Looking Up
We moved from South Hampton, NH, to Newton Junction, NH, when I was three years old. Both houses were on quiet, wooded streets… and both were colonial houses with sloping floors and multiple additions over their years, and both had large old barns… and bats. My dad taught American history and my mom worked for the agency that accredited secondary schools. They were products of elite schools, my mom went from…
This is my confused face / On being a fan
I’m am completely fascinated by Kanye West’s situation. His last album, Donda, was streamed a zillion times (well, 60 million the first day and then on up) and as a follow up he decided he wanted to do something boutique. He released “Donda 2” as stems, essentially four discrete tracks of audio (drums, vocals, etc.) which the listener can interact with by controlling the levels of the individual parts, or muting…
Don’t ever change, I like you just the way you are…
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines” – Emerson What IS change, exactly? I mean, given that time is moving right along, isn’t it impossible for any thing to be the thing it was a moment ago? Let me back up… or at least get more specific. A lot of the music I make has, either buried in it or overtly…
The Initial Disturbance
The initial disturbance is, according to the interwebs (which are always correct), the thing that sets a ripple into motion. A stone dropping into water, an unexpected message, or a new piece of music can set ripples into motion that last for years. I’ve experienced a few time ripples in the past couple of weeks, waves of deep history coming around into the current moment in unexpected ways, and as a…
Collaborating with the Medium, or, How the Container Shapes the Art
I love Hipstamatic. It’s a brilliant little app on my phone that acts like an old Polaroid camera. I take a shot and Hipstamatic applies a bit of processing to it and puts a nice little frame around the image. And then I’m done. The frame and the processing basically prohibit me from doing anything to the image after the moment I take it. I get so much enjoyment out of…
Snapshots: The Piano and Me
I started playing piano in high school around 1985 or so. I’m not sure what led me to it, but from the very beginning I felt like sitting at a piano was an opportunity to collaborate, an opportunity to converse with a machine made only for expression. My lessons hit an early dead end when it became clear that my teacher had little interest in feeling, something I learned later is…
The Fragility of Flow
Roadblocks, the muse, and an unexpected descent into lunacy My professional career has generally been one of removing obstacles to the creativity of others. I’m sure it was my theatre training that taught me to hide the nuts and bolts in the interest of creating a captivating illusion…and from day one in the recording studio I have always been intent on making the necessary technology as invisible to the artist in…
January 2021 News
https://mailchi.mp/4320f845f9d3/news-from-tom-eaton-january-2021 My first monthly track for 2021 is a new piece called “in the shadow.” The lengthening shadows of winter inspired this slowly breathing study of darker spaces. I frequently move ideas between piano and guitar, and in this case the guitar made some choices for me and it decided to open the piece into a slow, modal exploration. It’s free and on Bandcamp now.The recent loss of ambient pioneer Harold…
November News
A quick rundown of what’s been going on. The creative process during a pandemic… working remote, in person, and alone! November 2020 Newsletter Lockdowns and social distancing have created challenges and opportunities in a life of music making. The process always ends here, with music coming out of my speakers in Newburyport, but the journey to get to this point calls for flexibility and creative thinking as working from a distance…
Lost in the Moment
I remember the exact moment last year when Peter Guralnick told me the title of his next book… we were sitting in my control room and I was in the middle of writing my new album. We were discussing why people make music… a process we each have deep perspectives on but from very different vantage points. The title, “Looking To Get Lost,” is as perfect a description of my personal…
A Musical Swiss Army Knife
Today a friend of mine called me a “musical Swiss Army knife” and it got me thinking about the various ways I’ve contributed to projects over the years. A quick trip over to AllMusic pretty much confirmed his assessment. Here’s an alphabetical list of the things I’ve been credited with over the years: AccordionAdjustments (huh?)AutoharpBassBellsCajonChimesComposerCymbalsE-BowEngineerFeatured ArtistFender RhodesFretless BassGlockenspielGuitar (Electric)Guitar (Nylon)Hammond B3HandclappingJaw HarpKeyboardsLap Steel GuitarLoop ProgrammingMasteringMelodicaMixingOrgan (Hammond)PercussionPianoPrimary ArtistProducerRainstickShakerShortwave RadioSinging BowlsSynthesizerTambouraTambourineTextural SamplingVibraphoneVocals /…
Shining a Light on the Path Through
Lately I’ve been considering where I’m headed with my music-making existence, and those thoughts led me back to the beginning of my creative life. I started my “professional” career as a theatrical lighting designer. It’s a fascinating job which takes advantage of both sides of my personality; the technical, detail oriented Tom, and the more liquid, emotional Tom. The technical me learned to draft, learned about electricity, learned rigging, and learned…
A Sound from Outer Space
Max Crook, the Musitron and Musical Terra Incognita There must have been a well-worn spot on the dashboard of my Dad’s Ford Econoline. In the late-1970s my antique dealer father and I wandered the back roads of southern New Hampshire looking for a desk or chair that he knew had value, or he knew he could sell for a profit, listening to all kinds of music from his formative years. The…
SOUNDS & SUBSTANCE 