Sadly Tom has decided to retire Music Thing. Not much to say other than the combined influence of Tom's amazing, funny and sardonic blogging on MT and Peter Kirn's (of CDM) massive and infectious enthusiasm encouraged (or was the catalyst for) me to start blogging in a more formal sense, and probably also triggered a much more in depth engagement with online culture in general.
Thanks tom mt was awesome and I'm sure the nets would be happy to have you back anytime you decide to set up mt again!
Ever have a crappy morning where just everything upsets you and everything goes wrong? Somedays that happens and it's really damn average. To cheer myself up I was doing the rounds of my favourite sites, and I read this excellent article by Gary Kibler on CDM. And it almost immediately changed my mood and gave me pause for reflection. It was excellent timing and I certainly needed cheering up!
What I wanted to say though, was that what I love about CDM is it's inclusive and constant high quality of writing. Peter wrangles it and has invested massive time in it, and is an almost constant source of inspiration for me and my personal side projects. I've been involved from a design point of view for a while, so I'm not exactly impartial... That said, the reason I got involved in the start out of genuine respect for what it is that CDM has come to represent.
For me, I see it as most accessible and inclusive online music community online. The sarcasm mostly gets left at the door and you get earnest, funny and well written music coverage and intelligent comments. And that deserves recognition.
Well done Peter, and well done the other writers on CDM it's a constant source of inspiration and if you don't visit it already you should.
Fascinating tidbit over on Engadget - Steve Jobs on DRM: let's get rid of it. Here's a snippet:
"Why would the big four music companies [ever] agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. ... Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. ... Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."
DRM doesn't stop piracy, and while things exist in the digital domain, it's virtually impossible to stop the copying of those things. If the value of the music is such that it doesn't compel someone to buy it in the first place, then you're probably looking at a prime target for piracy. I buy plenty of albums, but the way I discover new music is through last.fm, public radio, and pirate copies from friends. All those things are free, and I certainly don't think that I would purchase as much music as I do, or even be as interested as I am in music.
Even just as recently as yesterday's poster, I came across HomeSkillet records who have a refreshing take on music piracy:
There is a general assumption around corporate music that stealing music is bad. We disagree, in fact we encourage it.
However, this does not mean we will put out albums in the traditional sense and not ask for money.
Studio time is an investment. If we invest in studio time, then we ask for you, the fan, to invest in us. This way, we will stick around.
Most of the time our music will be recorded over computers. About half of which will be uploaded to this site. This music will be free, and we encourage people to download and share.
HomeSkillet Records encourages stealing music. However, we also encourage donations. If a person was so obliged, we are glad to accept.
HomeSkillet is to be applauded. Visit their site, check out some tracks, and if you like it, please support them.
DRM harries consumers, espescially now that you can download and have access to illegitimate versions which are hassle free so easily, big music isn't doing a whole lot to protect and promote more sales. It's all so obvious to everyone who actually listens to music. The way to protect the music industry is not to harangue those who support it by lumbering them with DRM.
Engadget - Steve Jobs on DRM: let's get rid of it. & HomeSkillet Records
Okay. This is a bit of an admission of guilt. But for a long time I thought that Moog was pronounced Moo-g (as in the sound a cow makes with a g on the end). And up until last year I continued to think this, and it still pains me to say it properly Mogue (as in Kylie Min-ougue without the Min and with a M)
I just wanted to give you a heads-up, incase you were in a music shop and you were chatting idly with the shop guy and you accidentally said Moo-g. Because that's not right.
Even though it's more fun to say it that way. Dammit. I want it to be Moo-g. It sounds better.
Inspired by this: Matrix Synth Post
Moog piccy from Flickr
I've been meaning to write this up literally forever. But hey. I'm important and busy*. (*not really) Also I like playing video games. I'm sure you can see how that works out.
A mate of mine dylan (webzen: this is not london.com & the world is our soundtoy.com) asked me ages ago to score some music for him. What he wanted me to score was actually what you see above. (but more bars obviously). It's mostly chewing gum and dirty marks on the plastic stripping that is on the edge of train platforms.
I added an extra bar line below so I had the normal 5 lines to work with and fired up Sibelius. What I ended up with was pleasantly suprising.
Results in midi format Download file
There's some really nice little bits in this, some work better than others, but from a compositional standpoint for music scored from bubblegum on a trainplatform it isn't bad. This is an idea I'd like to explore in greater depth, and possibly take some photos myself and score my local trainstation. Perhaps with a few determined music geeks we could score a bunch of trainstations the world over. A correspondingly busy trainstation would result in many more grubby marks to score. The other implication (and this is something dylan's soundtoys really made me think about) is that in the world around us, there are myriad opportunities for musical inspiration, and in this literal sense of scoring as faithfully as possible, the real word theres a really pleasing idea at the core. And I certainly don't mean to be twee, but everyone no matter how untalented (such as myself) can look for inspiration and create music.
Edit: Dylan tells me it's not incidental music composition, but aleatoric music composition!
Again I would like to draw your attention to another one of the Peter Kirn industry productions; which is Create Digital Motion. It's just launched and it is a site that provides information to the video/vj crowd in the same vein as Create Digital Music. I put together the design & artwork, Jaymis coded and wrangled my unruly artwork into beautiful sweet technojabber (Please visit the The Oxygen Kiosk should you need high quality coding and web design services) and Peter Kirn wrangled & organised me and was ever so patient with my other commitments. We worked on this project completely via the web, as we did with CDM, and I've gotta say that doing this kind of stuff online is just so much fun.
This has been a lovely project to work on, the communication and the professionalism of both Peter and James have made this project a joy to work on, and a privilege to be involved with.
Visit: Create Digital Motion
Also visit: Create Digital Music
Don't forget to also see: Jaymis.com & his commercial venture The Oxygen Kiosk
This all falls into the basket that I would loosely "Copyright Isanity" but I think if I had a category assigned to that I would be profoundly depressed.
Let me prefece this with a short story. A coworkers iPod shat it after a year and 3 months use. It was a U2 model - no accounting for taste... Just kidding Paul. It looked lovely. After taking it in for Apple service, he was informed by the smug Applestore girl that "they could replace the hardrive, but couldn't guarantee that it would work for long, they couldn't give a warrantee beyond 2 months for the repair, and to boot, couldn't gaurantee they would be replacing the hdd with a new one." Their advice? Buy a new one...
Okay this is a bit of a crossover post; along with the amazing work of James Loveday and under the leadership of Peter Kirn, (as well a bunch of other great folks who have contributed) I am delighted to announce the redesign of Create Digital Music.
And what you see is the end result. There will be more things to come, and I will be continuing to help with a related project and some other CDM related stuff is surely to come. But until then, please visit and enjoy the new Create Digital Music!
More of the back story follows after the jump...
In Australia we're lucky enough to have a national, independent broadcaster. The Australian Broadcasting Foundation (ABC for the non-Australian visitors) provides radio, television and increasingly, new media services on the website such as podcasting many of it's popular radio shows, online news and plenty more. Basically, the ABC is a fantastic thing for independent critical thinking here in Australia.
Right now, the Cabinet's budget committee is deciding the ABC's funding for the next three years. Their next meeting is on Tuesday.
Above and beyond it's basic role as broadcaster the ABC provides and documents Australian culture, promoting a genuine sense of multiculturalism (along with SBS - the special broadcasting service - another publicly funded broadcaster here in Australia.) and also promotes and fosters independent Australian music. And much more.
We are extremely lucky to have such an institution here in Australia, overseas the airwaves are bought and sold and the public interest is not as much of an issue as revenue.
Recently there's been a lot of talk about the role of the ABC and the future of Australian media, and one way that we can take a stand for independent music, genuine celebration of multiculturalism and the cultural identity of Australia is to let the government know that they can stop trimming away money from the ABC's budget and start investing back into publically funded media.
As the petition puts it,
Dear Mr Costello and Senator Minchin,
We believe in the value of a well-funded and independent national broadcaster.
We understand that the ABC has asked you for a modest increase in funding to meet the demands of a 21st-century media outlet.
With a budget surplus of nearly $10 billion, funding the ABC is surely money well spent.
Send the message to Canberra: FUND OUR ABC please tell your friends and family who care about independent, music, news and the arts.
Related posts: My Talkback Radio Experience
This is a bit of an Australian media related post, so here's some background for my overseas readers: There has been a great deal of talk recently our Goverment Senate representative has recently spoke about the plans for the future of Australian media. On one hand they are saying they wish to protect cultural diversity, and on the other hand, they are proposing to remove our media cross ownership laws so that instituions that own 75% of the Newspaper market for example, can buy TV and radio stations here in Australia. It's all very concerning.
I just had a chance to have a chat with Biggsy on Melbourne's very fine 3rrr Radio which is a first for me. Talkback radio is not something I ever saw myself calling up. A big hello to any rrr listeners who have checked out my site as a result.
What I rang up to chat about - I was a bit nervous and got a little off topic, but basically, why on Earth do we continue to hire Communications Ministers such as the previous, Richard Alston and now, Helen Coonan - who seem to know very little about Communications, IT & the arts? Apparently a background in Law gives you the background you need to understand IT, Communcations Infrastructure and the Arts. As Biggsy quite rightly points out, I shouldn't be surprised at all. I guess a better word is saddened.
When the media companies who have to compete with blogs run by well funded organisations such as myself - (HAH!) they apparently need more control of the industry. They apparently think that 75% of audience reach is restrictive and represents real competition. I think that's bloody shabby corporately funded politics at the worst.
Allocate more more funding to the arts, make it less difficult and cheaper to get a license to broadcast radio into the real world - so that people can get better voice in the conventional mediums, not take away protections so that Newscorp et al, can own more of our airwaves. It's really awful to think that this kind of political double-speak & double-think can go into the media and almost no media outlets seriously question what's going on. Because it's not in their business interests obviously.
They've set a threshold that media "diversity" cannot fall below, which is much lower than the current amount of broadcasters that we currently have. It seems to me disingenuous to be saying that they're protecting media diversity and then on the other hand, take away the barriers to more media ownership by the existing big corporate players.
And keep your goddamn filthy hands of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Foundation - Publically funded TV). The same Senator in question, has raised the potential of putting ads on the ABC. John Howard unbelievably (because my impression of the man is that he would privatize his grandmother for a quick buck) has put the kibosh on that, but it's a telling indictment of where Senator Helen Coonan is at.
Stunned by the hypocracy and the lies folks. Just stunned.
