Most famous for his songwriting in the new wave band The Suburbs, Emmy-winning composer Chan Poling has gravitated lately to performing pop music from other iconic songwriters. His jazz trio, The New Standards, features Chan on piano, John Munson (of Semisonic fame) on bass, and Steve Roehm on vibes. In episode 26 of Composer Quest, Chan talks with me about his arranging, songwriting, and film scoring.
A Composer Quest listener in Taiwan, J. Wilson, just sent me this time-lapse video of himself composing music. We see the entire process from the sketches in his notebook to his finished piece. 6,000+ photos later and "Boom! Sonata."
Songwriter Warren Hildebrand of Foxes in Fiction has a special sensory gift. He experiences images and color when he listens to certain music, and hears tones when he sees certain images. In this episode of Composer Quest, we talk about Warren's synesthesia and how it shades his music making. Warren Continue reading... 
Dr. Mary Beth Huttlin is not only a talented composer and clarinetist, but she's also gifted perceptually. She has perfect pitch and a constant stream of melodies in her head to draw from. Mary Beth also experiences auditory-visual synesthesia, meaning she perceives colors when she hears music. In episode 24 of Composer Quest, Mary Beth talks with me about how these gifts affect the way she listens to and makes music. We also discuss why Bach is possibly the coolest composer ever.
Take a listen to this recording of shaking matches and you will certainly be creeped out by the three-dimensional audio effect created by using a binaural dummy head microphone.
Prolific composer Mary Ellen Childs writes music for everything from orchestral instruments to zippers. In episode 23 of Composer Quest, she shares her creative process, which often involves bouncing ideas off of her experimental percussion ensemble Crash. Mary Ellen brings us behind the scenes of a few of her major works, including Click, Dream House, Wreck, and an upcoming project which will combine scents and music.
Your Composer Quest quest, should you choose to accept it, is to arrange a pop song or movie/TV theme for the Twin Cities Trio (Maia Hamann on bassoon, Karen Jennings on oboe, and Mary Beth Huttlin on clarinet). They're looking for fun tunes to perform for children in schools.
This is so cool. Someone hooked up a sine wave generator to a hose of water and filmed the results. The water appears to create magical physics-defying coils.
Rapper and poet Dessa somehow found time to join me over the phone for Composer Quest Episode 21, in the midst of her nationwide tour (SXSW, New Orleans, Nashville, etc.). I was honored to talk with Dessa about her creative process of writing and arranging hip hop songs.
Nothing too serious in tonight's post, just that I had been playing the classic Nintendo game Excitebike this weekend and got the theme stuck in my head. I thought I'd try and write out Akito Nakatsuka's theme in sheet music form, in case somebody out there wants to learn how to play it on piano.