Rock Band to Real Band

I have been playing the hell out of Rock Band 2.  I very much enjoy it as it’s quite fun and challenging.  I’m also willing to bet that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are helping the music industry quite a bit as most likely people are getting exposed to music they have never considered before (I know I have been)..  But what might me more important is that people are getting exposed to the notion of making music..

In an era where school music programs are on the decline (or completely gone) I can’t think of anything more important for the music industry as a whole than getting kids interested and/or hooked at an early age..  This is the perfect venue!

They just need to bridge the realism gap..   Rock Band (and guitar hero, band hero, etc..) are great games, but they aren’t realistic at all..  For the guitar and bass you are producing notes by strumming a single piece of plastic and pushing one or multiples of 5 buttons..  As you graduate through the difficulty levels things get harder in that the waterfall of Chiclets come faster and the fingerings are more difficult, but you don’t actually progress towards being able to play a real instrument..

How cool would it be if instead as you progress through the difficulty curve the game got more realistic the harder it got..    In order to pull this off they would need to basically ship the game with a real guitar or a device that hooks into a real guitar such that it responds to the console in a way expected by the game… Instead of pushing a single button, maybe sense that we are actually pushing a cord or even a single string..   And once you get to the end of the difficulty curve you’re playing the song..   How awesome would that be?!

Suddenly not only would Rock Band be a kick ass game, but it would also be a must have teacher that could train you to play your favorite songs (for only $2 a download.. or whatever it is..)..

Once you have a device that hooks into a guitar or drums it should be fairly simple to make that device work for other instruments..

Imagine if you will, “Piano Hero!”  or maybe “Violin Hero!”   It would allow you to play a game with you instrument of choice, and go a long way towards teaching you to better play that instrument..

You think “Band Hero” is fun?  Try “Symphony Hero!” hah

There are so many possibilities here.. I seriously hope that they don’t squander this..  They could spark a whole new revolution around music making if they really wanted to..

The Sonic Infusion

My music tastes range far and wide, but when it comes to some tunes to play in the background while working I find that good techno, house, or trance serve me the best.  I can really get into a groove when listening to this music..  Oddly enough it helps me focus on my work and blocks out the distractions nicely..   My productivity probably triples when I can code to the beats..

Typically I would listen to some Classic or Vocal Trance on DI.FM (Digitally Imported Radio) a service I happily pay for because it did such a good job of keeping me focused on my work.  A while back I stumbled across the Sonic Infusion while browsing the podcasts available on iTunes and I’ve been hooked..

The Sonic Infusion is a free podcast put out (about once a month) by Spencer Gordon consisting of skillfully mixed and current Progressive, House and Trance music from all over the world ranging in length from 1 to 3 hours..  And it’s great!  At this point I have listened to all 120 episodes and he is only getting better..  What blows me away is that he does this for free..  He puts it out there solely to promote his and the other artists’ work, and is completely worth the listen.  The quality is high enough that if he put CD’s out there I bet people would buy them..

I realize this post is a shameless plug, and as such not something I typically do.. But man its worth it..  This guy is great as is the product he puts out..  I listen to one of his episodes (randomly) every day just to get into the groove and help me focus on my work.. (Which is in all likelihood completely NOT what he had in mind.. hehe  Hey it works for me!!)  Give it a listen, and to Spencer I say thanks man..

You can check it out here:  The Sonic Infusion or by going to http://www.thesonicinfusion.com/

The best part is that my wife has been playing it too.. And even more surprising is she likes playing drums!!   That actually came as a shock to me.. I expected her to enjoy guitar or bass.. I never thought she’d like the drums because frankly they are the hardest part..

But she loves it so we play together and do fairly well..Good times!!

Now they just need to add a lot more Journey songs.. They only have 2?!  TWO!!!  *sigh*  More!  I want more damnit.. hehe

Good game.. I highly recommend it..

Electric Violin

So I had said previously that my musical talent ended pretty much at the ability to play the radio, and that I hated that..  I wrote that entry back in July of ’08 and I still hate it..

I have been looking around for ideas of what to play and am still undecided.. I have a nice piano so my investment there at this point would be only time, but I am not interested in it — it still doesn’t inspire me..  I still like the idea of the Chapman stick but the cost is just unreasonable and frankly the alternative is not as pretty (yes that matters) not to mention they have horrible business tactics which I don’t appreciate..

I thought about getting a guitar and may still do that as there’s a ton of info out there for free as well as an awesome assortment of equipment.. So baring anything else.. I’ll do that.. I can get a guitar on the cheap and I have 4 or 5 friends that have offered to loan me an instrument..

Having said that, of late a coworker of mine has gotten me interested in learning the violin or viola..   Plus I have done a lot of looking online and I have to admit they look fun..  The concept of an electric violin appeals to me.. hehe

I think I like the sound of the viola more than that of the violin but it seems to me that everything out there is aimed more at teaching you the violin, and then you convert that knowledge to the viola or the cello..  As I understand it the knowledge transfers quit easily and I wouldn’t be surprised if way back in history “Violin” translates to “small Viola”.. heh

What’s really funny is I like the idea of an electric violin the most.. Primarily because I know its something that I could build..  I know.. whacky.. but I’m a damn good carpenter and frankly they don’t look hard to build..  I have watched quite a few videos of them being made and to be honest, the only thing I need is the measurements..

Not sure how the sound is picked up though — it appears to be a crystal in the bridge which makes sense, since unlike an electric guitar there are no metal strings.. Beyond that making sure strings are correctly isolated and that the measurements are sound it seems easy..

I’m not going to rush out of build one of course.. I mean if you can’t play it what’s the point..

I have purchased several books and am reading up on the violin though as I think it’s something I’d like to start doing.. I have wasted enough of my life sans music, it’s time to start picking something up..  I found a place here in town that rents very nice violins for as low as $20-$30 a month and they have a looong list of instructors..

I have told the wife of the plans and she seemed opened to it..  Good thing too as I’m sure for a while its going to sound like I’m torturing a cat to death..  I also have looked into various forms of “muffles” for violins so that I don’t drive her completely insane..

More reading and video watching though to try to make sure it’s what I want to do..

On a side note;  I have watched a lot of YouTube video’s recently of people playing all manner of instruments and I’m just stunned and amazed at the varitey of talent there is out in the world..

Some of you are fantastic!  Some.. not so much.. heh..  Gotta take the good with the bad I suppose..

But it just amazes me the number of people who record themselves performing their art for others to watch and even critique.. (though to be honest you’re better off just closing the “text comments” and never ever reading them again.. It’s also stunning how completely rude people are considering folks are opening themselves up to constructive comments, not unhelpful bad-mouthing by someone who couldn’t even perform to the level they are bashing.)

Kelly Iverson (“The Lady”) and Mark Allen (“Doc Parsons”) are a fantastic example of people who love what they do and do it for our enjoyment.. they also show nicely that a well played guitar sounds wonderful with a well played violin.. Thanks guys, well done..

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Some of the instruments are .. uh.. odd.. to say the least.. For example, the following is a nyckelharpa and a hurdy gurdy duo — Stick around for the whole thing:

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Wasn’t that great?!  I mean two instruments that absolutely fill the space with sound.. I’m not sure another instrument would fit in there.. heh

I had never heard of a Nyckelharpa before but apparently it’s a traditional Swedish instrument from the 14th century.. Very cool.. There are a lot of youtube videos of people playing them and they are neat..  The hurdy gurdy is I have heard before in person and you really can’t appreciate it until you feel the buzz.. It’s a wildly expressive instrument.. It’s very cool that people not only still play these but are darn good at it..

There are a lot more examples too of folks willing to put themselves out there.. Kudos to you all.. Aint the internet cool.. =)

Sony DR-BT21G

In 1994 Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson has a stroke of genius when they invented the personal area networking (PAN) protocol known today as Bluetooth for Ericsson phones.   By the year 2000 it was pretty widely known that Bluetooth was something hot!  A lot of major companies jumped on to the Bluetooth Special Interests Group with the intent of developing some really neat technology..  And ever since I heard about the protocol I immediately though, “they need headphones that use those!!”..

Well set the way forward machine to 2009 and I FINALLY have a set of stereo headphones that use the Bluetooth protocol!  Yay!   I know they have actually been out for over a year but it took me this long to find a pair that I thought would be worth having, AND I had a device that would actually support it.

I have at home a Mac Mini (which I love) that supports all the various Bluetooh profiles and can fully support these headsets, and I have an iphone which I thought could too..   I use these headphones with my Mac Mini to listen to all my streaming music as well as my Ventrilo machine when I’m playing games..  It works very well..  Upon discovery of the device the Mini installed 2 new sound devices for output, and one sound device for input.

Apparently these have to have a “headset” device and a “headphones” device depending on how you use them..   In headset mode you get mono audio output, and the mic (cleverly disguised as a hole) works too..  In headphones mode the mic doesn’t work.  At first I wanted to complain about this.. I mean you either get mono with mic or stereo, but no stereo with mic?!

Then it occurred to me that the only time I would use the mic would be with my phone (more on that in a second) or when talking in Vent. or Teamspeak… neither of which would use stereo anyway..  So stereo headphones AND a mic would be pointless..

The battery life seems good too.. The box says it’s rated for 11 hours of either headphone or headset(+mic) use and 100 hours of standby time..  I can’t talk to the standby time as I tend to charge things pretty often, but I believe the 11 hours of headphone time..  I have yet to actually run out of juice while using them so.. *shrug*

All in all I like them.. I think they were a good purchase and I would recommend them.. They are light and comfortable and fold up nicely when you want to store them..

Pairing is simple and works well, though I had an odd issue the first time I paired with my Mac.. For whatever reason I had to reboot my mac to get anything to work post pairing.. I think that was more due to the fact that my mac hadn’t been rebooted in like 4 months hehe.. It was starting to act wonky and I have all manner of stuff running on there so this was likely me, not the headphones..   Also it appears that “Teamspeex” doesn’t fully support these, though Ventrilo and everything else works perfectly.

My only real complaint about them is that they must have a wall charger instead of just a USB charger..  This is a really.. really minor complaint and I hesitate to even mention it..  I just thought it was odd that it had a wall charger instead of a computer one.. but it occurs that a lot of folks may never actually use this device with a PC, but rather entirely with a IPod like device or their phone..  At which point they are still near a computer..  *shrug* still its minor..

The other complaint I have has nothing to do with this device, but rather my iPhone.   I have the first generation iPhone and it can’t suppport the A2DP connection required to listen to music.. Which pisses me off..   Not because it can’t do it, but because it totally can do it and Apple has it turned off for the original phones in order to get you to upgrade to the newer iPhones.. (If you have a 3G or 3Gs it works fine)

Good job Sony..

Carl Sagan – A Glorious Dawn

The following is a wonderful and fitting tribute to Carl Sagan created by John Boswell over at ColorPulse Music.   It was done in the form of a music video using exerpts from Carls 13 part television series aired in the late seventies; Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.   It also features Stephen Hawking and I have to admit it is really well done.. 

I felt it needed to be posted and passed on.  I recommend watching it all the way through several times..  Enjoy..

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
ColorPulse:  http://colorpulsemusic.com/youtube.html

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is just plain.. LEGEN-DARY! (er.. sorry.. wrong show).. Joss Whedon put together this little internet mini-series during the writers strike and its really very good.

It stars Neil Patrick Harris (commonly known as Doogie Howser) as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion (Malcom Reynolds or the wrong private Ryan) as Captain Hammer (“Corporate Tool” hehe), and Felicia Day (Buffy, and The Guild) as Penny, Dr. Horribles love interest. It’s spread out over 3 episodes spanning a grand total of about 40 minutes..

In an attempt to test the waters, joss and crew have decided to release this pony for free over the course of the next couple of days, then to offer it for sale. One week only!! Posted initially on the 15th, they stay free until the 20th then go for sale.. I love this idea.. One week, get the word out.. then see who comes and buys it. I would.. its good!

In fact, I’m stunned at how good it is.. hehe I shouldn’t be, I mean Joss is great — just watch firefly, serenity, buffy..etc.. (Damn you fox!) But this is a good little show.. I wish it were longer.. (Sorta like Firefly.. But I digress..)

I love musicals.. I dunno why.. I know its not manly, I don’t care. I really enjoy them and when they are comical, they are even better. This was a fantastic show with just the right amount of music.. More over they were all really well done!

And while I do like Nathan Fillion, I think Neil Patrick Harris completely stole the show. He was great! He makes me want to be in the Evil League of Evil! I had no idea he could sing! It was fun seeing Simon Helberg show up as “Moist”..heh I’m enjoying him on Big Bang Theory.. (did he do your piano work?)

Nathan’s “Moral dilemma” song (end of act 2) was fantastic and probably my favorite. The end of act 1 song was good too.. Oh and Joss, Loved the chair.. heh I also really loved the whole bad horse stuff.. that was funny as hell..

This whole thing was done on a shoe string budget but you wouldn’t know to look at it. I mean the camera work looked great, the lighting and sound were fine. More over they got excellent talent and whoever wrote the songs was great! Lots of counterpoint which was fun.

Very well done though guys.. kudos! I wish it was longer than 3 episodes — BALLS!

On a side note, I’d love to see numbers as to how much this actually cost. Down to equipment, stars, etc.. maybe show us the original script etc.. Really use this as a lesson to the “fan films” and Amateur films community to show us really how its done. That sort of thing would be of interest to everyone and I think they’d pay to see the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff.. I know I would.

My lack of musical skills came gallingly apparent one year at Halloween when everyone in the company showed up playing some instrument or another — and I had nothing of the sort. One of the co-workers asked with complete honesty and earnest, “What instrument do you play?” as if it were a foregone conclusion that I had to play something..

My response was, “I can play the radio..” Which got a chuckle from everyone who heard it, but it left me a little hollow inside. I really do want to learn something I just am not sure what. Or rather, I wasn’t.

Firstly, why did the aspirations die? Well band in middle school was something we did to get the required credit and to avoid any sort of P.E. ~ I’m lazy and playing an instrument sounded a lot more fun that running laps around a track. And while it filled that need nicely, it really did nothing to foster musical desires or competency on my part and I largely didn’t enjoy it..

I think the primary reason for my lack of enthusiasm was that I wanted to play the saxophone, but was assigned the trombone. Back then the players had virtually NO choice.. Had I showed up with a sax of my own and could form the correct embouchure I’m sure I would have been a shoe in, but since we didn’t own a sax and I had no clue what an embouchure was; I wasn’t even remotely in the running for the job. I was handed a trombone and told to go sit down — I made do. But I didn’t like it.

I enjoyed the baritone more, but didn’t get to play it for long before they decided they needed me carrying the sousaphone around. That effectively ended my band career in my mind. I quit the band and spent the next 4 years swimming on the swim team.. Hey at least I wasn’t running laps ~ just swimming them. Low impact I tell ya! (trying to put a positive spin on it)

So whats changed? Well.. Nothing. I still don’t play anything and really would like to. It’s something that I want to get into as a hobby. Just something I can piddle around with.

Part of the issue is my other major hobby is software engineering — programming. I very much enjoy programming and it’s something I do often, but it’s also what I do for a living. And nothing will rob you of a hobby more than being forced to do it.

So I need a new hobby. My usual waste of time comes in the form of playing games, but that’s still massive amounts of time with ‘ass in chair’ really not expanding my horizons.. Playing games is fine and all but it doesn’t broaden the mind much. Entertaining, sure.. Growth educing, not so much..

So this has made me want to look at musical instruments again. I have always had a fondness for music and really would like to learn to make my own. When I listen to music I often imagine myself playing the instruments and what that must feel like..

I thought for a long time that I’d like to learn to play the piano, and even got one. I have a very nice Yamaha S90 piano that I really have never learned to use.

It’s an excellent piano with all manner of very nice bells and whistles, but for what ever reason it didn’t inspire me like I thought it would.

I tried, and had a friend start to teach me but it just didn’t do anything for me. It was a bit daunting of course because of all the various buttons, dials and widgets but so long as you just focused on the piano keys themselves it was fine. It played nicely as far as I could tell but I really didn’t get much out of it. I certainly didn’t do it any justice and at this point its a shame the machine isn’t being better used. I don’t feel it was too hard for me, it just didn’t inspire me.

I still very much like the idea of learning to play the piano but it still doesn’t grip me like I thought it would. I think each person to their instrument and this one simply isn’t mine.

For a long time I wanted to learn to play the guitar and that still entertains me to some degree but no more so than the piano. I know several folks who play the guitar and even dated a woman many years ago who was into it.. Classical acoustic guitar sounded very warm and soulful and I think would be a lot of fun to play. I may still get one at some point, but it doesn’t really drag me away from my other hobbies right now.

I was digging around on the internet when I stumbled across the Chapman Stick being played by Rob Martino in his song “One Cloud” on You Tube.. Nice job Rob. Well done my friend.

This instrument has been around since the mid 70′s but is completely new to me. I never new it existed until recently (a couple months ago now). When I saw Rob playing it though I immediately recognized it as a “Baliset” which I thought was a completely fictional instrument played by Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stuart) in David Lynch’s move Dune.

This was a favorite movie of mine when I was a younger man and so I had seen the Baliset scene many times. So, I was stunned to find that the Baliset was a real instrument, sorta.

I’ve been looking into this for a couple months now and the chapman stick really kind of speaks to me. One thing I like about it is that, from everything I have read it is the perfect amalgamation of keyboard and guitar — in one.

I am going to keep looking into it, but I think I’d like to learn to play one. So far from what I have seen they are brutally expensive.. but I have a nice keyboard I can sell in order to get one, or atleast part way to one.

I have read a couple folks say that learning the guitar first is good, while others say because of the “free hands” tap method used to play it learning the guitar first is actually a hindrance.. I don’t know of course.. and comments are welcome..

I’m going to keep looking into it though.. I have nothing but time so this is no rush.. but I think I’d like to learn the stick. Getting setup with one might be the hard part.. but eventually..

If not the stick then something else.. I know that most of this is likely a pipedream, but I want to learn something.. I need to unplug a tad from all my gaming and programming ~ this seems a good direction..