While browsing the web today in search of content for the blog, I discovered one news worthy story that lead me to encounter another. Both are intimately related even though they describe two businesses that pertain to two very different musical realms.
Story number one:
“Classical music’s most advanced response to the digital revolution”
We all know the recording industry has been going down hill, and its classical music divisions are probably first in-line in the downfall. Classical music has been suffering for many years now for a number of reasons that tend to make me ask myself how it survived up until now, two of which are as follows: orchestras costs a fortune to maintain, and the number of classical music aficionados are most likely decreasing as time goes by.
Kaguya is a Japanese Satellite that has been orbiting the Moon for over two years. With its 14 built-in sensors, Kaguya is analyzing the Moon’s surface from many different angles. Using data from one of those sensors, the “and space” Moonbell project team is using a laser altimeter to transform the altitude data into musical intervals. Moonbell is a web-based interface that lets us “listen to the topography” of the moon by choosing an orbit and playing around with a few parameters. The system generates very soothing music. Check it out at http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/selene_sok/index_en.html.
Here’s a little teaser of the power-trio comprised of Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones and Josh Homme.
They’re kicking off their North American Tour in September and have already played a post-Lollapalooza club gig last month in Chicago, as well as a surprise gig at Leeds Festival in the UK.
Ben Walker has done it again. By “it” I mean find some creative and innovative music-related challenge to add to his ongoing creative and innovative list of music-related challenges. His latest finding is to compose 50 tunes for 50 tweets in 90 days, idea he got from the 50 songs in 90 days challenge he participated in last year. Ben calls his music-twitterthon Tweet Suite, and has created a dedicated website to go with it. Check it out at http://tweetsuite.ihatemornings.com.
The concept is quite simple really: Ben chooses tweets he likes and composes a theme for them. Anyone can send him tweets via Delicious by tagging them 5090tweetsuite and via twitter @ihatemornings.
I’m quite surprised by the quality of the orchestrations of most of his music-tweets, as well as the quality of the tweets themselves. Very nice work.
The late hardcore band The Used (late ’cause they were once a decent hardcore band that ended-up watering down their screamo-selves) just released their new album “Artwork” today in the US and the UK, and they are hosting a listening party accessible through Twitter. The listening party enables anyone who tweets a pre-populated message via http://twitter.theused.net to stream the entire album, plus two exclusive tracks, for 24 hours. In other words, promote the band via twitter and get a daily-pass to check out their album.
It’s a nice promotion stunt despite the fact that teens apparently don’t tweet, and that that the average age of a Used fan is probably around 15 years old.
Two cool guitar-geek blogs I just discovered, GearTrap and ToneFeq, teamed-up to break their world record of the largest guitar pedalboard, comprised of a total of 147 pedals! This pedalboard is fully functional delivering a perfectly clean signal to its output stage. Read more about it here.
If you ever tried learning how to play the piano, you probably noticed the whole process is long, tiring and often painful. Of course all the negative aspects are surpassed by the the actual feeling of getting all the notes fall in places harmoniously. What if it were possible to bypass the painful learning process by having a robot manipulate your fingers on the keyboard in order to develop the muscle memory required to play on their own. Such a robot exists: behold Rubato Production’s Concert hands:
I felt shocked and appalled right after seeing this video, but come to think of it the system seems plausible. I’ll conclude this post with a heartfelt “hmmmm”.
A brand new artist online feedback platform is going to launch in 3 weeks. The website is called Blazetrack, and it’s getting a lot of hype lately due to an interesting business model that has the potential of attracting both the indie communities as well as industry professionals.
Here’s how it works: artists, whether they be in music, film and whatnot, will be able to submit their works to Blazetrack’s roster of pros and celebs and gather feedback for determined fees (among big names already on board are Outkast’s Big Boi, R&B/hip-hop producer Rich Harrison, country music king Paul Worley, country star John Rich and Swedish producer Kalle Engstrom). I’ll leave you to Nate Casey’s (one of Blazetrack’s founders) elevator pitch for further explanations:
Apparently the pros will also be able to submit their own requests to the community when in search of talents for particular projects. This also turns Blazetrack into the likes of an online licensing platform, similar to services such as You License and Pump Audio.
What I find very interesting here is that Blazetrack will give artists the opportunity to connect with major players in their fields, and although the submission prices will be expensive, that possibility will be exciting and new. Since Blazetrack’s biz model is based on a 35% cut of what the artist will pay to get reviewed, I suppose they will primarily aim to partner with influential industry insiders who’s fees will be high. I am curious to know how the system will work for lesser-known people who wish to use Blazetrack as a complementary source of revenue – or in other words, how it will leverage it’s model for lesser established artists and pros.
We all know the recording industry has been going down hill, and its classical music divisions are probably first in-line in the downfall. Classical music has been suffering for many years now for a number of reasons that tend to make me ask myself how it survived up until now, two of which are as follows: orchestras costs a fortune to maintain, and the number of classical music aficionados are most likely decreasing as time goes by.
The late hardcore band The Used (late ’cause they were once a decent hardcore band that ended-up watering down their screamo-selves) just released their new album “Artwork” today in the US and the UK, and they are hosting a listening party accessible through Twitter. The listening party enables anyone who tweets a pre-populated message via 
A brand new artist online feedback platform is going to launch in 3 weeks. The website is called Blazetrack, and it’s getting a lot of hype lately due to an interesting business model that has the potential of attracting both the indie communities as well as industry professionals.
