Just Me

It’s been a few weeks since Tim broke the news that Pandora would be blocking non US Ip addresses. I was so disapointed, I love Pandora’s service and I will miss it. I mean don’t get me wrong I understand the reason’s behind this decision but it’s still a hard one to get used to.

Good luck Pandora, I can only hope that you can resolve the issues soon. I would be happy to signup for a pay per play account if it meant I could use Pandora’s service again. I’ve blogged about Pandora before and it has helped me find some great music I would never have heard without your service.

So the PS3 launched, a game console that costs over €600! I have been a Sony fan but now I’m cured is your still searching for a cure this should do it. Thanks to Kevin Burton for this gem.

OMG! Words cannot describe how impressed I am with an application I just downloaded and installed. :O

“Huh, this is Musical monday whatrye talking about an application for?”

Well if your reading this then you’re probably on a computer with resonable internet connection and have some interest in music. Then this is every bit as vital an application for you as Pandora is a bookmark.

The application I am talking about is called Songbird and without getting into to much detail it’s a media player based on firefox. It’s opened my eyes to a part of the internet and the blogosphere that I barely new existed. Up hands who has heard of MP3 blogs? OK so maybe I’m late to the party but this is one superb app and I can’t begin to explain it properly so I’m simply gonna wait here while you head off to hear and watch the screencast. I’ll wait for you.

Now it is a very early release at this point but it’s a helluva place to start from, it already does what it set’s out to do, “play the web”

I have barely scratched the surface and I’m completly taken with this so thank you Wired and to you reading “why haven’t you downloaded it already?”

*edit* I just noticed that it is a tad on the resource hungry side, granted my Media centre isn’t the most current (Athlon XP 2000, 512mb ram) but it’s swallowing more than half the resources available still it’s worth it.

This week I want to talk about this article I read recently on wired. the short version of this story is that at the recent Santa Cruz Baroque Festival a contemporary composer, David Cope, premiered a new 12-movement piece from the mind of Antonio Vivaldi.

Yeah, I know Tonios been feedin worms for over 2 century’s so how did David find a new 12 movement piece from a dead composer. Well in short it’s a fake, written by software that David has developed. Essentially, it takes a database of a composers work, analyses the phrasing and then uses that information to create a new piece.

According to the article he has done this with lots of other composers as well as Vivaldi. Now I’m not a huge fan of classical music but this is an incredible creation and what I would love to hear is that David has unleased Emi on the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Les Claypool. Yeah Les is still alive but there’s method to this madness.

So once we have all these artists and composers absorbed by Emmy, why not mix and match, Hendrix and Beethoven, Zappa and Ravel, Claypool and Debussy. Or let Bach or Haydn go nuts with a full Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are definatly purests who will say that this is souless and grave robbing etc. I don’t, so long as someone doesn’t try to claim that they wrote it rather than the artist or composers “profile”. Bottom line, if it sounds good then who cares how the music was written.

Hi all and welcome to the first installment of Musical Monday, before we get into the meat of this weeks article I just wanted to let you all know what I’m listening too as I type. Well, I have Pandora playing “Swinging Cheese radio” for those of you who aren’t familiar with Pandora, give this a read

Anywho onto this weeks feature. Turn that S**t off!I saw this story a while back and I’ve been meaning to post about it since so I think there is no better way to start a weekly music feature than reminding people that in order to enjoy music fully you need to be able to hear it fully. This is something I can speak with some authority on, in the past I worked in the music industry and having stood in front of a 6500 watt+ PA for 5 or more nights a week for almost 3 years I can say that I am very lucky not to have severe hearing damage, but in reality luck had very little to do with it and ear plugs had everything to do with it.

Unfortunately, I do suffer from some minor tinnitus which has over the last 10 years gotten slightly better, however does tend to leave me with sleepless nights if I go to a Gig or concert.

My case is a little extreme in that I was in front of a PA almost every night for 2-3 hours minimum. I should be far worse off but I was lucky enough to have been warned of the dangers by a rather kindly middle aged drummer, he explained it rather well. It’s not so much really loud noises that do the damage as those that are higher pitched and close by.

If you go to gigs you may have already noticed this but in general the older a drummer gets the further away their cymbals get from there head, this is because they have recognised that high pitched noises (like cymbals in particular) tend to do more damage than say a more bass sound.

Now before we (the human race) discovered amplification and industrialisation of the world, hearing problems were far less common than they are today, unfortunately our modern world gives us plenty of opportunities to damage our hearing without us doing it deliberately.

Where that BBC article goes wrong, imho, is that it focuses on MP3 players as being the evil ear damaging device. This is not entirely true, yes they provide the sounds but it is the headphones that deliver this sound to you. By and large most headphones that are sold with MP3 players are small and do not block much ambient noise out, as a result the wearer ends up turning the volume up to block out the other noise so they can hear their music choice clearly, the irony being that this behavior will lead to hearing loss. In fact I challenge anyone to sit in a quiet room and not hear a buzzing sound at some level when the room is in fact silent. That buzzing sound is damaged hearing. It is almost impossible to avoid in our modern society but there are a few simple things that you can do to avoid unnecessary damage.

I made some changes on the sidebar today, mostly the order, the excellent photo my sweetie took of me when we went for a Photo walk earlier and I’ve added a feed from my favourite online radio station.

So why do I like this more than other web radio? Simple, When you subscibe to these guys you can create your own stations by just telling what bands\artists\songs that you like and through the voodoo that is “the music genome project” they find tracks that are similar to it and use those for the station.

As the tracks play you can customise “your stations” further by giving a thumbs up or down to any track. This has helped me, since I started using it, to find some of the most unusual and pleasant new music I’ve heard in a long time. Bands such as Skalpel (Jazzy Groove Radio), Guttermouth and Gob (2 great punk revival bands on “Nerf Herder Radio”)

So give it a listen and see what you think yourself.

Right so, my “about” page says I like my gadgets. Yet I haven’t said to much about them.

In truth time is a precious commodity and there are lots of things I would like to cover on this blog that I haven’t, as yet, had the time to. but thats a whole other post

Anyway, back on topic, I’m gonna include a list of my favourite gadgets and over the coming days/weeks I’ll post about each.

Hewlett Packard iPaq 6515
Media Centre PC
X-box 360
MP3 player
FujiFilm S5200 Digital Camera
This Blog
The mobile bloging gadget
Heart Monitor

There are lots more that I haven’t mentioned so bookmark this page, as I’ll be adding to the list and linking each gadget to the relevant post as I post them

I gotta get me one of these…

oh and maybe a doggy to go with it.
*sings* how much is that doggy in the window, the one with the waggily Tail */sings*

A while back I discovered a web radio service called Pandora. I’ve been using it ever since, why? cause it plays toonz that I like. “Big Deal” I here you shout well have a read of this, it gives you a little insite into what makes this web radio station so different and imho better than any I have ever used before.

If your a music fan or musician with an “OpenEar ™” (That’s like an open mind for ears :)) then there site is a treasure trove, that will suck up hours of your time. As an example of the kind of treats that it has helped me find, we’ve all heard this but who else has heard this version or a better example, from this song I found this one ’cause there similar??? (click the little play buttons for a sample

All I have to do now is wait for this to be made with “decent” speakers built-in so I can put them in every room of the house, ‘cept the living room of course cause the media centre PC is already plugged into the sound system there.

After reading this article on Wired, I’m disappointed that Bob couldn’t articulate a bit better. Sweeping generalisations like that just make him sound like a deranged old coot.

I guess the times they really are a changing…