👩🏼‍💻 iServalan

What Would Bach Have Done in a Dub Studio? If anyone from the late Baroque period belongs in a dub studio, it’s Johann Sebastian Bach . Not necessarily because of style — but because of belief. If you want to hear why Bach belongs in a dub studio, listen to the opening of the First Cello Suite . (One of my personal favourites as a budding cellist) One line. No harmony stated — only implied. Repetition doing the work. But wait, listen harder to the lowest notes. What are they up to?  Bach trusted resonance. He trusted memory. Bach is 'all about the bass!'  And we already know that dub is too. Feel the beat of the Prelude, deep rosonating bass notes pushing us to move, and oh such exquisite lingering!   Bach believed that music was a system through which truth could be revealed. Not emotional confession. Not spectacle. Structure and assured foundations. Dub works the same way. Dub strips music back to its skeletal roots, its foundational architecture. Bass b...

 Who Would Win  X Factor : Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt or Rachmaninov? It sounds like a parlour game. But like most good parlour games, it reveals something uncomfortable about how we judge art. If the five great composers were dropped—anachronistically—onto a modern televised talent show, who would take the crown? Not  who is the greatest composer . Not  whose music lasts the longest . But who would win  on the night . Let’s imagine the judges. The live audience. The camera angles. The sob story VT. The voting app. And—crucially—the opening piece. 🎼  Johann Sebastian Bach  — The Genius Who Wouldn’t Play the Game Bach would lose early. Not because he lacks brilliance—but because he refuses the premise. He doesn’t perform  at  you. He performs  through  the music. His chosen piece might be a  Prelude and Fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier —a work of architectural perfection, intellectual depth, and zero obvious “moment.” No s...

   This essay accompanies an audio episode from iServalan and forms part of a wider approach to learning music through listening, movement, and attention. Today, I'm Wondering, If Hip-Hop Understands Bach Better Than Rock Ever Did Counterpoint, Sampling, the Grid, and Music Built to Hold a Room Bach is often described as a composer of melodies. He wasn’t. He was an architect. His music is built from systems: interlocking lines, bass-led harmony, repetition under pressure. Voices operate independently but remain bound to a shared structure. Nothing is accidental. Everything is relational. Hip-hop understands this instinctively. Someone like Kendrick Lamar knows this too. His work isn’t built on endless novelty, but on carefully managed repetition, variation, and return. Themes recur. Motifs evolve. The architecture holds while meaning deepens. Bach worked the same way. He didn’t abandon material once it appeared — he tested it, turned it, placed it under pressur...