stop motion piano and drums
some nice work here
This could be a sign of things to come. Rock band Ash have vowed to release no more albums. They've decided to release singles only, due to the success of digitial singles downloads.
Is this the way forward for artists and composers? Read about it here
An interview with Conor O'Sullivan can be found here
Quick mention - here's a rock group to check out: Land of Talk. According to Ari Stein, this female fronted rock group will rock you socks off. He says their beautiful noise comes in the vein of Giant Drag, Sonic Youth and Metric.
Their myspace page is here: http://www.myspace.com/landoftalkmtl
This video has to be seen and heard to be believed. This uk ad for the honda civic showcases the most human aspect of the car's quality - its sound.
Not only that - but in the video all the sound design is performed by humans. That is, the sound effects from the commercial that seem to be car sounds are actually a choir.
See for yourself
The composition is by Steve Sidwell. More can be seen on honda's site at www.honda.co.uk/civic
This video, from Swedish directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson displays some really great home drumming! Turn up the sound.... Press Preview
There are few things more beautiful than hearing someone singing well. Unfortunately people increasingly think that this means cramming as many decorations as possible into short musical phrases.
Sometimes the ability to hold a note without decoration can be far more effective than jumping all over the place and vibrato-overload. Then, showing what you can do through well timed vocal effects will have even more impact.
NPR has a good article on the overuse of Melisma in today's Idol generation. Anthony Heilbut talks about the gospel origins of the technique, through jazz and into pop. He explains the correct usage of the technique and how to spot the faker from the practitioner. Read more about Melisma here.
Singer Mika and rockers The Twang and Klaxons are artists to watch in 2007. This is according to over 130 influential music critics and broadcasters in the UK that were surveyed recently.
Mika is an emerging singer-songwriter that has been compared to Freddie Mercury and Scissor Sisters (the inevitable 'flamboyant' label and all)
the full list is as follows:
1. Mika
2. The Twang
3. Klaxons
4. Sadie Ama
5. Enter Shikari
6. Air Traffic
7. Cold War Kids
8. Just Jack
9. Ghosts
10. The Rumble Strips
Read more here
Sonic Youth have released a new album, Destroyed Room. It's a collection of unreleased material and B-side tracks from their last twelve years.
Opening with a 10 minute soundscape, the album according to NPR "immediately grabs you on this and other tracks is Sonic Youth's signature bursts of noise. What keeps you listening are the shadings of emotion and feeling that emerge amidst all the fuzz and distortion".
You can read the review on NPR
wouter Geense Design studio has come up with an interesting product for the truely mobile music user. The 2.5 cc turntable is a gas-powered DJ station from the Rotterdam design house.
The 2.5 cc turntable can be seen here.
wouter Geense are also the designers of the Tune 'n Radio, an FM radio that you have to finish yourself to be fully functional. The user can choose various household objects to create and tweak the antenna and knobs. Users also drill holes in the box and make other personalizations, according to their own style.
The Tune 'n Radio can be seen here.
It is well known that background listening to Mozart and some other classical music increases your ability to concentrate and affects overall productivity. It also helps kids learn.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday one site is streaming over 400 of the Maestro's important works 24 hours a day.
You can listen here.
Irish Trad group Dervish have been selected to represent Ireland at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Helsinki, Finland. The choice is a departure from RTE's normal or expected strategy for Eurovision success. Song writers are currently invited to submit entries for Dervish's chosen song. It will be interesting to see which song will be ultimately picked - traditional, modern, off-the-wall. Dervish are well respected in Ireland and should be able to easily handle whatever is thrown at them.
You can see a video of Dervish performing here and also here.
Read more from RTE's press release here.
If you have trouble sleeping or suffer from certain disorders such as anxiety, you might want to consider Brain Music Therapy. Dr Galina Mindlin has developed a technique that translates the activity of brain waves and translates them into a musical composition. This is played back as therapy and apparently promotes healing and relaxation in the body.
You can find out more about Brain Music Therapy here.
SingShot is an online social networking site for people who like to sing songs. Targeting the myspace generation, singshot allows users to record, upload, categories and share their music.
The group works with music licensing houses, so by giving a range of songs for you to choose to record, the legal issues around copyright protection are accounted for.
Using partner site, Photobucket, users can upload photos and videos to accompany them.
SingShot can be seen here.
The WolframTones site allows you to generate your own ringtone in various musical styles by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them.
This comes from the work of Stephen Wolfram, author of A New Kind of Science. The site is an exercise of midi-math which basically means that the quality of the sound could be better, but it also means that you can easily send your generated composition to your phone and use it as a ringtone.
Access WolframTones here.
This is a really useful, simple tool for musicians. An online metronome flash application! Metronomes can get quite expensive, so it was only a matter of time before someone came up with something like this, with a clean interface. Very easy to use and very neccessary, especially for poor music students!
Visit the Metronome Online here
Magnatune's is a music licensing, record label and clearing house whose slogan is 'we are not evil'. That can't be bad.
Magnatune offers fully automated licensing of rights-cleared music at 30% lower than the industry standard. It also aims to be the first internet-era record label, or label responding to modern reailites. Artist-label deals are split 50-50, which is unheard of in standard label agreements.
Read about licensing via magnatune, for example for podcasting, here.
Bid 4 Beats is an auction of 'gear, events and experiences'. This unique event lets you bid for DJ stuff with all proceeds going to the worthwhile NextAid charity. The event takes place from Oct 23rd to Nov 17th.
Read more about Bid 4 Beats here.
the unseen video is an interesting expression of dynamic content generation. Go to this site to view a video and musical piece which is generated based on your surroundings. The algorithm takes locational weather and temporal information to create a unique experience just for you.
See for yourself at the unseen video
Just heard the great new album from the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, called In My Time. Gerald Wilson is a legend of jazz, performance, arranging and composing. At 88 he is still going strong and musically remains as innovative and relevant as ever.
You can hear a great interview with him on npr here.
RENMINBI the fabulous punk band from NYC have just announced details of their new drummer. Jim Archer will have the tough job of trying to 'fill the sticks' of Jenny Johnson. The band's search is finally over now and they've started playing and recording new tracks. They even hope to record a full album early next year!
Their first gig is Tuesday Sept 12th at Sonic Youth 25th Anniversary Tribute Show @ Mo Pitkin's in New York.
Congratulations to RENMINBI
I saw on the Digital Music News blog that myspace have changed their terms of agreement to reflect artist ownership of their content. Apparently myspace do not now lay any claim to artists' content and have clarified their position with the latest version of the agreement. This follows a move by Billy Bragg to remove his content from myspace in protest of the previous claims made in the terms of agreement.
Good news for artists everywhere!
It's been 13 years since my last piano lesson, so I decided it was time to go back. Since I got my piano a few months ago I've been improving my playing and I think it is now back to my old level. I'm trying the lessons to give me direction in my playing.
It went well. The pieces he suggested I work on include:
Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique
Debussy's Reverie
Debussy's Girl with the Flaxen Hair
Bach's Invention (#4)
possibly a Haydn sonata (#7)
Mary Verne's Phrygian Toccata
It's certainly a lot to keep me going! I might look into taking an exam after a while.