Music of Sound

> So looking forward to this: Ryuichi Sakamoto & Alva Noto new album release next week!

 

> Fantastic abandoned soviet monuments

 

 

> Design quotes – good philosophical fun trying to apply them to sound design

 

> Two easy ways to make a sound map

 

> Brilliant: Existential Star Wars! (thanks Phil!)

 

> Check out the new VEMIA (Vintage Electronic Musical Instruments Auction) – I’m buying a lotto ticket this weekend! Followed by the ESM Synthi, ARP2600, EDP Gnat, Wasp, Macbeth M3X….. oh & the EMS Pitch-to-Voltage Converter…. I can haz excess carry on synthage?

 

> This article about emerging (ie young and/or naive) artists who are ‘defying the digital age’ by using retro analogue media is laughable, but some of the comments make up for the article… for example:

 

hogarthterminal: T E C H Niche is 20k years old in art. Our eyes, 5 billion years old. Digittech 40.
The stuff marketed aint grown up enough to replace the tools what we had.
The network is a digital closed loop, which is why stuff is, as digital allows bad decisions to go un-noticed for a while, and then this stuff it becomes endemic and cultural, and impossible to be rid.
We are going thru the bottleneck

 

So true. For every breathless review of some ground-breaking game-changing new gesture-based touchscreen app (or whatever) that supposedly enables all sorts of new creativity, there needs to be a reminder of that bottleneck i.e. lets see if anyone remembers _______ let alone is using it in 5 years time…

> Philosophy Referee Hand Signals

 

> Tortured Piano release is…delayed until early next week…. see here for why

 

 

> I love this song, a cover of Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Sister Winter’ by Tracey Thorn
Tracey Thorn / ‘Sister Winter’ by buzzinfly

 

> Dads, the original hipsters

 

> Am I the only person who cringes every time I see this video posted by some social media expert, as they project their agendas on to it. Maybe, just maybe it was actually not because dancing guy is the epitome of a fearless leader that the crowd followed. Maybe its because (a) he was tripping and (b) some DJ/band just dropped a really great tune. Its as likely about the power of music as all those other 100% hindsight projections!

 

> Looking forward to seeing this doco on Michael Nyman

 

Compressed 01 from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.

 

> Debussy is quoted as saying that he never gave pedal indications because he felt that pedaling was too fine an art to convey on paper and that too many subpar pianists simply use the pedal to hide the fact that they are butchering the music. Interesting, slightly extreme attitude but it got me thinking about the role of sustain (& variation) in all keyboard sounds. With physical keyboards ie piano, rhodes etc it is a function that is present by design, but how many of you virtual instrument players have pedals? Thoughts?

 

 

All things going according to plan my TORTURED PIANO library should be released later this week – I’m aiming for April 28th… Apologies to Chopin for augmenting his sombre melody with some beats & a bassline, but I felt the death of a musical instrument deserved music of an appropriate mood and I’ll be holding a wake the night after the library is released… Rest in pieces old piano, you have brought much joy to the world, and will continue to forever more in your new virtual form!

 

 

 

Help Japan by buying a compilation of music by some of my favourite artists (eg aus, Peter Broderick, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sawako, Goldmund, Max Richter) – For Nihon is $20 (mp3 or FLAC) for a good cause!

 

 

 

> How genius works – inside the creative process of people you may or may not have heard of…

 

> Great to see his Kickstarter project got fully funded too: World Remix

 

> Hunting for rhythm’s DNA

 

> Nifty guitar chord progression discovery

 

> TED talk by Benjamin Zander

 

 

> Some new archiving options ex NAB

 

> The progression from unplayable piano to playable 2 string bass to… kindling…