How to Find New Music, and How to Make New Music Come to You

I hardly ever sit down and decide to find something new. I’ve built a lifestyle that delivers new music straight to me. My best advice is to start working on yours. I won’t say this is a comprehensive list of options, because unless I start a career in A&R I just don’t have time to perfect a ritual. For now, I’m just answering the loaded question, “How do you find new music?”

How To Write About Music: A Definitive Method

This is a technique I learned in music school, from one or maybe two teachers who taught a class on musical analysis. It can work on any body of music in any style: I’ve used it to talk about “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra, the sociological importance of A Tribe Called Quest (using the album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm as an example), and a Ghanian folk song I had absolutely no background on, including a lyrical translation. The Music Map lets you dissect and diagram every part of a song and assign meaning to it. Then, when you’ve fully formed your understanding of the core essence you want to talk about, it gives you a chart of exactly how to write about it.