Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Entries Tagged as '*Music'

The Worse It Gets, the Better We Like It

October 6th, 2026 · 2 Comments

The Worse It Gets, the Better We Like It is now available on Bandcamp! It contains songs I recorded in the late ’80s and early ’90s, now retrieved from aging cassettes and CDs. Most of them were arranged for ukulele and viola (the latter played by either Carol Benner or David Gold), and I performed […]

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Tags: *Music · W

The Quotidian Kerfuffle

August 27th, 2026 · No Comments

The Quotidian Kerfuffle is now available on Bandcamp! This album compiles fugitive pieces from my curiously checkered career, including radio spots, live shows, choral rounds, high school hijinks, and other tidbits. I’m joined in various numbers by high school friends, students at the University of North Texas, the Patient Island Singers (with Brian Dewan, Clare […]

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Tags: *Music · Q

Spendthrift

June 17th, 2026 · 2 Comments

This rousing number teaches the importance of thrift. There aren’t enough songs about thrift. Here’s the first verse:

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Tags: *Music · S

I’m Disappointed

June 3rd, 2026 · 2 Comments

As the title indicates, this song laments life’s disappointments.

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Tags: *Music · I

String Quartet 19: Cold Nights

January 12th, 2026 · 1 Comment

My 19th string quartet is subtitled “Cold Nights,” because the nights were cold when I wrote it. You don’t have to play it on cold nights, though. Here, as usual, is the first page.

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Tags: *Music · S

TYPO 13

January 6th, 2026 · 1 Comment

TYPO 13 is now available from Black Scat Books! For this one, I contributed translations of a story by Tristan Bernard (“The Collector”), an essay by Gabriel de Lautrec (“Latin Symbolism”), and two short pieces by Alfred Jarry (“Explanatory Memorandum on the Terrible Accident of February 30, 1891” and “The FiancĂ© in Spite of Himself”), […]

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Tags: *Music · *Words · T

Here’s to the Longest Night

December 11th, 2025 · No Comments

Every year, Meg Reichardt assembles musicians in Brooklyn for a Holiday Recording Party. This year, I contributed a song that I sent in from upstate. It’s called “Here’s to the Longest Night,” and it celebrates the solstice. You can listen to the whole album on Bandcamp.

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Tags: *Music · H

String Quartet 14: ‘Cellos

October 13th, 2025 · 1 Comment

My 14th string quartet is for four ‘cellos, sawing industriously away on diatonic tone clusters and polyrhythms.

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Tags: *Music · S

Music for Two Monochords

August 26th, 2025 · Comments Off on Music for Two Monochords

“Music for Two Monochords” generates bracing dissonances by using sets of numbers divorced from the harmonic series. Here’s the first page and the first piece. I have no intention of recording them (although I do own two monochords); they might be better imagined than heard.

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Tags: *Music · M

“Music From Elsewhere” in London and San Francisco

July 22nd, 2025 · Comments Off on “Music From Elsewhere” in London and San Francisco

I’m pleased to report that my book Music From Elsewhere is now available at Watkins Books, London’s oldest esoteric bookstore. You can see it here. You can also pick up a copy at San Francisco’s fabled bookstore City Lights. And you can see it here.

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Tags: *Music · *Words · M