Arcade Fire vs. Google
Oh my word. If you haven’t seen this, watch now. It is utterly stupendous.
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
My violin fingering: is it still right?
I gave up the violin almost 20 years ago. Or over half my life ago. Yet to this day, I often mime the fingering that my left hand would do were it playing the melody of a song I’m listening to, my fingers generally tapping on the pad beneath my thumb.
Or at least I think I am. I have no idea whether the notes that would ring out if a violin were in my hand would bear any resemblance to the song. Maybe so many years of dormancy render the mime talentless and the resulting music similarly tuneless. And doubtless the bow in my right hand would be playing the wrong string anyway.
One day soon, I’ll pick up a violin and see just how true my renditions are to their originals. Until then, you’re safe.
Map of places in songs
A couple of weeks ago, I created a My Map in Google Maps. I put a single marker on it, labelled Up the Junction, Squeeze. The marker sat on the south-west corner of the junction between St. John’s Road and St. John’s Hill, where JD Sports now stands.
The map was created to depict references to places in songs—either in the song title or in the lyrics therein. I invited a handful of friends to collaborate on the map, and I’m happy to say that it’s now up to 379 icons, representing places mentioned in 227 different songs. (The KLF’s It’s Grim Up North accounted for an impressive 66 markers alone.)
The markers are colour-coded by musical genre, and collaborators are asked to follow a short list of rules to maintain the map’s integrity.
Our most northerly markers thus far are Siberia Khatru by Yes, and Frank Black’s White Noise Maker, in which Siberia is also mentioned. Our only Antarctican reference is Ross Dependency, mentioned in Enya’s Orinoco Flow (apparently).
Phase 2 of the project is about to begin, in which a wider set of people will be invited to contribute. If you’d like to be a part of history, drop me a comment, or an email, and I’ll add you to the list.
The first e-orchestra?
I’ve wondered recently whether a group of musicians could perform together live online.
The problem with playing music is that you need the feedback of the other players in order to understand where you are in the piece, and to react meaningfully to the circumstances of the piece. With an orchestra, each member works in harmony with the others (often literally), compensating for balance changes and working with the imperfections that are inherent with human-created music. If the tempo is slightly faster than you’d expected, you don’t resolutely stick to the tempo you know to be correct. If your instrument is tuned slightly flat, you can compensate (with stringed instruments, at least) by playing sharp. And if your fellow members are drowning you out, you can play slightly louder to ensure your section can be heard.
If you set the 50 members of an audience off on the same piece of music at exactly the same time without any feedback along the way, they’d all end at different times and the result would be a cacophony. Hence the need for a conductor.
So what if we had an online orchestra, each member playing in physical isolation from their fellow members, connected only by the internet.
Here lies the problem. Your fellow members need your audio feed to be played to them to allow them to play their own piece in an informed way; and you need your fellow members’ respective feeds to be played to you to allow you to play in an informed way.
Even in an orchestra that is collocated of course, the finite speed of sound means that there isn’t the immediate feedback. Assuming an orchestra pit 14 metres in diameter, the harps (stage left) won’t hear what the double basses (stage right) were up to for a whopping 0.04 seconds. (At sea-level, at least.) With the internet, we’re dealing with the speed of light (880,991 times faster than sound), but with a physical distribution greater than 14 metres, and processing steps in between.
So here’s my question: if everyone had a pretty decent broadband connection and a musical feed piped directly into something internet-enabled, how long would it take for the feeds from the c. 50 members that make it up to be amalgamated and piped back to the people? If it’s a small fraction of a second, then we’re in business.
If so, then I propose getting out my dusty old violin (not a euphemism) and arranging what might be the first orchestra never to meet. Maybe on Twitter. To inform whether or not to do this, I’ve constructed a detailed decision-tree.
Techies, is this doable?
If yes, then: Musicians, are you interested?
Else: sorry to have wasted your time. Carry on.
iTunes enhancements
There are a couple of enhancements that Apple should make to iTunes that would make my life a whole lot easier.
First of all, please allow the de-duplication of tracks without compromising the make-up of albums. I don’t want five identical copies of Blur’s Girls and Boys. As well as eating up memory unnecessarily (a minor inconvenience given the amount of storage available), it means that randomising the order of tracks on the iPod/iPhone/iTunes results in that track being played many times over. (I’m currently going through the songs on my iPhone in track name order (from A–Z), exacerbating the problem, to my exasperation.)
I don’t mind there being different versions of the same song. But if there are two tracks with the same song name, within a second or two in length, with similar musical make-ups, then give the option of creating a master and a slave copy, and managing the music that way. (If the master is deleted, then replace one of its slaves with the master and re-point all of the other slaves etc.)
And please have the concept of a device-independent star-rating and play count. When I change my device, I shouldn’t have to re-star all of my music; and my 25 most played tracks shouldn’t be reset.
Can you sort it, Apple? Well, can you?
Musical artists I know little about
In an effort to extend the breadth of the publicised subject matters I know little about, I thought I’d continue with the theme set out in this post of a month ago, in which I asked for index cards on each of religion, Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine to bring me up to speed. (Apart from a link kindly provided on Israel/Palestine, nothing has been forthcoming.)
This post lists a few musical artists that are sufficiently mainstream and well-respected to warrant people having a good, high-level background on them, but for which I have no such background, for whatever reason. (Too busy listening to shit pop in the 80s, I expect.)
Anyway, in no specific order, below is my starter list for ten.
- Neil Young
- Bob Dylan
- Johnny Cash
There are lots more. But I can’t think of them right now, so I’ll append as I remember them.
Apologies if this ill-education offends anyone.
Agadon’t: the importance of intonation
On speaking about his band’s re-release of Agadoo to mark the single’s 25th anniversary, Black Lace singer Dene Michael was quoted by BBC News as saying:
"With all the doom and gloom in the world, this is just what we need."
I think this should have read:
"With all the doom and gloom in the world, this is just what we need."
Subtle but important distinction.
(Post categorised as music for want of a more suitable alternative.)
The Dandy Warhols’ sleeping arrangements
The sleeping arrangements in the Dandy Warhols’ Bohemian Like You have troubled me since I bought it upon its release in 2001 following the relentless airtime it received courtesy of Vodafone. Specifically, the following extract from the lyrics causes consternation.
Wait, who’s that guy, just hanging at your pad.
Hes looking kinda blah, yeah, you broke up that’s too bad.
I guess it’s fair, if he always pays the rent, and he doesn’t get bent about sleeping on the couch when I’m there.
Here’s my question: where does "that guy" sleep when the singer isn’t there?
If he sleeps with the girl, then that’s very bohemian and accommodating of the singer—that’s where I’m leaning. If he sleeps in his own room, surely the singer staying over doesn’t mean that "that guy" vacates his bed for the singer (a) because the singer would likely sleep with the girl and (b) if he didn’t, what right has he of kicking "that guy" out of his own bed?
Anyone?
Top three children’s TV tunes
Admittedly I have a lot of experience of this subject. But the three examples below all have fabulous theme tunes, each with a link. So, in no specific order, the top three children’s TV tunes are:
Best moments in songs (part 3)
A couple of additions to the first and second posts detailing the best moments in songs:
- The opening piano notes in Take That’s Shine
- The syncopation of "I Can Fly" by the backing singers in R. Kelly’s I Can Fly. The one at 4m35s is fabulous, surpassed in beauty a mere 23 seconds later.