

Posted in Bad Singer, books, music, writing | Tagged amusia, bad singer, how we hear music, music, music and the brain, music science, singing, tone deafness

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