Christopher Tin blogged about the Dubai fountain using Baba Yetu as their backing music. Looks awesome.
From the blog comments I saw something unexpected. Someone, after watching the fountain, dug up the music behind it. I know I've listened to the song a bajillion times playing Civ4 over and over, but it's really heartening that the music can stand on its own and be noticed like that. Gratz Christopher ...
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Knowledge is connection
Listened to a very interesting Big Ideas podcast today from David Weinberger on Knowledge at the end of the Information Age. Some very salient points about the complexity of data and the transformation of data to knowledge. One point that really stuck with me was that metadata is merely our interperetation of data, and that our metadata could easily be someone else's data. Adding context and meaning to data is initself data to be analyzed and searched upon.
Another point that I'd been spruking for a while is that knowledge is not as important as understanding. David places this even deeper stating that what we used to perceive of as knowledge is in fact the organisation of the data in a meaningful way, not just the acquisition of data, so the term 'gaining knowledge' still applies to the google generation, just the emphasis changes.
Another point that I'd been spruking for a while is that knowledge is not as important as understanding. David places this even deeper stating that what we used to perceive of as knowledge is in fact the organisation of the data in a meaningful way, not just the acquisition of data, so the term 'gaining knowledge' still applies to the google generation, just the emphasis changes.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
iPod Nano
A number of things conspired to breaking down my iTunes loathing. First was Apple dropping DRM on iTunes, and a couple of other hints recently that they've cleaned up their act on PC iTunes interlockisuckness. The kicker though was the slow disintegration of my cheapass MP3 player finally made it useless for a potential 5 hr cleaning stint at work.
The MP3 player started out Ok. 1/3 the price of an iPod touch with virtually all the features. It was also expandable through a MiniSD port, std 3.5 mm jack for speakers and a pure file system for organizing music, videos or data. There were some things that came to light after playing with it though:
- No bookmarking: This was a big one. I had picked it up almost exclusively for podcasts, but every time it powered down it lost the place in the mp3. For songs that would be Ok, but in hour-long podcasts it was a right royal pain in the ass. In the 10 minute trip home I would sometimes spend 2 minutes ffwding to the right spot. Added to that the touch screen was a little too touchy. If you slightly lifted your finger off the ffwd button and the car bumped or something, you'd tap the ffwd button again and advance to the next song! Aarrgh!!@! After a couple of months I finally found a solution by splitting the podcasts into 10 minute chunks. I'd then be pretty close to one chunk per trip.
- Sloppy controls: Added to the Ffwd button unpleasantries, there was very little tactile feedback on the touchscreen or display. Sometimes you were certain you'd pressed a button and it wouldn't do anything, other times it was way too sensitive. There would be no way you could use it without looking at it, which leads to ..
- Poor screen visibility: In bright sunlight the screen is impossible to see. Even shading the screen barely makes a difference. Added to that, the screen gets smudged from touching it (duh).
- USB dodgyness: On the same USB port it would work sometimes and not others. At least it didn't need a CD to work. Never quite figured out what state caused the error or (better yet) what would definitely work.
- Poor assembly: After ~6 months the metal strip around the player came adrift leaving a rather tacky dishevelled look. The 3.5mm jack also lost amplification somehow. You could still hear it fine through the internal speaker, or through the car audio system by cranking it up, but headphones were useless.
The amp problem was the death knell when I needed it for cleaning. I tried through the internal speaker from my pocket, and then cradling it like a mobile phone, but I knew it just wasn't going to last the distance. I dumped the tools and headed into town to pick up a replacement.
I'd seen the nano's around school, but hadn't really paid attention to them. I really just needed something for podcasts and the size looked right. When I saw it in the store I was surprised how thin it was and that it actually had a proper screen. I knew it had advanced past the original iPod bullet list, but wasn't expecting a screen that could do video. There really wasn't much of a debate about size, the bigger the better, and 16Gb actually opened up the possibility of moving my whole collection to it. The tougher choice was the colour. I'd have loved a dark green one, but the green was a lighter stand-out colour you'd see on a VeeDub. Looked nice, but not my style. The grey was Ok. Not inspirational, but functional.
Now the big test: Putting on iTunes. We had previously loaded iTunes on some of the machines at work for podcast creation, so it went on relatively easy (even picking up some tests from my profile). Podcast searching through iTunes is still abysmal, but at least it's all in one place. I tried to load in some of my older mp3 podcasts, but iTunes failed to acknowledge them as such and dumped them in with the rest of the music. Ahh yes, "my way or else". With little investment into either the current collection or the state of the iPod I managed to fiddle enough to get my main TWiT feeds onto it and a couple of new experiments. With at least 3 hours a day opened up for listening it was going to get a workout.
Initial reactions to the clickwheel was that it, too, offered highly sensitive pickup sometimes and not others. Quickly scrolling down the list is fine, but passing the one you wanted and reversing just one song / track would invariably mean reversing 2. This lead to a comical dance to and fro over the target track. After using it for another week it's either settled down or I'm getting used to how it wants me to operate. I'm guessing the latter.
At home I set up another iTunes station on my main box and went to work figuring out how to sync to 2 machines without wiping out my entire collection off the iPod. It certainly looks easier to do now than before, but is still an uphill battle than just naively syncing to one machine automatically.
Next up were a number of Audiobooks ripped to mp3. On first attempt they came across into the music section like the older podcasts, but after some googling on outdated techniques I found that all you need to do is change the media type on all the files to "audiobook"
While there it's worth ticking the bookmarking option as well as skipping from playlists. I'm pretty sure the media type should preclude it from normal playlists now, but I didn't test it out. There also was a wierd one where Johnathon Coulton's Thing a Week podcast all came over as podcasts rather than being integrated into the song list. Changing these checkboxes on those songs made them visible to playlists regardless of the podcast flag, so I'm guessing the same could be said for audiobooks.
For a week I went to town on the podcasts, subscribing to over 15 streams to get the ball rolling. I'd mostly have a couple spare as well as the Audiobooks to better match my listening mood. I'm glad I can use the headphones again too. I picked them up when passing through Japan on my way to last year's WCG grand final in Seattle and the retractable nature of them has been awesome compared to the mess of cords in my bum bag.
I also made my first purchase, Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog. I'd watched it at Andrew's place and really wanted Sandy to watch it, as well as have it available to indoctrinate others. Actually the screen does a remarkable job for watching it. Very nice even in daylight. Now that I've rewatched it several times I can't get the songs out of my head. There's something inherently more catchy and repeatable about musicals than if it were a normal TV series like Firefly.
So finally some awesome moments from Doogie .. err .. Dr. Horrible. I like his expressions when he's not talking. Great timing.
.. Right! Freeze Ray!
Descent into madness.
The MP3 player started out Ok. 1/3 the price of an iPod touch with virtually all the features. It was also expandable through a MiniSD port, std 3.5 mm jack for speakers and a pure file system for organizing music, videos or data. There were some things that came to light after playing with it though:- No bookmarking: This was a big one. I had picked it up almost exclusively for podcasts, but every time it powered down it lost the place in the mp3. For songs that would be Ok, but in hour-long podcasts it was a right royal pain in the ass. In the 10 minute trip home I would sometimes spend 2 minutes ffwding to the right spot. Added to that the touch screen was a little too touchy. If you slightly lifted your finger off the ffwd button and the car bumped or something, you'd tap the ffwd button again and advance to the next song! Aarrgh!!@! After a couple of months I finally found a solution by splitting the podcasts into 10 minute chunks. I'd then be pretty close to one chunk per trip.
- Sloppy controls: Added to the Ffwd button unpleasantries, there was very little tactile feedback on the touchscreen or display. Sometimes you were certain you'd pressed a button and it wouldn't do anything, other times it was way too sensitive. There would be no way you could use it without looking at it, which leads to ..
- Poor screen visibility: In bright sunlight the screen is impossible to see. Even shading the screen barely makes a difference. Added to that, the screen gets smudged from touching it (duh).
- USB dodgyness: On the same USB port it would work sometimes and not others. At least it didn't need a CD to work. Never quite figured out what state caused the error or (better yet) what would definitely work.
- Poor assembly: After ~6 months the metal strip around the player came adrift leaving a rather tacky dishevelled look. The 3.5mm jack also lost amplification somehow. You could still hear it fine through the internal speaker, or through the car audio system by cranking it up, but headphones were useless.
The amp problem was the death knell when I needed it for cleaning. I tried through the internal speaker from my pocket, and then cradling it like a mobile phone, but I knew it just wasn't going to last the distance. I dumped the tools and headed into town to pick up a replacement.
I'd seen the nano's around school, but hadn't really paid attention to them. I really just needed something for podcasts and the size looked right. When I saw it in the store I was surprised how thin it was and that it actually had a proper screen. I knew it had advanced past the original iPod bullet list, but wasn't expecting a screen that could do video. There really wasn't much of a debate about size, the bigger the better, and 16Gb actually opened up the possibility of moving my whole collection to it. The tougher choice was the colour. I'd have loved a dark green one, but the green was a lighter stand-out colour you'd see on a VeeDub. Looked nice, but not my style. The grey was Ok. Not inspirational, but functional.Now the big test: Putting on iTunes. We had previously loaded iTunes on some of the machines at work for podcast creation, so it went on relatively easy (even picking up some tests from my profile). Podcast searching through iTunes is still abysmal, but at least it's all in one place. I tried to load in some of my older mp3 podcasts, but iTunes failed to acknowledge them as such and dumped them in with the rest of the music. Ahh yes, "my way or else". With little investment into either the current collection or the state of the iPod I managed to fiddle enough to get my main TWiT feeds onto it and a couple of new experiments. With at least 3 hours a day opened up for listening it was going to get a workout.
Initial reactions to the clickwheel was that it, too, offered highly sensitive pickup sometimes and not others. Quickly scrolling down the list is fine, but passing the one you wanted and reversing just one song / track would invariably mean reversing 2. This lead to a comical dance to and fro over the target track. After using it for another week it's either settled down or I'm getting used to how it wants me to operate. I'm guessing the latter.
At home I set up another iTunes station on my main box and went to work figuring out how to sync to 2 machines without wiping out my entire collection off the iPod. It certainly looks easier to do now than before, but is still an uphill battle than just naively syncing to one machine automatically.
Next up were a number of Audiobooks ripped to mp3. On first attempt they came across into the music section like the older podcasts, but after some googling on outdated techniques I found that all you need to do is change the media type on all the files to "audiobook"
While there it's worth ticking the bookmarking option as well as skipping from playlists. I'm pretty sure the media type should preclude it from normal playlists now, but I didn't test it out. There also was a wierd one where Johnathon Coulton's Thing a Week podcast all came over as podcasts rather than being integrated into the song list. Changing these checkboxes on those songs made them visible to playlists regardless of the podcast flag, so I'm guessing the same could be said for audiobooks.
For a week I went to town on the podcasts, subscribing to over 15 streams to get the ball rolling. I'd mostly have a couple spare as well as the Audiobooks to better match my listening mood. I'm glad I can use the headphones again too. I picked them up when passing through Japan on my way to last year's WCG grand final in Seattle and the retractable nature of them has been awesome compared to the mess of cords in my bum bag.
I also made my first purchase, Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog. I'd watched it at Andrew's place and really wanted Sandy to watch it, as well as have it available to indoctrinate others. Actually the screen does a remarkable job for watching it. Very nice even in daylight. Now that I've rewatched it several times I can't get the songs out of my head. There's something inherently more catchy and repeatable about musicals than if it were a normal TV series like Firefly.
So finally some awesome moments from Doogie .. err .. Dr. Horrible. I like his expressions when he's not talking. Great timing.
.. Right! Freeze Ray!
Descent into madness.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Baba Yetu
Soren Johnston wrote recently on the music of Civ 4, which reminded me of Baba Yetu once again. I had found Christopher Tin's blog recently purely because of that song, and the memories of countless hours replaying Civ4 and just sitting at the title screen soaking it in.
Now Soren's done up a back story to Baba Yetu along with numerous youTube performances.
Here's my fave; amazing body in the song from such a small group:
A Fanatic on .. err .. CivFanatics did up the lyrics.
As I was going through the vids I thought that this would be an AWESOME Guitar Hero: World Tour song for the trackmaker. Might see if Christopher has a PS3 ;).
Now Soren's done up a back story to Baba Yetu along with numerous youTube performances.
Here's my fave; amazing body in the song from such a small group:
A Fanatic on .. err .. CivFanatics did up the lyrics.
As I was going through the vids I thought that this would be an AWESOME Guitar Hero: World Tour song for the trackmaker. Might see if Christopher has a PS3 ;).
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Now I know my ABCs
An odd thought occurred to me while listening to Cameron sing through the Alphabet Song. The last line finishes with "Next time won't you sing with me?". Who is that question directed to? If Cameron is singing it to me, is it an invite to sing along next time purely for accompaniment? It certainly feels as though the words are meant as a direction from adult to child, or mentor to pupil; an encouragement to learn the song by singing along. It also smacks of progression. Once you have learned the song you can then pass it down. The student becoming the teacher.
I don't recall such an overtly learning centred verse existing in other songs, although I'm surprised it has taken 35 years to realise that the words are so purposeful. Maybe it's the Teaching degree kicking in; changing my mind to look for pedagogical principles.
I don't recall such an overtly learning centred verse existing in other songs, although I'm surprised it has taken 35 years to realise that the words are so purposeful. Maybe it's the Teaching degree kicking in; changing my mind to look for pedagogical principles.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Friday, December 14, 2007
Music Theory (Pt 2)
Intrigued at the chromatic equidistance alignment to the diatonic scale, I whipped up an excel spreadsheet to calculate the harmonic values and the error.
The tonal equivalence is pretty good for the most part, especially locking in G and F as the major derivatives from the C based scale. The sacrifice of E, A and B at 1/2 a microtone are on relatively large dissonance valleys, so it should 'sound' Ok compared to losing a G.
It still amazes me that a simple rising scale of 12 equal tempers can accurately place the diatonic scale at 2 spaces apart sometimes while only one space apart on others. One thing that it does make is that each major chord has 4 semi-tones between the 1st and 2nd note, then 3 to the 3rd. (C->E=4 E->G=3, G->B=4 B->D=3, F->A=4, A->C=3)
The tonal equivalence is pretty good for the most part, especially locking in G and F as the major derivatives from the C based scale. The sacrifice of E, A and B at 1/2 a microtone are on relatively large dissonance valleys, so it should 'sound' Ok compared to losing a G.
It still amazes me that a simple rising scale of 12 equal tempers can accurately place the diatonic scale at 2 spaces apart sometimes while only one space apart on others. One thing that it does make is that each major chord has 4 semi-tones between the 1st and 2nd note, then 3 to the 3rd. (C->E=4 E->G=3, G->B=4 B->D=3, F->A=4, A->C=3)
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Music Theory
A while back Matt Farthing had offered to teach a bunch of us how to play the guitar in the School lunch break. It eventually dissolved once we were past he basics, but I did have a chat to Matt about the musical scale and he mentioned something I wasn't familiar with: "each note on a keyboard rises one 1/2 note counting the sharps". This led to a related problem; where's the sharp key between the B&C and E&F? If the white notes are usually a full tone apart, why does it sound natural going up the scale only playing the white notes? Wouldn't there be a marked difference when you hit F and C? Is this just what we are used to?
I dug up some stuff on the net, but nothing really got to the bottom of the problem. Lots of music theory, but mostly history or the blanket statement "Here's C, and here's a chord". I then found Jeff's music theory page and a whole lot of maths harmonics clicked in to make sense. I still didn't know what happened to the missing black key, but it shows why there is a discrepancy between the spacing of the notes. It seems odd that the tonal equidistance of the chromatic scale works so well when translated to 2,2,1,2,2,2,1.
I dug up some stuff on the net, but nothing really got to the bottom of the problem. Lots of music theory, but mostly history or the blanket statement "Here's C, and here's a chord". I then found Jeff's music theory page and a whole lot of maths harmonics clicked in to make sense. I still didn't know what happened to the missing black key, but it shows why there is a discrepancy between the spacing of the notes. It seems odd that the tonal equidistance of the chromatic scale works so well when translated to 2,2,1,2,2,2,1.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
StreX releasing again
StreX has another track ready for download. Mass gave it the thumbs up before the TF2 match tonight, so it's coming highly recommended. I like the idea of an extended set laid down rather than piecemeal sections, and for free too!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Osmosis Land
I was asked to do the devotion for last Monday's School Council meeting, so I'd decided to redo Earthsuit's Osmosis Land sermon from a couple of years ago. I forgot to bring the shirt though! Billy was after the song for one of his kids, so after googling it up it looks like it's on Rhapsody.
Pretty powerful lyrics to dig into:
The main thrust of it ties into one of my favourite verses:
Pretty powerful lyrics to dig into:
Every night and every single day
The sun will rise, the moon it will fade
And in our web idols were spun
Caught up in oblivion
So we come with the song, come with the sword
Come with the image of the Son
Come with the song, come with the sword
What we behold we become
Living in osmosis land
Living in osmosis land
Come on and bring up, bring the swing
Everybody get up
Bring up, bring the swing, let my God erupt
In this land of Osmosis
Come on and bring up, bring the swing
Everybody get up
Bring up, bring the swing,
let my God erupt
In this land of Osmosis
The main thrust of it ties into one of my favourite verses:
Romans 12:2 (The Message)
Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
U touch my Bottom ?
I pulled out a shirt to wear a couple of weeks ago, an old Scripture Union shirt that I picked up from Sonfest a couple of years ago. It was purchased because there was a great singer on at the time, doing her first gig in 'the fridge' (an air conditioned tent; perfect for summer in Boonah) and I grabbed a shirt to get some signatures. After a bit of reminiscing about the great events of Sonfest, I decided to look up Nikki again to see if she'd produced any music yet. Sure enough, Nikkki Kummerow is out there in cyberspace, with the obligatory MySpace account for budding singers. I couldn't find any of the original songs lying around, but some of her new stuff has the same feeling behind it.
Third Day were also in town (well, Brisbane, but close enough) over the Australia Day weekend and I'd snaffled some tickets as a Chrissy surprise for Sandy. Apparently hiding the CD with the tickets in the CD rack wasn't the greatest of spots as she found it 2 days later. Third day were great. In an enclosed auditorium the music shifted up a notch over the other 2 Sonfest appearances I'd seen them at.
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