I was telling one of Dad’s nurses how Mom and Dad met and found out that she lived on the same road my mom grew up on;  the “Needmore Road”.  There’s a little community a few miles from here called “Needmore”.  Aside from the obvious jokes arising from it’s name, it’s regional reputation comes from the quality of moonshine that is brewed from it’s crystal clear water.  There’s a seam of white clay in the region and in the deep south, many people say it’s medicinal.  In some places, women have been known to eat the clay to assure a trouble-free pregnancy.  But I’m not going to speculate about that…

Now making your own whiskey is frowned upon in Alabama and both the Federal Agents and the local law enforcement love to destroy such operations.  The moonshiners on the Needmore Road were apparently legendary, but I didn’t know about them until a series of raids were publicized recently.  The moonshiners have yet to be caught, but they’ve lost at least 4 sets of distillers.

I remarked to this nurse that it was really strange that I spent so many years in that area going to church and visiting my grandfather and aunt, but I never knew that such illegal liquor was available right down the road.  She smiled and said that these days it’s cheaper to buy your rotgut at the liquor stores but to her family, moonshining still remained a matter of tradition and pride.

HER FAMILY!?!

That’s right.  The cunning corn mash connoisseurs were relatives of hers and while she didn’t name any names, she did mention that select members of her family tree had been making it since the Civil War and that they aren’t making it to sell anymore, they’re making it for select friends and family members.

Wow.  That’s some tradition.

Perhaps that’s the source of the complex vowel sound that linguists call “the Confederate ‘ai’”

Which explains why the Southern Drawl is gradually disappearing…

The search engine is very cool:  you can search by typing in notes, rhythms or contours and the engine returns other songs that have the exact material or closely related material.  The results  range from classical to modern (pop) songs.   For example,  Beethoven’s 5th theme (G- G- G- Eb,  F-F-F-D) returned over 10 pages of results, including ACDC’s Highway to Hell and the Mamas & Papas’ California Dreamin’.

The science behind this is very cool and reminds me of the Celemony upgrade that I’m still waiting on;  Direct Note Access. 

The folks at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence have a few more things coming down the pike.  For example, they’ve been studying the recordings of expert pianists to discern what makes a performance artistic:

The principal goal of this work is to learn more about this

complex artistic activity by measuring expressive aspects

such as timing, dynamics, etc. in large numbers of recordings

by famous musicians (currently: pianists) and using

AI techniques — mainly from machine learning and data

mining — to analyze these data and gain new insights for

the field of performance research.  (Source = abstract, O¨FAI website, VIENNA)

It’s just one more step towards being able to buy a guitar or piano that will make you play in the style of “(insert famous artist name)”…

Almost at the end of the first part, Lanois says:

“…and as performers, we witness the raising of the Spirit, you know, the capacity the music has to change the feeling of a room. So we can’t help but be spiritual people…”
and

Near then end of this clip, Lanois says:
” Heart and soul is probably what’s most important in the “center of the matter”, and especially within an education system that we’ve sorta been brought up in, we are led to believe that if you’re interested in a subject matter, then you should study. But in fact, Passion is probably your greatest teacher, because even as a kid, if you’re passionate about something, you can learn how to do it through looking at books, asking friends, listening to records…whatever you’re interested in.”

Passion. That’s what I’ve gotta book.

In two weeks I’ll take a few days away from classes to attend the Performing Arts Exchange at the Southern Arts Federation convention in Atlanta, GA.   For details, go to http://www.southarts.org/ .  As a newly elected member of the local arts council, my mission is to channel the spirit of legendary talent buyer “Hiram Cheap” and bring home the acts for the upcoming 2009-2010 season.  I’ll be blogging live from the convention and sending you little video interviews of performers, agents, and random miscreants as time permits. 

     Sample panel discussions include: Advanced Contract Negotiation,  Using Second Life to Engage Audiences, Federal Taxes on Foreign Artists: It’s Time to Comply, and Arts in Healthcare: A Rewarding Way of Reaching New Audiences. 

There are a couple of issues I’m working through as I mentally prepare for this trip: 

            (1) What is the right balance between “art-lite” (i.e. entertainment like magic acts, regional theatre companies’ A Christmas Carol presentations, and the Kingston trio) and “art-stout” (i.e. heavy art like modern dance, opera, classical chamber groups, etc…)?

            (2)  How do you convince people to “buy-in” to the season tickets when popularity (and thus attendance) has been abysmal the past few seasons?

            (3)  Do we book according to our funds in the bank or take a risk (major act) and hope to increase the subscriptions?   I can predict the vote of most of the council on this one…but should I try to turn this thing around? 

We’re trying to revive the idea of a market survey and get some data collection done within the next week, and this may help create a buzz.  Personally, I’d love to have an outdoor songwriters’contest/festival to coincide with a big arts/crafts festival our town has each year, but this would be a LOT of work for me and a pretty big financial risk to take if the weather is ugly that weekend.

As always, your insights and ideas are appreciated.

My IP must be blocking Jack Pribek’s site ’cause I can’t get it at home without firing up the laptop and stealing my neighbor’s wireless signal.  Jack, you’re making me do unethical things to read your blog. 

If you’re wondering where all the posts have been going, take a look at the theory, aural skills and audio principles blogs I started this Fall.  I’m trying to make this technology educationally productive, so if you’re thinking that my main site has been neglected a bit,  you’re probably right.

DM Mobile blog has new studio pix up!

Protooler continues to inspire and teach great tips!  Where does he get all this time to figure things out?  I can’t even keep my office clean…

Guitarflame is talking Music Theory!  Ovidiu is not as mean as his post suggests.  Go there and learn some real-world stuff.

Song FU #2 Round #2 challenge is up:

Your challenge is to choose a famous inventor and craft a song proposing a “dance craze” based on either the inventor or one of his/her most well known inventions. For an idea of what we’re looking for, here’s a song proposing the ill-fated “Lurch”…

Thanks to everyone who voted for Paul and Storm.  Your check is in the mail.

See what I’m fired up about?  This is a very creative way to hone your songwriting skills.  Think about the team mixing contests on the Womb boards (mixerman.net);  –this is great stuff!!  Taking tests on “The Craft of Lyric Writing” is not in the same ballpark!

You are in control of your own education!  In my class, I try to build a supportive environment that protects egos and encourages experimentation.  While these Internet contests are not for the faint-of-heart, they may well be the future “sorting-machine” type of education that is missing from many curriculi and that helped create our past generations of winners.

Now, how can I convince you that you’re good enough to be a winner?  That’s tough, but Louis Schmier is one of those people I visit for inspiration.  In a recent blog post, he shared this poem;

We can see dandelions as a weed that invades the pristine beauty of our gardens.  Or, we can see it as a beautiful flower or a fluffy white ball to wish upon or as a source of nourishing food and drink.

We can see a mud puddle and see only dirty shoes, soiled clothes, and stained carpets.  Or, we can see it as a pool to stomp in, splash around in, and have fun.

We can feel a wind and worry about how it will muss our hair or toss leaves on our manicured lawns.  Or, we can close our eyes, let it massage our face, and imagine we’re soaring on an updraft like an eagle.

We can see a rain storm and see only that we will be drenched, depressed by the grayness, and that the warm rays of the sun will disappear.   Or, we can sing and play in the rain as if it was a water fountain, realize the raindrops are nourishing our gardens, and think warmly of the sun that still shines above the gray clouds.

and then Louis added:

Now, just replace “dandelion” and “mud puddle” with “student.” /…/  Seeing the good side or being able to discover and savor things to be grateful for, doesn’t reduce or erase the inconveniences or discomforts or headaches or disappointments. But, it can change dramatically how we choose to deal with them and what impact they will have on our ability to persist, persevere, and feel accomplished, satisfied, fulfilled, and happy.

Thank God for people like Louis.  We love ya, dude!

Make it a good one-

-J

I had way too many statistics classes in graduate school; 24 semester hours! Along the way I learned something about the destructive force quantitative statistical methods could wield if they fell into the wrong hands.

Some musical “artists” actually sought to materialize the best and worst of our musical tastes.
The most unwanted music?, –if you dare!!
Download The most unwanted music?

The most wanted music?
Download Most wanted music?

More info here:

This is a visual example of the damage statisticians can do when they survey the general public to determine what people like.

Slate Magazine’s William Weir made some good points with Tuesday’s Music Box column:

1.  From 1975 to 1990, there were only 30 instrumental songs that made the Top 20.  Since 1990 there have been only 5.   Compare this to the era from 1960-1974 when 128 instrumentals reached the top 20.   Get the picture?

2.  Lyric word count has increased over the years.  As Weir puts it:

The year-end top 10 songs from 1960 to 1969 have an average word count of 176. For the 1970s, the figure jumps to 244. In 2007, the average climbed to 436. The top 10 for the week of Feb. 2, 2008, features six songs over the 500-word mark. Chris Brown and T-Pain use 742 words in their “Kiss Kiss.” 

So what’s the point?   Well, it could be that people favor the words more than the pure musical content.  Citing 2 studies, Weir concludes:

Neuroscientists believe that the brain uses a different system to store and process music than it does words. Not much research has been done on which affects us more, but an American University study published in the Psychology of Music in 2006 gives a slight edge to melody.

But he concludes that the instrumental is a dying breed.  The reason?

Marketability. A band is practically faceless with no crooning front man.

/. . . /No singer means no airplay.

So 2 questions emerge: 

“What’s more important;  the words or the music?” and

“Why are there fewer instrumental hits?”

While it would be easy to argue that you can’t divide a song into its seperate parts (the work is a whole and should be judged as a whole), just for kicks I’ll weigh in on the side of music being more important.  Sometimes music may be created as a vehicle to carry the meaning/message of the text, but lyrics are not the music.  At the university, the music faculty teach students to critique the music and the humanities/literature faculty tackle the lyric analysis.  But which is better;  the music or the words?  Here I’ll defer to the music psychologists to argue and test their way to some scientifically defensible position. 

My point is basically that the music polls may favor some political speech set to music one week but it is the universal appeal of well-crafted music that makes it survive for centuries.  What other songs graced the Top 20 list when Beethoven’s 9th (or 5th) symphony was released?  Maybe I’m just an idealist, but I believe that quality pure music wins over time.  And good text will endure, too.  Just dig up a dead poet laureate (Dante or Ovid);  they’ll tell you. 

Why are there fewer instrumental hits?   Mr. Weir may have a good point, here.   If the airplay oligopolies create the demand based on market strategies, then maybe the public never has a chance to hear good instrumental music anymore. 

Many of the composers that are really good at crafting music are lured into the film scoring field.  The trouble is, their work is often so watered down by cuts and producer changes, it becomes a “work for hire” composition rather than truly a part of the composer’s voice.  Or maybe we’re just waiting for the next Beethoven to be born…

Anyway, it’s time for me to stop rambling and ask for your comments.  Comments?

Beyond the break there are 2 videos that prove my point.

Stevie Wonder in the studio in 1973. 

A really old video of young Stevie Wonder playing a mad drum solo.

If it won't play, try clicking here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SCZv7786KY

I’m honored to be the guest blogger today at www.guitarflame.com!  So stop by and check it out;  it’s a cool place to hang out!

Here’s my guest blogpost!

Van Canto = Hero-metal a cappella (not counting the drummer)!

Power chords are interval distances taken from a triad (the backbone of tonal music); –i.e. the root and the fifth.  I always think of bagpipes when I think of power chords, although the highland bagpipe’s drones are tuned to octave A’s, not a perfect fifth (octaves and perfect fifths are a specific musical distance apart). 

There’s true energy in the interval;  energy enough to hear and judge the temper of the intervals (temper = how equal the step sizes are).  The piano tuner I apprenticed with during my college years taught me to tune a tempered octave by equalizing the beating you can hear between a P4 and P5(perfect 4th and perfect 5th). It’s quite easy to hear if  the P4 beats are much slower or faster than the p5 (but you should mute 2 of the 3 string of a piano’s notes before trying this, else you could get too much interference to tell if motion is present).

So what’s this got to do with choirs?  Hang on–…I’m getting to that.

Plainsong was originally sung in unison, but by the middle of the 9th century, music historians tell us that it was common for people to sing songs in parallel P4ths, P5ths, and P8ths.   Power Chord harmony!

It wasn’t until the 1300s that folks got tired of power chords and started to phase it out.  

Imagine that!  Folks in the Dark Ages got tired of power chords…funny stuff!

 Actually, power chords in vocal music never really died.    And this style of voicing is re-emerging and becoming fashionable. 

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704683,00.html

(thanks ypulse via Listenerd)

And there’s a new movie,too (which I just ordered for my classes.). 

You can check it out here:

http://www.awakemysoul.com/

 Power chords for choirs.  

Rock on!