After All These Years (Still Crazy)

New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Worry about time as little as Ray did.
2. Rock it. Hard.

Sine Waves 2

The zip file of sine waves has been updated to correct some pitch errors.  Make sure to download the new version.

[SineWaves2.zip] 125.8 MB

Personal Heroes: #1

Ludwig Van Beethoven

I can hear your groans from here, but hear me out. Beethoven wasn’t just some Haydn wannabe, the dude was out to mess some junk up in a serious way. He was a recluse, often disheveled, and difficult to deal with. He knew exactly how he wanted his music played, and wouldn’t settle for anything less. Furthermore, he basically invented the Sonata for solo piano, and just about when everyone else was catching on to that, he went and broke it down into unrecognizable bits from which it has never really recovered.

Here’s the beginning of the end for Sonatas which just happens to be my most favorite piece by Beethoven too (as performed by Alfred Brendel):

Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101 – I. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung

Happy birthday, Beethoven.

George Saunders: Nostalgia

Same with music, though, right? I used to love music, back when it had melody and chords and lyrics. But now it has no melody and no chords, just thwack-thwacking, and they even seem to be cutting back on the thwack-thwacking, so now it’s sometimes just thwa, and, as far as lyrics, do you consider these lyrics?

Hump my hump, My stumpy lumpy hump! Hump my dump, you lumpy slumpy dump! I’ll dump your hump, and then just hump your dump, You lumpy frumply clump. I’m sorry. To me? Those are not lyrics. In my day, lyrics were used to express real emotion, like the emotion of being totally stoned and trying to talk this totally stoned chick into sleeping with you in the name of love, which lasted forever, if only you held on to your dreams. (via The New Yorker)

Here’s my little secret: I have a google alert set up just incase George Saunders publishes anything. The above is only a small reason why.

Love Remains the Same

It’s nice to hear some real guitar playing in pop music.  I always knew that Gavin was a true guitarist, even back in the angry 90s when he was the singer for Bush. Sure, his singing and songwriting are pretty much awful, but I could certainly use some more really good guitar playing instead of that awful chump-chump-chumping I hear every time I turn on the radio.

On a side note lala is pretty neat, but 30 second clips are stupid. (There’s some better guitar playing at the end, so click through if you are interested.) I hope Apple can shine them up and make them a totally new way to experience music on the web.

Sine Waves: Day 1

I discovered that if you play the same pitch as the wave and get it perfectly in tune, the waves cancel each other out and all you hear is yourself, not the recording, no matter how loud it is.

I also realized that A#5 is not the right pitch.  Check back soon for Version 2.0!

Feel free to let me know how you are finding the Sine Waves, good or bad.