When two tools can’t talk, a person becomes the API
When two tools don't share an API, someone bridges them by hand. Here's the arithmetic for pricing that hidden integration tax on your own workflow.
Brendan Bondurant
Writing on tech, music, and clarity
Latest posts
Primary and Secondary Chords in Modal Music
The piece discusses how chords in a mode can be categorized as primary or secondary based on whether they contain the modal note. Primary chords reinforce the modal flavor, while secondary chords do not detract from it. Understanding this distinction allows musicians to intentionally shape the modal sound in their compositions, impacting how pronounced or subtle the modal effect appears.
What is an API? A plain-language guide
A plain-language guide to APIs for non-developers: what a request, endpoint, response, status code, key, and rate limit actually mean.
Modal Notes
Every mode differs from its parent scale by exactly one note. Play that note on the strong beats, and the mode actually sounds like itself.
Why your LLM bill exploded overnight (and how to regain control)
LLM bills spike overnight from retry storms and agent loops, not steady usage. Here's how to enforce cost budgets and routing at one boundary.
Learn the Difference Between 3/4 and 6/8 Time
3/4 and 6/8 can look identical on the page. The accents are what tell your ear the difference, and where hemiola comes from.
RAG Cost Optimization
RAG costs spiral when caching, retrieval, and model calls are decided locally by each team, centralizing control is what keeps AI spend predictable.
The Blues Scale is a Compromise
The standard blues-scale lesson (minor pentatonic plus one passing tone) skips why the scale sounds bluesy in the first place.
Three Minor Scales, One Minor Key
Natural, harmonic, and melodic minor aren't three separate scales. They're three solutions to the same problem.
The Dominant Seventh Wants to Go Somewhere
Guitarists learn the dominant 7th as a chord shape. It's actually an engine.