Ben McAllister
Minutes
a sketch, a demo, a field recording, something I heard that day, a thought and a picture.
Author
Ben McAllister
Category
Podcast website
Latest episode
Jun 20, 2026
Where to listen?
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Episodes
October 29, 2025 29.10.2025 0:48
Link to the post.
October 28, 2025 28.10.2025 0:57
We went out for brother Kurt's birthday in Tacoma and I saw this awesome paste up collage situation on the side of a building. This seems suitably dark for post #666. Link to the post.
October 27, 2025 27.10.2025 2:39
I've been out every morning in the woods doing deeper listening to music than I have in a while, and I've been pulling together new things for 'ebow choir'. It's super satisfying rendering these Late Renaissance pieces. I caught up with harpist Monica Schley not too long ago, who just published some of Hildegard's piece for Harp. I feel fortunate just to know about this mus...
October 26, 2025 26.10.2025 2:44
This is my arrangement of Bach Chorale BMV 358. The sound of fall. Link to the post.
October 25, 2025 25.10.2025 0:58
Give the kid a megaphone and send them into the woods. Link to the post.
October 24, 2025 24.10.2025 1:47
My niece was over and we played a surreal drawing game - you draw for 3 min, then pass it to me. More fall mood music. Link to the post.
October 23, 2025 23.10.2025 1:04
One element here is called "Deep time at the Stink Factory" or something like that. It vibes very much with the weather here this week. John Stewart made this pic of Chuck Shumer as Mad Max Fury Road guitarist. Link to the post.
October 22, 2025 22.10.2025 1:11
We recorded this demo last night at Caudal Peduncle practice. Diana and I on Vox, Mike on Bass. I hadn't spent time warming up my voice in ages, and I also haven't been in a band since Tuktu where we have people around to do group demos. It was a very gratifying night - took me a long time to get to sleep. Link to the post.
October 21, 2025 21.10.2025 1:22
Dusting off a tune I wrote for C'mon C'mon that never made it into the set. It originally had maybe 9 sections, though I'm trying to minnow it down. Here's where I landed with a new demo last night, at least a minute's worth. Pictured: two of the happiest brothers in the world! Me on the left, Andy on the right. Link to the post.
October 20, 2025 20.10.2025 1:10
Dusting off a tune I wrote for C'mon C'mon that never made it into the set. It originally had maybe 9 sections, though I'm trying to minnow it down. Here's a little guitar demo. Pictured: two hummingbirds this am. Link to the post.
October 19, 2025 19.10.2025 1:01
Thuja realtime practice - messing, and finding bugs in timing still. But the bugs sometimes sound nice. Forgot to post the amazing fall sunset we saw multiple times this week. Note to self - this is from 2025.10.19.Thuja RT Prac. Happy Birthday Danette!!!!! Link to the post.
October 18, 2025 18.10.2025 0:33
A bit of the Port Orchard No Kings protest. Peaceful and funny - safer than a daycare. They like us divided - don't let them do it. "This humorous form of protest, known as tactical frivolity, shows the absurdity of the charge that all the protesters are armed militants" - The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance in the New York Times. My favorite sign (though I didn'...
October 17, 2025 17.10.2025 1:25
Thuja realtime practice - stacked 5ths work for nice voicings. Pictured: I went to a very fancy dentist today, and these are my teeth. Note to self - this is from 2025.10.19.Thuja RT Prac. Link to the post.
October 16, 2025 16.10.2025 1:36
Thuja realtime practice - shaping these textures that come from randomly indexing into longer recordings of ebow'd guitars. I make a minute long sound file, one for each of the twelve pitches, and spend each minute playing that pitch as many ways as I can on guitar, but constraining it as I see fit - here, it's only played with Ebow. "Randomly indexing" means the code pic...
October 15, 2025 15.10.2025 1:02
The Sizzle off Potirna - way better name. I like these chords - my SG samples sound pretty convincing stacked up if I do say so myself. Link to the post.
October 14, 2025 14.10.2025 1:36
Ok the notebook says Stoic is the name but that absolutely sucks. Unsatisfactory. I hear three grinding Djent / Meshuggah parts in a cycle. Note to self: another starting point for realtime that won't work unless you fix your generator-update bug. Link to the post.
October 13, 2025 13.10.2025 0:55
Another Croatia piece, another nice realtime starting point. "Flashes behind Dubrovnik" was this tiny idea written the afternoon after watching three different spiky lightning storms duke it out. Link to the post.
October 12, 2025 12.10.2025 0:56
I was surprised when I heard how decent the sampled guitars sounded in this clip. Another starting point for realtime. I should start naming these - the last few days have either been a piece I called "Between Pržnjak and Trstenik" (these are islands off Korcula in Croatia) or little examples I put in the Thuja repo's examples folder. Snappier titles? Definitely there are mul...
October 11, 2025 11.10.2025 1:06
This little generative idea is a good test for realtime. When I'm livecoding, I'm updating a score that may last for thousands of notes. Though I'm thinking of solving this a different, more elegant way, right now if I make a change to the generator, it regenerates the entire score. Link to the post.
October 10, 2025 10.10.2025 0:46
Previous Thuja demo, to be reworked with my new ability to shape these in realtime. Here's the other of the two spore prints taken this week. Uncle Don passed away this morning - this post goes out to him. Link to the post.
October 9, 2025 09.10.2025 1:16
Previous Thuja demo, to be reworked with my new ability to shape these in realtime. Here's one of the two spore prints taken this week. Link to the post.
October 8, 2025 08.10.2025 1:38
More momentary footswitch work. I feel Hans Reichel a little bit - part of me is on an endless quest to sound like him. He makes these kinds of moves with two-handed tapping on his fretboards, but here I'm pressing a button with my first that lifts everything up a perfect fifth - like an electronic capo. Pictured: Starting my first spore print of the season. Link to the post.
October 7, 2025 07.10.2025 2:36
2 minutes of live thuja goes by fast. These sines will probably sound boring to everyone else but I hear poTENtial baby. Started using Acoustica as an alternative to Adobe Audition today - that's a screenshot. Link to the post.
October 6, 2025 06.10.2025 1:10
A tiny change, but finally a working live coding example for Thuja. I feel unblocked now on finally making some noise about my little comp library. Link to the post.
October 5, 2025 05.10.2025 1:04
I'm obsessed with this tune I found on a Balkanton compilation - Theodosii Spassov "Straight Plovdiv Horo". I've always wanted to learn this ornamentation I've come to know from Ivo Papasov, and I'm thinking maybe I can actually access what's going on here, on guitar. More soon. I gave up multiple times in the past trying to transcribe Ivo! Link to the post.
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