This is the final in a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  Today I discuss the fourteenth song, “Alone on the Tracks.”

It’s finally here.  Today, I complete the article series for In Unexpected Places.

“Alone on the Tracks” began life as one of my “Rhythm Method” Prototypes (P24, which is hosted on SoundClick, so you can listen and compare to the finished product.)

Today I’m going to explain a bit about the guitar and bass part for this song.  Before I get started, though, I need to clear up a notational issue . . . .

The 3-Side vs. the “Invisible Barline”

In traditional Western music, standard notation puts an “invisible barline” in the middle of each bar.  This isn’t exactly convenient for Latin or world beat music.  Below, I’ve shown three parts.  On top is the 3-side of the son clave; the bottom two parts are the guitar and bass for the third bar of “Part A” (next section).  With the “invisible bar line”, the second note of the clave (and the second note of the bass) look rather awkward, being written as an eighth tied to a quarter note:

3-side with "Invisible Barline."

The solution?  Ditch the invisible bar line.  The notation looks much cleaner:

3-side without "Invisible Barline."

I bring this up because the 3-side beat is the basis for this entire composition.  “Alone on the Tracks” features a guitar part that provides the essential rhythm for the entire song.  In contrast, on this one, I pulled waaay back on the bass, mostly hitting whole notes.

Part A

The repeating four bar unit in the “A” sections of “Alone on the Tracks” goes like this:

Arrangement for Part A of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

As far as the bass is concerned, the only departure from whole notes is in the third bar.  However, an important feature of this song is not so much the specific notes, but the timbre.

The guitar is phased, and so tends to occupy a lot of the higher frequencies.  In contrast, although I am playing fairly high on the bass, I have voiced it so it creates a deep, rich fundamental note.  (If you’re into these sort of things, I call this setup my “Jon Evans” sound, after Tori Amos’ bass player from back in the day.)  I chose an amp and bass setting so that the lower frequencies are strong, almost monolithic, and the higher harmonics are very sparse.

Part B

The “B” sections in the song go like this:

Arrangement for Part B of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

Here, the chords mostly stick to variations of D dorian — but then, there’s that surprise C at the turnaround.  Although it’s not necessarily a tense chord, the key to its sound is it’s voicing — it is the same dyad I used for Dm7, just moved up two frets (D – F to E – G).  The most important element of the “turnaround” is, in this case, the higher pitch, not a particular chord scale theory.  Theory is only good up to a point!

Part C

Finally, since this is my last article in the series, I decided to write out the entire guitar part for Part C.  This section only gets played once, as a break in the middle of the song.  I didn’t write out the bass, since, as before, it’s mostly just root whole notes.  All of the action here is in this series of 3-side arpeggios:

Arrangement for Part C of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

Se state leggendo questo post ce l’ho fatta! A far che?? Mo’ vi racconto…

Stavo dando un’occhiata a quel che succedeva su twitter e mi cade l’occhio su un post di Julius Design (http://twitter.com/juliusdesign) su una novita’ di twitter…TWITCAM!

Cosi’ mi collego e in 2 minuti sono in streaming!!! Poi trovo ninitto (http://twitter.com/ninitto) che mi segue e grazie a lui faccio un po’ di prove…

Alla sera prima di registrare l’episodio riprovo…e FUNZIONA! Riesco a trasmettere voce e musica con una qualita’ decente!

Quindi ho iniziato l’episodio live e in video strizzando l’occhio agli amici di Nowherecast!

Tra peripezie scoppiettii e problemi audio ecco l’episodio!

ASCOLTA L’EPISODIO 20 ONLINE

SCARICA L’EPISODIO 20

GUARDA IL VIDEO E ASCOLTA L’EPISODIO 20 ONLINE

Links

Alluvione a Cork

TWITCAM

Rock and Roll WEBRADIO

L’Acquario di Genova

L’Acquario di Monaco

L’alga infestante di provenienza dubbia la Caulerpa taxifolia

Il PIT tagging per marcare gli organismi

Scaletta:

Invain – River

Plunkett – The River

Acamporas – Scimmia pazza

Ben Drake – The River

Rob Costlow – The River

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the thirteenth track, “Heartbeat of the Desert.”

This song was actually written and recorded for FAWM 2009.  At the time, I’d just completed my fifth Jamendo album, Martian Winter, which was composed exclusively of songs in unusual time signatures.  For FAWM, then, I had decided to try a change of pace — writing songs in standard meters!

Now, from time to time in FAWM, there are weekly “challenges”: specific song goals that are put out there to spur the creativity of the participants.  For example, one year, the challenge was to write a song using only two chords.  In FAWM 2009, one of the challenges was, ironically . . . write a song with a time signature change!

So I did, and the result was “Heartbeat of the Desert.”  Although I’d been writing composition articles for each of the songs I produced for FAWM, on this one, I never had the time.  (I posted a short article explaining the reasons.)  Well, here at last are some of the details.

Structure

This song has two main parts:

• Part A in 11/8.  There is really only one “chord” here, and I’d call it either Dm7/B or Bø. (See my list of Chord Abbreviations for an explanation.)  However, the key to this section is the arrangement, which I’ll explain in more detail below.
• Part B in 8/8.  Fairly straightforward: there is a repeating chord motif, Bm7 – C#ø – D∆#11 – C#ø.

Voicings for Part A

Although there is only one “chord” in Part A, it is really more of a modal piece.  I’ve established the chord and created movement using Drop 2 Voicings for each chord, combined with a suitable octatonic scale.  I’ll show the arrangement first, then explain what these terms mean.

Bass and synthesizer arrangement for "Heartbeat of the Desert." Click the image above for a larger version.

Octatonic Scales

There are only 7 notes in the traditional major, minor, and jazz minor scales.  This creates a problem in sequences of 8 notes; the strategy generally is to have chordal tones on the strong beats, and non-chordal tones on the weak beats.

An octatonic scale solves this by adding one passing note to the standard scale.  (Probably the greatest exponent of this is David Baker, in his series How to Play Bebop.)  For example, if the desired chord is Dm7, the chordal tones are D – F – A – C.  If I write the D dorian mode as a descending series over strong and weak beats (with the strong beats in bold), I get D – E – F – G – A – B – C – D – E – F – . . . , for instance.  By the fifth strong beat in the series, I’m already “off the track.”  If I add in a single passing note — for example, C# — notice how the series gets put back “on track”: D – E – F – G – A – B – C – C# – D – E – F – . . . .

Drop 2 Voicings

Octatonic scales work phenomenally well with Drop 2 voicings, expanding the idea from two dimensional (pitch, time) to three dimensional (voice, pitch, time).  In the arrangement above, notice that each voice follows a descending contour in the chosen octatonic scale (Dm7 + C#).  Further, each voice makes a Drop 2 chord:  start with a standard inversion, say D-F-A-C, and drop the 2nd voice to the bottom.  The result is A – D – F – C.

Above, all the “on beat” chords are in the Drop 2 series for Dm7.  The “off beat” chords (3 part of the 8:3 groove in 11/8) are made up of the “leftovers” in this octatonic scale: E, G, B, C#.  This can be read as either Em6, or, better yet, as a rootless voicing for A9.  In other words, the off beats form a hidden A9 – Dm7 – A9 – Dm7 pattern — a series of V-i’s.

For this reason, the voicings sound very smooth, even though, as you can see, I’ve taken great liberties with the harmonies in the bass line.  One of the inversions looks almost insane: Dm7 / C#.  However, the C# is matching up with the implied A9, not with the Dm7!

Actual Voices

So in short, “Heartbeat of the Desert” was a pretty daring composition.  When I wrote it, it took me a long time to find the right instruments to represent the voices — if the individual voices were too strong, the higher harmonics would clash.  I chose a wide variety of synthesizer voices to play this song.  Some start loud, and diminish; others start soft, and swell.

At the time I wrote it, I never thought it would be on an actual Jamendo album — but the final result was one of the most memorable of FAWM 2009, at least for me.

Se Ne Va (mp4)

Cari musicisti, pare che le cose, anche in Italia, finalmente, stiano cambiando.

Non serve necessariamente avere un contratto milionario con una Major discografica o una produzione/promozione imponente e molto costosa per dare la giusta visibilità ad una band meritevole di successo. Servono grinta, talento e una buona dose di determinazione, doti che certo non mancano alle Millionaire Blonde. Proprio da Jamendo, in licenza Copyleft “Creative Commons”, è partita la distribuzione on-line di “Se Ne Va“, primo singolo della band; trasformato in un video in programmazione sulla rete nazionale italiana, in chiaro, “All Music”, all’interno di due trasmissioni: “Night RMX” e “All Music Loves Italy”, da Luglio 2009;  creando un avvenimento senza precedenti, il primo brano Copyleft ad andare in programmazione su una rete televisiva nazionale.

Che altro dire? non ci resta che augurare alla band tutto il successo che merita e augurarci di sentire presto qui su Jamendo i brani ai quali stanno lavorando.

Fonte: http://blog.jamendo.com/2009/10/05/millionaire-blonde-su-all-music/

The holiday in America is about giving thanks; today, however, I’m marking some new beginnings.

Three years ago today, I started my blog here on WordPress.  I had just released my first album, evolution, on Jamendo. At that time, Jamendo required me to post an identifying piece of code “on my website” in order to get my album published.  As of November 25, 2006, I had no official website.  So I landed here!

And despite this being a sort of internet “shotgun wedding”, the relationship has prospered.  I’ve found WordPress to be an excellent host — and I’ve come to enjoy blogging.  Today, I have six albums available on Jamendo.  I’ve had more than 5,000 downloads and 50,000 total plays.  I look at the results of my leap of faith, sometimes, and find it all hard to believe.

So today, let me direct you to someone else who’s recently made a similar leap of faith:

Whiparound

(Now available on IndieFlix.)

I first met Dan Valentine, online, back in February of this year.  He and his friend Tony Kekich were making a travel documentary in Australia, and asked for permission to use some of my music.  Not necessary, really–I publish under a Creative Commons by-sa license, meaning it can be used in for-profit works, provided the license terms are followed.  But it was nice of them to ask, and it had the bonus of making me aware of their work . . . which was quite good!

I’ve never had the opportunity to travel.  Heck, as we’ve seen, I can’t even have a summer that’s free of some sort of major life changing event.  But Dan and Tony’s Whiparound series really made me want to visit Australia.  It’s not the touristy places: it’s the type of places I like to go, the off roads, the hidden places.

I do not publish my music for profit.  As I said in my last article, I know that my days on Earth are numbered, and that one day all of this will come to an end.  I want to leave something behind that’s worthwhile.  Maybe, along the way, I want to see that my work has inspired others in some way.

Whiparound was one of those signs.

I’m always looking for more.

Between 1996 and 1998 I put down a few songs in a rather spur of the moment on my 4-track recorder. Lyrics were made up basically on the spot while the tape was rolling. The sounds are pretty lo-fi and the clanging of metal in some of the songs were spoons, pots and pans that made up our primitive percussion. Jim Seagroves helped out on the racket kitchen percussion sounds as well as general chanting or making a nuisance out of everything.

Back then Jim and I called ourselves “the Gidds”. Basically, it was our little gang name growing up. We listened to NWA in high school and wanted to be white thugs. We had our own language and mockerized the neighborhood. Some of the songs we speak in German.

I play the acoustic and electric guitar, sitar and sing the songs. My brother Bob Guittard played bass and guitar on a few tracks as well as beat on a hand drum. Warren Barry played the organ on Once Around the Moon as well as added to the weirdness.

I used a Dr. Groove Drum machine. I hope you like these weird songs. At the time of the recording I was listening to a lot of Beck’s Odelay. Please enjoy and make comments.

Here is the link where you can listen and download the album for free:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/55876

I wish Word Press would allow a widget here so that you could listen. Not at this time.

Visitando el site de Jamendo me encontré con 2 albums bastante buenos de música electrónica y los posteo aquí para que les den un vistazo y recuerden que pueden bajárselos sin ningún problema debido a que la música publicada en Jamendo es 100% libre:

Speedsound – Psydom Revolutions

Enlace al Álbum:

http://www.jamendo.com/es/album/11538

Speedsound – Prisma [Promo]

Enlace al Álbum:

http://www.jamendo.com/es/album/25678

2Inventions – Unfinished History

Enlace al Álbum:

http://www.jamendo.com/es/album/52046

As a performer, I am lucky enough to have featured on a number of CD’s by established names throughout my career, and even a couple of CD’s from bands of my own. But the journey I have taken as a songwriter and solo artist is a tougher one. It is very difficult to try and market yourself to record companies as an individual, and as the music business changes with ever more alarming rapidity, I took the decision to release my first all-original solo album via the creative commons route with the web label Jamendo. This means that I can offer it to the general public free of charge, while Jamendo work on my behalf to place my music commercially to the corporate sector (films, videos, shops and restaurants, etc)

The album has its beginnings in 2007, and the bulk of it was written in 2008.  I wanted to ’set it free’ so to speak, so I can move on and continue writing new material. I believe I will only continue to have the energy to create as long as I know it will have a chance to be heard, so it was with this in mind that I decided to give people the opportunity to download this album free of charge. By clicking on the link in the sidebar, you can access the download page for the album, and also view tracklistings and lyrics. It is an eclectic mix of styles, and I make no apology for that. Freeing yourself of traditional music business restraints means finding your creative freedom!

Kev Moore

Album cover artwork by Miki

Eccoci di nuovo qui!

Questa volta abbiamo voluto sperimentare un modo nuovo di fare podcasting. Per meglio venire incontro alle esigenze di internet, dei social network, per rendire più fruibile gli episodi senza farli troppo lunghi e per renderli ancora più “on demand”, abbiamo spearato l’episodio 2 in tanti mini-episodi che usciranno regolarmente durante le prossime settimane.

In questo primo mini-episdio abbiamo parlato di una band tedesca, davvero forte! Fanno musica con una chitarra, un Commodore 64 e la scheda audio di un Game-Boy; brani semplici, orecchiabili, molto ben prodotti… Ricordano il krautrock di gruppi più famosi come i Kraftwerk… Il gusto delle loro melodie è molto “vintage”, che riporta la mente a quelle bellissime musichette tipiche dei videogiochi degli anni ‘80 e ‘90.

Trovate maggiori informazioni sulla band in questi siti:

PORNOPHONIQUE – Sito Ufficiale

Melodicamente.com – Recensione da un blog italiano

Jamendo – Pagina della Band

Oggi abbiamo ascoltiamo:

Sad Robot

Lemmings in Love

Rock’n'roll hall of fame

>>SCARICA L’EPISODIO 2-1<<

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the twelfth track, “One Last, Perfect Sunset.”

Here I am at 41, and full of regrets.

Now, I’m happy with who I am and what I do — but I’m surrounded by people with ambition.  I’m content to teach middle school science, but sometimes, I realize I could have done anything.  I’m good at mathematics and physics.

But way back, there was a time I sold my dreams for 30 pieces of silver.  That is, I always liked astronomy.  But there’s this one problem: finding a job as an astronomer.  Seems like you either work for NASA — you know, that organization that was once famous for something besides spectacular failures and entrenched bureaucracy — or for a University.  At the university level, as I understand it, you are supposed to abandon the idea of having any other life than work.  I can’t do that.

I chose to be a chemist.  You can always find work as a chemist.

Now I’m a teacher.  You can always find work as a teacher.

Nevertheless, I love astronomy, and I always have.  It all began with the flu . . . .

Star Trek

When I was 6, I lived in Albany, Georgia.  My dad was in the Marine Corps, and we were stationed at the nearby base.  I went to first grade at Mock Road Elementary — my teacher was Dorothy Blair.  (I wrote a song about her on my fourth album, Points of Departure).

Those were very formative years for me.  Unfortunately, I had one serious problem back then: I was sick all the time.  If there were a disease within 100 miles of me, I would get it.  I can remember having to take a bath in ice water to cool down a 108 degree fever one time.  I always had bronchitis.  I even got a staph infection once.

So one time, I had the flu.  I was home, lying on the couch, feeling like crap.  I was watching TV.  There was this show on I’d never seen, called Star Trek.  I can remember the exact episode: “Metamorphosis.”

I was hooked.  That was the moment I became interested in space.

Cosmos

Flash forward from 1974 to 1980.  Cosmos was on PBS.  If anything, this made me even more interested in astronomy.  My family had just discovered the idea of used book stores, and so I was able to get a wide selection of college level books for cheap.  Also, Cosmos (the book version) made astronomy popular enough that the mainstream press started publishing more books along those lines — entry-level advanced science in everyday language.

I still remember most of Cosmos.  But there was one eerie quote that always stuck with me.  I heard it first on the TV show, but here’s a passage from the book on the same topic:

One Last, Perfect Sunset

Billions of years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth. Thereafter the Sun will slowly become red and distended, presiding over an Earth sweltering even at the poles . . . . Eventually the oceans will boil, the atmosphere will evaporate away into space and a catastrophe of the most immense proportions imaginable will overtake our planet.

– from Cosmos, by Carl Sagan.

Now you know where the title for this song comes from.  “There will be a last perfect day on Earth.”  I’m imagining that day.  I’ve let you into my world a bit.  The guitar line advances and recedes, foreground to background, clear then distant and echoing.  The world feels exactly like that to me, most days.  But this is a special day: the end of the world.

Or at least the start of the end.  I’ve included a For Further Reading section at the end of this article, so you can learn a bit more of the story.  Short synopsis: as the Sun runs out of fuel, the core collapses, and the outer layers heat and expand.  Since the amount of radiation we receive from the Sun is related to the surface area, the larger Sun will make Earth steadily hotter, until the surface becomes uninhabitable.

By that time, billions of years away, I hope we’ve had enough sense to develop space travel, and found other places to live.  Looking at the world around me, though, I doubt it.  We see clear, immediate problems all around us — and all our politicians do is argue and pose.  One side hates the other so much they’d rather see us all fail to prove their point.

If it’s still this way a million years ago, maybe we deserve to be scorched out of existence.

Middle School Science

Flash forward again, to 2009, now.  I teach 8th grade Physical Science.

I let my students ask questions.  The advantage of being me, a person who has studied science almost all his life, really helps me out in class.  There are some teachers who hate questions, but I encourage them — the more aggravating and puzzling the “What if” question, the better.

Yesterday, we were talking about conservation of energy.  One of my students prefaced her question with something like “I’m sorry to ask a stupid question, but–”  Bad idea!  There are no stupid questions, because this is what she asked: she wanted to know what makes objects have certain colors.

Now, those of you who know any degree of Physics out there probably laughed, because that’s a very famous question — one that destroyed 19th century classical physics and led to the entirely new field of Quantum Mechanics!

I explained what I could of quantum, but I was really proud of having that question pop up in my class.  It made me feel that I was actually making them think.  Imagine, one of my students — asking a question that changed the world!

My Own Sunset

So there are regrets, but there are also joys.  I know a lot of science, and I’ve found the job where having such a broad knowledge base is actually useful.

But now flash back to the summer of 2009.  When I was writing In Unexpected Places, there came a time when I remembered Carl Sagan’s quote: there will be a last perfect day.  Long before the Sun becomes its own funeral pyre, I’ll see my own last day.

I plan on writing music as long as I can, but I know some day, it all has to come to an end.  I plan on being the best teacher I can be, but some day, it all has to end.  There will be a last, perfect musical composition; I will teach a last, perfect class.

And one day, I’ll see that one last, perfect sunset.

For Further Reading (online)

• The Sun’s Death: Sooner Rather than Later? by Adam Frank (Universally Speaking)
• The Sun’s Death by Fraser Cain (Universe Today)
• The Once & Future Sun by Richard W. Pogge (Ohio State)

Puntata lunghissima (troppo), ma gli argmenti lo richiedevano, si è parlato di tre nuovi podcast: Sproloquiocast, Animevideo.it e Nerdcast. Di libri, “Uomini che odiano le donne” e “Alta Fedeltà“. Siamo passati alla tecnologia con Windows 7 e due applicazioni per iPhone: Digitalia e Postino. Infine come di consueto ultimamente siamo passati ai fumetti atraverso la manifestazione Luccacomics&games 2009.

Naturalmente il tutto alla maniera di Rougecast.

email per i commenti: rouge73@gmail.com

Scarica cliccando con il destro l’ Episodio 28

Playlist:

1. KARKADAN – Ali bom
2. MANICOMI CHIUSI – Se non tramontano i ricordi
3. AUT AUT – Miasma mistico
4. FRANGAR NON FLECTAR – Troppo poco
5. ANGELO LUCA BIANCHINO – Notte stanca
6. STEVEN DUNSTON – Danger girl
7. MICHELLE – Meretriz
8. PITBULL – Gentilsesso
9. ALLISON CROWE – Going home tonight
10. THE WOOKIES – 50′ s life
11. DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA – Balrog boogie

Ascolta da qui:

El recurs no és res de l’altre món, però si busques música lliure de drets i descarregable, Jamendo és una bona opció. Sembla prou popular però jo me l’he trobat buscant recursos sonors per a una radio escolar on line. Us pot anar bé. Destaco la possibilitat d’accedir a diferents canals de ràdio

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the eleventh track, “Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller.”

This was originally the final song of FAWM 2009.  At the time, I was exhausted.  I’d been writing composition articles for each song as I finished — and I said I’d do it for the 14th — but I never got around to it.

Structure

The song is comprised of four rhythmic and chordal units (A through D), grouped as follows:

(Above, i stands for intro, which is based on pattern D.)  Here are the chords for each section:

Part A

Part B

Part C

Part D

Method of Play

The key to this song is the guitar part, the chords.  I’ve shown them below in standard notation and tablature using GNU Lilypond.  What I can’t show is how to play them.

The chords are all played on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th string, and are neither strummed nor picked.  Instead, I am using my fingers to pluck all three strings simultaneously.  (I did something similar on one of my wife’s favorite songs, “It’s Always Raining Somewhere“, from La vie sous la mer.)

Part A chords

Probably the most critical element in creating a chordal line is the voice leading.  Even though F9 isn’t really part of the key — A Dorian, equivalent to G major — the chord comes as no surprise in this line.

Chord voicings for Part A of "Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller." Click the image above to enlarge.

Part B chords

Here, the F9 is held over a break, and the next chord is E7#9.  If this is thought of as E7alt, then it is merely a tritone subsitution for Bb7, and this can be recognized as a standard V of V transition.  Certainly E7#9 is a good chord for “turning around” into the Am7 chords that follow.

Chord voicings for Part B of "Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller." Click the image above to enlarge.

Parts C and D

The chords here are fairly wildly improvised, using mostly “t4″ chords from my list of Jazz Guitar Voicings.

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the tenth track, “A Dream of Crows.”

In my last article, I said that I would tell the story behind “A Dream of Crows.”  Certainly, a lot of people tell me they like the name.  A few even catch the van Gogh reference.  However, the true origin of this song is . . . my dogs.

Neri and Nora

I have two big, full size Collies.  Rough Collies, in fact (the fluffy ones).  Neri is the big sister — we got her in 2001 — and Nora is the little sister (from 2002).  Both of them have very distinct personalities: Neri is outgoing and playful, Nora is affectionate but vigilant.  Normally it’s Nora that barks at strange objects and potential dangers.  However . . . .

Neri Hates Crows

I don’t know why, but Neri hates crows.  I mean, really hates crows.  She can be inside the house and hear them squawking outside — she will start running around and barking anyway.  When we lived in Florida, if I opened the door, Neri would shoot out into the yard and scatter them like a bowling ball through a forest of pins.

The New House

Well, in 2008, we moved to Virginia.  This past summer — 2009 — we bought a house here.  Moving is always a strain.  Unfortunately, our move had a lot more stress than the typical move.

There came a time when finally, we had made it: we were in the new house.  So was all our stuff — packed in hundreds of boxes.

The weeks after we moved in were exhausting.  One day, I was moving boxes upstairs to unpack.  At noon, the dogs needed to go out for a walk.  I took them, but when I came back, I was very sleepy.  I don’t normally sleep in the middle of the day, but I’d just been through too much.

The bed was covered up in junk I was unpacking.  I could lie to you and tell you I went to sleep on the couch . . . except we didn’t have a couch back then.  I couldn’t sleep on the floor downstairs or upstairs, because they were covered in boxes in various stages of unpacking.

So I went to sleep on Neri’s dog bed.

Now, those of you saying “eww” don’t realize these are the Cadillacs of dog beds, these nice orthopedic beds we got from Foster & Smith.  The dogs don’t use them much, ironically, preferring to sleep on the floor (go figure).  The cover is machine washable, and we keep them fairly clean.

Well, this time, as soon as I layed down, Neri came and plopped down right beside me.

That was it.  There’s no greater force for sending a person off to sleep than a snoozing dog.

The Dream

While I was sleeping, I had an ominous dream about crows.  I can’t go too much into the details — because, after all, you know the bore at the party that just has to tell you every detail about that weird dream — but it was chilling and spooky.

Not Just My Dream

I woke up because Neri was kicking me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a dog dream, but they do.  Sometimes they even bark in their sleep.  Well, Neri was not barking, but was dreaming about something pretty hard — she was lying on her side, doing slight motions with her legs that reminded me of galloping.  I’d been the ground, I guess.

Suddenly I was struck by an odd idea: what if she and I had been dreaming the same thing?

It was an odd feeling.  Was she chasing the crows from my dream?

The Prototypes

It was the middle of summer 2009, and the last time I’d released a Jamendo album, it had been 2008 (Martian Winter).  At this time, I didn’t even have internet access anymore.  The move had taken me out of my world, and I was struggling to recover my sense of place in it.

I wanted to work on music, but my days were spent in unpacking, home improvements, settling in.  It would be months before I completed the new “Rhythm Method” prototypes, and months before I would release In Unexpected Places.  At that time, in the middle of that miserable summer, I had nothing.  Music is sometimes the thing that keeps me going, and with my life packed in boxes, it was hard to find my way home.

I did, however, have some CDs I’d burned.  One day, as I was unpacking, I listened to my earlier prototypes (The Periodic Table of the Groove).  I suddenly latched on to two patterns: #34 and #18.  As I mentioned last article, these eventually became “A Dream of Crows.”  The dream had given them meaning.

Neri Really Hates Crows

Flash forward to the beginning of September, 2009.  I wrote an article about the seven songs I’d completed so far for the new album.  “A Dream of Crows” was on that list — but not in its present form.

When I said Neri hates crows, I mean, Neri really hates crows.

See, the first version of that song had some actual crow sounds in it, at the intro, bridge, and ending (I sampled them from Freesound).  Before I release an album, I like to burn it to CD, then listen to it on a number of different stereo systems, just to test the balance and the mix.

I played “A Dream of Crows” on the stereo downstairs . . . .

Big mistake.  Neri went ballistic.  It was the Barkpocalypse.  If the song stayed as it was, I’d never be able to play it in the house.

So, in the first ever decision of its kind, my dog made me remix a track on my album!

Si por algo se caracteriza la industria musical es por intentar frenar la tecnología en vez de adaptarse y buscar nuevos modelos de negocio, en una clara intención de ponerle diques al mar.

Muchos artistas, sobretodo nuevos en el mundillo, han comenzado a pensar en otros modelos de negocio, dejando de lado el afán por vender discos y enfocando más su carrera en darse a conocer mediante la difusión gratuita de su obra y viviendo de los conciertos, de la música en directo. Dejando de lado a las discográficas y pensando en autoeditarse. O dejando de lado los derechos de autor y publicando sus obras bajo licencias copyleft como Creative Commons o Arte Libre.

Este nuevo modelo de música, la música libre, tiene otra ventaja. La libre distribución. Páginas como Jamendo, donde los artistas pueden subir su música gratuitamente y su público descargarla de igual manera, tienen ya más de 26.000 álbumes de todos los estilos.

Uno de esos grupos es Brad Sucks, la curiosa banda unipersonal del canadiense Brad Turcotte, donde él solo escribe, graba, produce y publica las canciones en su página web para que se puedan descargar gratuitamente o comprar.
Como ya he dicho, Brad Sucks se define como banda unipersonal, ya que Turcotte toca por separado la guitarra, el bajo, los teclados y es, además, la voz del grupo,  juntándolo todo después y dando la impresión de que es una banda de varios integrantes.
Sus estilos son de amplio espectro y pasan por el rock más clásico al más alternativo, por el pop, el indie o la música electrónica.
Sus dos álbumes I Don’t Know What I’m Doing y Out of it, han pasado de las 240.000 reproducciones y más de 15.000 descargas en la plataforma Jamendo, pero dichos discos pueden descargarse o comprarse en la própia página del grupo o en plataformas como Magnatune, ccMixter, MySpace o Podsafe.
Sus canciones han sido y son utilizadas en anuncios de televisión, en programas de radio o como banda sonora de la película Wrath Of The 1337 King.
Además Brad Turcotte aporta también su granito de arena al mundo del software libre, como los sonidos por defecto del Pidgin, un programa de mensajería instantánea o paquetes de software especializados para músicos.

Aquí dejo los enlaces a sus dos álbumes (contiene enlaces para escuchar en streaming o para descargarlos).

Fuentes:
http://www.bradsucks.net/music/ Página del Grupo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Sucks Reseña sobre Brad Sucks en la Wikipedia inglesa.
http://www.jamendo.com/es/artist/bradsucks Brad Sucks en Jamendo. Incluye reseñas sobre sus dos álbumes.

Enlaces recomendados:
http://www.jamendo.com/

Quan un realitzador audiovisual o un aficionat que manté un podcast volen penjar els seus treballs a la xarxa, poden trobar-se en problemes molt fàcilment, doncs quina producció audiovisual pot passar sense música? Excepte alguna pel·li, poques voltes ho hem vist. Donat que els defensors de la propietat intel·lectual han arribat a demanar diners per les cançons que sonen a les bodes, a ningú hauria d’estranyar que, un dia, qualsevol de nosaltres rebera un amable correu exhortant-li a pagar els drets d’autor de la música que posà al reportatge de pràctiques que va fer a primer i que va tindre la genial idea de penjar a YouTube.

Davant d’això, quina és la millor estratègia? Simplement, passar de la música amb copyright quan vulguem publicar alguna cosa, ja siga a l’internet  o en format físic. Hui en dia, existeix una gran quantitat de músics que han decidit publicar les seues composicions sota una llicència Creative Commons -la més coneguda d’entre les llicències lliures-, i la pràctica totalitat ho fa a la xarxa. Queda pendent a aquest bloc un article sobre diversos artistes i projectes que s’han llançat cap a la música lliure, però hui es tracta de fer una cosa un poquet més pràctica: anem a recomanar-vos alguns enllaços on obtenir música lliure per als treballs, les pràctiques i demés material susceptible de ser mostrat fora de classe.

Jamendo: és segurament la web més coneguda de totes les que tenen un catàleg propi, amb més de 26.000 àlbums a disposició dels usuaris. A banda de llistes amb les cançons més escoltades, incorpora la possibilitat d’escriure crítiques de discos i cançons a tots els usuaris que s’hi registren. Les etiquetes, tot i ser millorables (només es pot etiquetar per estils), són prou útils per a triar la música que necessitem.

FMA (Free Music Archive): aquesta base de dades de música lliure és desenvolupada per la ràdio WFMU, una de les més importants ràdios lliures americanes, i ofereix temes i àlbums classificats en 15 gèneres musicals.

Dogmazic: un portal francès molt complet, amb una aparença dinàmica i moderna, però amb una catalogació d’estils molt eficient.

Opsound: és una pàgina molt senzilla, amb un sol menú, a la que pots trobar un elevat nombre d’artistes de música electrònica i experimental, ideal per a podcasts.

Cercador de Creative Commons: permet cercar tot tipus de documents online amb llicència Creative Commons, recopilant informació de webs com Google, Blip.tv o flickr.

L’ús de música copyleft per als periodistes només té dos xicotets inconvenients. El primer, conseqüència dels pocs artistes copyleft que coneixem, és la dificultat de cercar les cançons que s’ajusten exactament al tipus de música que busquem. Els tags són útils a aquestes webs, però encara s’han de desenvolupar més i millor. La segona és la confusió que poden provocar les llicències Creative Commons entre qui les vol utilitzar, doncs n’hi ha sis tipus, amb diversos graus d’alliberament dels drets d’autor, i no totes donen dret als usuaris a la modificació de l’obra original, per exemple.

Això sí, una volta superats els possibles inconvenients… a gaudir creant i compartint!

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the tenth track, “A Dream of Crows.”

“A Dream of Crows” started out as two song fragments, older even than my “Rhythm Method” Prototypes.  When I was composing my previous album, Martian Winter, I did a series of prototypes called “The Periodic Table of the Groove.”  There was a lot of good material there, and some of the fragments I meant to come back to later.

The story of how these two parts crystallized into one is a good one, so I’ll write about that next time.  The title “A Dream of Crows” suggests something about its origin.  But today, I want to cover the song structure and chords.

Overall Structure

There are two main parts in this song.  All of the prototypes I created for “The Periodic Table of the Groove” were in odd time signatures — these two parts are actually in different odd time signatures.

• Part A, the “verse”, is in 7/4 swing.  (Technically, I’d call this 33233 7-clave 4:3 swing . . . see my article “Rhythms in Seven.”)
• Part B, the “bridge”, is in 5/4 swing.  (Again, I’d call this by its full name, 2332 5-clave 3:2 swing . . . see my article “Rhythms in Five.”)

Part A (7/4)

The main part of the song is actually a Bluesmorph (as defined in a previous article in this series) — it’s structure can be mapped to the standard blues progression (think minor blues, with some extensions and alterations):

Part B (5/4)

The bridge is probably my favorite part of the song — the part which, to me, suggests dreaming.  It uses the following chord progression:

About the Diagrams Below

As I’ve done in previous articles, I’ve given some chord voicing diagrams in the sections below.  However, this time, I had to make a huge simplification:

I want the diagrams to focus on the notes and the voicings.  These songs are written in odd time signatures.  If I included all the correct rhythmic information, they would become much more difficult to understand at a glance.  Therefore, I wrote all the voicings below “as if” they were in 4/4, so I could get away with using clean looking whole notes for each bar.

As usual, the diagrams were prepared with GNU Lilypond 2.12.2

Verse

Below, I’ve taken the chords from Part A and shown the approximate voicing I used for each.

Chord voicings used in the "verse" section of "A Dream of Crows." The rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

Probably the most interesting voicing is that mad, mad voicing for B7#9.  I break several “rules” here.  Ordinarily the more traditional music theorists balk at chords with a minor 2nd interval in them . . . not to mention two!  And yet the voicing C## – D# – G# – A represents exactly the color tones of the chord: the #9, the major 3rd, the 13th, and the 7th.

This is a great voicing, but as I said before, voicings of this type won’t work on every keyboard instrument.  A concert grand, yes; a cool electric piano, maybe; a parlor upright, possibly; a Hammond organ set up with a lot of 5th overtones . . . nope.

The Bridge

I used two different types of voicings for the bridge chords, shifting from single handed to two handed.

Single Handed

These are simple enough, but set the stage for what follows.

One handed chord voicings for the bridge of "A Dream of Crows." Rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

Two Handed

At the end of the bridge, the song has to “turn around” and go back to the verse with some sort of grand flourish.  I held back on the chords in the first part of the bridge, only to plow through the end with rich, five-note voicings:

Two handed chord voicings for the bridge of "A Dream of Crows." Rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

[Note: these voicings should read "D13#11" and "Eb13b9", but I've never been able to get Lilypond to understand that the 13th is particularly important to me -- it always sticks it off on the end, as in "Db7#11add13".  So I simplify the input to remove the clutter.]

These type of voicings are called Upper Structure Triads.  (By the way, as always, I highly recommend Mark Levine’s Jazz Piano Book — it gave me a solid base from which to develop my own chord theories.  Upper Structure Triads were one of the best voicings I learned in that book.)

The basic definition for this type of chord is “A tritone on the left, a triad on the right.”  Here is the analysis of each voicing:

• Db13#11 is voiced as an Eb major triad (Bb – Eb – G) over a B – F tritone.  The B (actually, Cb) and the F are the 7th and 3rd of the chord, the guide tones.  The Eb major triad spells out the color tones — Bb = 13th, Eb = 9th, G = #11th.
• Eb13b9 is voiced as a C major triad (C – E – G) over a Db – G tritone.  Again, the tritone notes are the guide tones for the chord, and the C major triad spells out the color tones — C = 13th, E = b9th, G = restatement of the 3rd.

Nem mai esemény, de mindenképp említést érdemel a blogolásra sarkalló tény: végre feltöltöttem két szöveg és ének nélküli, elektronikus hip-hop alapzenét a Jamendo profilomba. Amolyan karaoke verziók, az egyetlen különbség, hogy senki sem ismeri még a szövegüket Ingyen letölthetők és szabadon másolhatók, ráadásul szólnak is valahogy és eléggé változatosak.
Ezennel az el sem indult régi blog is itt folytatja alig elkezdett pályafutását. Na nem hal hamvaiba, inkább talán átvált rövid, de melós, angol nyelvű röffenésekre. Nagyjából ugyanaz lesz ott is, amik itt megjelennek: nekem tetsző, ingyenes (vagy hát Creative Commons) albumok rövid ismertetői, és a nekem se nagyon tetszők közül a sajátjaim.

Well, this is my last day using the 159 as come sunday, it’s no more and I’ll have a longer walk to get a bus, by a mile. Those sennheiser canal fones I’ve been using seem to be ok, at first I thought the sound a little pressed but I’ve gotten over that now. Initially uncomfortable too but using the correct technique to insert them helps a lot. I’ve been filling my ipod with music from jamendo recently and I definitely recommend the stuff on there. The collection is so vast that I’ve amassed so much music that I can’t be bothered converting from the default 192kbps mp3 to 128kbps m4a for the ipod. I might do it someday. I was having difficulty with Gnome soundconverter creating the proper track order when making m4a but SoundKonverter, manages just fine.

Posted by Wordmobi

Ne ratez pas le clip d’ “HUSLE THE FLOW RMX” de SHAWAN RISING Feat. EPISE de Los Angeles. Issu de l’album “LOST IN LOS ANGELES” (en téléchargement gratuit sur JAMENDO), ce Track Electro-Rap tourne ici à l’Hommage aux Breakers du Monde entier ! A voir également sur SHAWAN RISING TV sur YouTube…Enjoy !

Fruit d’une collaboration de plusieurs mois suite à la rencontre d’EPISE (MC de LA, USA) et SHAWAN RISING,”LOST IN LOS ANGELES” est une série de titres ambiancés electro rap et triphop, sur des Lyrics mêlant Anglais et Espagnol dans la plus pure tradition des Latino MC’s de la Californie. Un cocktail explosif ouvrant sur une véritable innovation rap, aussi agressive que mélodique… Ici en libre écoute…Enjoy !

01 – HIGH WITH THA BLUNT RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

02 – ASERKATE RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

03 – HUSLE THE FLOW RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

04 – SX ATTACK RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

05 – FREAK HER BODY RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

06 – REVEAL ANOTHER WORLD RMX (SHAWAN RISING / EPISE)

Para hoy recomendaros el disco “Esperança Rebel” del grupo “Odi”, cantan en catalán/valenciano. Los escuche en Jamendo hace unas semanas y realmente me han encantado sus 2 discos.
Pagina web: http://www.odiweb.org

Pagina web del disco en Jamendo: http://www.jamendo.com/es/album/49118

Descargar disco

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the ninth track, “Step Through This Window.”

Before In Unexpected Places was published on Jamendo, I sent a preview copy of this song out to a few friends of mine.  It’s one of my favorites on the album, and it has a very subtle feature — the complementary acoustic guitars.  I used a certain technique to get that sound which I’ll describe here.

This song owes a lot to the “folk” tradition, at least in concept.  It’s based on one of my earlier “Rhythm Method” prototypes, P35 (hosted on SoundClick, so you can listen to the original and compare).

Overall Structure

Chord wise, there are really only two parts to this song, “A” and “B”.  The rhythm, pacing, and drum line change throughout, and distinguish each of the key development points.

Part A

The A part is simple — only two chords.  (Quite a departure for me!)  Most of the time, the chords alternate between Em and A2 for 16 bars.  (A2 is my way of writing “A suspended 2nd”, meaning: take an A triad, lose the 3rd, replace it with the 2nd.)

Part B

The eight bar “chorus” is relatively simple as well:

Acoustic Guitar Parts

The important thing to realize about the acoustic guitar part is that there are two guitars playing.  One is played as normal; the other is played with a capo at the 5th fret.  I play the same rhythms on both, but choose different chord voicings on each.  This gives a “natural chorus” sound for the resulting chords.

Below, I’ve given diagrams for each of the guitar voicings using GNU Lilypond.  This is the first time I’ve used Lilypond to make fingering diagrams — pretty easy, really!

Part A

On Guitar 1, I play the standard voicing for Em, and an easy voicing for A2.  The trick here is the complementary line on Guitar 2 — the capo at the 5th fret lets me play a “D” shape and get the sound of G, and an “E” shape to get A.

Acoustic guitar parts for "Step Through this Window." Click image to enlarge.

Why does this work?  At one point, I’m playing Em on one guitar, and G on another.  These chords work together because in total, they spell Em7 (E G B D)!  This is just a huge voicing (extending from that low E to the high 7th fret B).

Part B

I use the same trick on the Em chord in the B part.

Acoustic guitar parts for "Step Through this Window." Click image to enlarge.

Commonalities

Another composition principle for these two voicings is revealed by the top note played for each chord.  Notice:

• Guitar 1 always has the 1st string open “E” as its highest voice.  This establishes a focal point for the progression, a folksy “drone.”
• Guitar 2 always has a descending line within its chordal unit.  For example, in the “A” section Em – A2, the highest note is B, then A.  For the “B” section, the highest note descends as C – B – A.

Jamendo es una comunidad online de artistas formada alrededor del concepto de la musica libre, donde los artistas muestran su musica al publico de forma gratuita (licencias Creative Common), evitando asi los intermediarios y las disqueras. Para mas informacion ver la entrada en Wikipedia.

Para los geeks, dicho en palabras tecnicas, es el GNU/Linux de la musica…

Algunas de las caracteristicas del sitio:

• Musica libre (licencias Creative Common y Free Art License).
• Radio online por genero/artistas (tipo LastFM o Spotify).
• Descarga de canciones (formato MP3 y OGG Vorbis), via HTTP/BitTorrent/eDonkey.
• Sistema de donaciones voluntarias via PayPal que van directo al artista (sin intermediarios).
• Recomendaciones y ratings de artistas.
• Integracion con reproductores multimedia: Rhythmbox, Amarok y Totem.

Por ejemplo, dos de mis artistas favoritos:

• Rob Costlow, musica de piano muy agradable… ideal para trabajar (album favorito: World of Chaos).
• Tryad, musica tipo lounge aca fresona… (album favorito: Listen).

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the seventh track, “The Sky in Shadow.”

Wow — I’m at track 7.  I still feel a bit guilty about not finishing my previous series of articles for “Martian Winter.”  And yet here I’ve reached the halfway point!  Still, if I’ve learned one thing . . . it’s not to take the future for granted.

In this article, I’m going to focus on the tremolo bass and the chord voicings.  As before, the diagrams that appear in this article were prepared using GNU Lilypond 2.12.2.

Overall Structure

“The Sky in Shadow” is actually based on two of my original “Rhythm Method” prototypes.  You can listen to these early musical sketches on SoundClick (I’ll give a link to the exact tracks below).

The first part of the song is based on P25.  There are two parts, which alternate:

• Part A: 8 bars of Bm7.
• Part B: 4 bars of Dm7.

The “chorus” of the song — that smooth keyboard part — is based on P06.  Here the components do not alternate — they occur as the series C, C, D, then return to the main thread of the song.

• Part C: 4 bars of Dø, then 4 bars of G9#11.
• Part D: 4 bars of Cm9, then 4 bars of Am9.

Tips

Part of the key to tremolo picking on bass is effective palm muting.  Open strings sound great.  Playing far back on the neck — down at the nut, or on open strings — sounds great.  However, the strings have to be muted at least a little bit using the picking hand.  It’s especially important to mute the strings that shouldn’t be sounding.  Under a furious tremolo bombardment, they’re going to start sounding (one way or another) unless they’re muted.

Also, to follow the discussion, it wouldn’t hurt to read my standard chord abbreviations if you’re new to jazz-type harmony.

Part A

This is a straightforward Bm7 riff in the key of A major (making this B dorian).  I’ve shown a clave staff on the diagram below to draw your attention to a subtle feature: even though the bass isn’t explicitly stating the son clave (here written against a 16th note rhythm), it’s there, pushing the music along.  Notice the note changes occur on the “3 side” of the clave.

The "A" bass part for "The Sky in Shadow." Click to enlarge.

There is one addition, however: that final note, which leads in to the next bar.  It’s effectively an eighth note push, and it also helps to propel the music along.

Part B

Here, the Dm7 riff (key C major, so D dorian) occupies only half the bar.  It’s the space that’s important for the feel.  The final note is highly syncopated, almost a “silence push” of an eighth note.  (That is, it’s like the rest in the second half of the bar has bled over past the invisible half-bar line and shoved the notes back by an eighth note).  Again, the note changes line up with the 3-side of the clave.

The "B" bass part for "The Sky in Shadow." Click to enlarge.

Part C

Here the chord voicings and the bass become very important.  The voicing I’ve shown here is a simplified representation of the way the song is played — for clarity, I’ve completely omitted the rhythm.

The chord for the first part of the C section is Dø.  It can be played two ways.  Here I’ve shown it as being in the key of Eb major (and therefore D locrian).  However, it’s also fair to say it could be from the sixth mode of Fμ (F melodic minor, or F jazz minor).

The voicing I’ve shown is, in fact, an inverted F minor triad over a quartal D-G.  That’s the basis for a lot of good chord voicings — a triad or other familiar unit on the right hand, and a simple 4th, tritone, or 5th on the left hand.

The bass and chords for part C of "The Sky in Shadow" (first section). Click to enlarge

Again, above the bass changes line up with the 16th note son clave — with the addition of a final note.  The same idea follows in the complementary piece of the C section, the chord G9#11.  (I tried to get Lilypond to render this as “G9#11″, but it seems to like calling it “G7#11″ instead.)  This chord is in the famous jazz “Lydian Dominant” mode, or the fourth mode of Dμ.

Below, notice the G9#11 voicing might be — to some — a bit bizarre.  There’s no third!  In fact this is an idea I got from listening to Thelonious Monk, and from Mark Levine’s Jazz Piano Book.  The voicing is actually an augmented triad — F+ — over a quartal D-G.  Notice how this fits in with the previous section.

The bass and chords for part C of "The Sky in Shadow" (second section). Click to enlarge.

Another idea to notice is the range of the notes I’ve played so far on the bass.  I went from predominantly the 4th string all the way to this section, which uses mostly the first string.  Playing the full range of the instrument in a song can be an effective way to differentiate the sections.

Part D

The “turnaround” from the chorus is a series of two chords.  The first part of the D section is a particularly tense voicing for Cm9.  (Shown here as C dorian, or the key of Bb major).  The right hand part is an actual “Thelonious Monk” voicing for minor chords.

If you’re a strict piano theorist, you always hear to watch for notes that are a minor second apart.  Well, this voicing luxuriates in the chaos of D-Eb colliding mid-chord.  The trick here is, you have to choose your instrument very carefully.  This voicing is good for electric piano, most large acoustic pianos, and a few synths.  It’s not too great for instruments with a lot of octave and 5th overtones (eg a Hammond organ on a drawbar setting like 888800000).

The bass and chords for part D of "The Sky in Shadow" (first section). Click to enlarge.

Finally, the last chord of the chorus is a variation of the original idea that got us here.  The chord Am9 (A dorian, or key of G major) is voiced as a D major chord on the right hand and an interval of a fifth (C-G, the guide tones for the chord) on the left hand.

The bass and chords for part D of "The Sky in Shadow" (second section). Click to enlarge.