An area of special focus for me is the intersection of new technology and musical experience. I am a contributing producer for WNYC’s Studio 360. From 2005-2008, I produced the Listening In series on “Weekend America.” From 2002-2005, I produced the “Walkman Busting” radio documentary series on WNYC’s “The Next Big Thing.” I was a original member in the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community, taking part in the first NIME workshop at CHI2001 and actively participating in the development of the conference through 2007, when I was Papers Chair at NIME2007 in New York.

I teach in the graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where I have been since 2000. I currently teach the thesis seminar for graduating students. I created two curricula for ITP – “Interactive Computing in Public Places” and “New Interfaces for Musical Expression.”

In the 1990s, I worked with ethnomusicologist and folklorist Alan Lomax on the Global Jukebox, an illustrated database of world song and dance styles. I am currently on the board of the Association for Cultural Equity, the foundation founded by Alan Lomax and currently headed up by Anna Lomax Wood. Writings include “Recycling Music, Answering Back: Toward an Oral Tradition of Electronic Music” (NIME 2004 Proceedings) and “Alan Lomax and the Big Story of Song,” (Rounder Records CD1863). I have a BA in Music with Special Honors from the University of Chicago.

Contact: gideon – at – listeningin – dot – org

In this special all-iPod episode of “Walkman Busting,” we listen in with:
1) RENE, a Cuban immigrant who loves Cher because she always changes, hates Cuban music “because it always stays the same.”
2) LIZ, a radical student listening to underground hiphop artist and political activist Saul Williams.
3) TAMSIN, who tunes us into her “Treadhop” (her own term) playlists, specially devised for hip hop dancing on the treadmill.
4) JEFF, who turns us on to four different jazz versions of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön”
Original Broadcast

These busts include some goth-rave kids still out on the town from the night before, clad in party gear. Morgana interprets the tough and bleak lyrics of R&B singer Jo, while the ever-upbeat “Seven” regales us with some underground music that hasn’t “surfaced” yet. Fifty feet away from this scene, a jazz musician born in the same month and city as altoist Stan Getz pays tribute to his household god.

Original Broadcast

In this episode, we first encounter a young woman listening to the one-stringed berimbao of capoeira music.  She is an avid practitioner of the Brazilian martial art dance.  Fifty feet away, we meet a couple of rocker girls in high-school who complain about the “weird cult-like music” of the Brazilian capoeristas. The revere Korn and System of a Down.  We also hear froma bonafide groupie of Frank Zappa, who introduced him to the found sound of John Cage and Edgar Varese while in a dressing room on the road.

Original Broadcast

Busts on the train include Sister with her nephew and niece, who were returning from Sing-Sing prison where they visited Sister’s son in jail.  She is listening to Jaheim’s “Keep Your H-E-A-D-U-P.”  Also, Elijah, a college radio DJ listening to “emo” punk, who tells tales of the mosh pit.  Finally, a man who has just unleashed his 70s LP collection from its slumber and tranferred it to his MP3 player deals with all the memories.

Original Broadcast

These busts include a man deeply involved in his “Disney’s Greatest Hits” compilations who is especially adept at interpreting the lyrics from “The Little Mermaid.”  Another self-described “dinosaur” listens to the likes of Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters.  He calls Rosemary Clooney’s “Mambo Italiano” rock and roll.  Lastly, a man into Tony, Tone, Toni and Earth, Wind and Fire reminisces about the days when the city streets were filled with the sounds of boomboxes.

Original Broadcast