Posts by :
- Music/Sound
- Electronic communications (social media, Web 2.0, new media, etc…)
- Our human potential (self-motivation, self-help, goals, etc…)
- Getting the message out is cheap (often free)
- Exposure is as great as the work you put into it (and free, not historically the case)
- Everyone in the world (with an internet connection) can access your work.
- You are your own limitation because the world is at your finger tips (or to use bad 90’s copy – just a mouse click away)
Timeless music of the cosmos.
March 8th, 2010Interesting article here, called A Little Light Music. Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is working on a project called “Rhythms of the Universe,” where he’s attempting to make music of the sounds of the cosmos. There are some sound samples in the video embedded below.
If there’s anyone who seems right to tackle a project like this it seems that Mickey’s the guy. I highly recommend Mickey’s book Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion
I do think that trying to sonify the cosmos is kind of silly because the cosmos already is full of sound, even if there’s no sound in space, but nevertheless the concept is neat and the sounds created thus far are kind of spooky and vaguely reminsicent of Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer’s musique concrete, as well as John Bullitt’s Deep Earth Dome work.
We were listening last night.
March 6th, 2010We were all listening,
heard every
sound,
and experienced
it with the
fullness of our
being.
It pulled us
in,
brought us
together,
and when the
music ended,
the sound faded,
and the last
echoes of the
shining sun
dissipated,
we were all there.
More alive
and more completely
connected to the source
than ever before.
For a moment
we captured the light
and I hope to get
back there as often
as possible.
Music: The Timeless Experience.
March 5th, 2010Sri Chimnoy said: “Silence is the source of everything. It is the source of music and it is music itself. Silence is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded.”
Similarly, I believe that music is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded. This is so because music, unlike many other creative arts doesn’t suffer the problems of physics and is free to expand and contract, thus allowing the energy of the music to be distributed, flowly freely outward. This is what gives music and the acts of listening, performing and/or composing the potential to be a timeless experience; the energy of the sound, whether emotional, psychological, or otherwise, has a way of transporting us by touching the core of our being, affecting the way we feel, the way we experience the world, and enhancing our sense of well-being. I’ve heard the composer Steve Roach refer to this as being in the “sound current“; I like to think of it that way.
I imagine being in the sound current as being one with a timeless state.
The Spiritual Portal of Music.
March 4th, 2010Music has always been a spiritual portal for me, both performing and listening. I got to thinking about this recently when considering that this blog had been abandoned as I worked to bring my band, The Elevator Conspiracy, out of hiatus. The band has been doing a lot of work to get ready for a series of shows we have coming up, as well as breaking in a new singer. Interestingly, though, as it’s something I’d never considered, is that the performance and social interaction part of the group is more of the focal point than it ever was for me. Whereas, it used to be all about the tunes, sonic creations, etc… and I do enjoy the listening and composing part of creation, but as I thought about playing with these guys, and the musical communion that is when we come together the more I thought that music has always been spiritual portal, and now more than ever, the priority is going through that portal as much, and as frequently as I can. I wonder if anybody reading has ever had one of these timeless, or spiritual moments playing, listening or creating music; if so I’d love to hear about your experiences.
16th Verse on Reality
March 3rd, 2010Reading this last night, it stuck with me; thought it might be nice to share:
Taken from Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses on Reality:
Apart, from us where is time and where is space? If we are bodies, we are involved in time and in space, but are we? We are one and identical now, then, and forever, here, and everywhere. Therefore we, timeless, and spaceless Being, alone are.
The fork in the message for creatives.
February 12th, 2010Over the last year, or even longer (though less consistently) there have three or so major themes here:
These themes have taken many forms, including anecdotes, videos, and posts I’ve found online to quotes, book references, poetry, sound samples and musical references. That’s not going to change, but time has given me the benefit of being able to see what this blog is about; what scales, and what’s sustainable as a writer and leader of this endeavor.
If you imagine this blog as an impressionist painting, say a darker Monet (above) or Renoire, and you blur the specific content items into a single whole, the focus of the writing and the message start to get more narrow. You start to see that really this blog is about me and what I’ve tried to do since I came online with my music in 1999, I write a bit about that at the bottom this post here. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s funny because as I write this I remember what it was that attracted me to the Web. I was a musician/composer, and I was working on a recording. After having played guitar for years, being in bands, playing shows, and trying to sell music at venues, I saw that the Web had the power to change everything for me as a working artist — the playing field had been leveled. On the Web, in 1999, Mp3.com had just launched, and it was skies the limit for artists to get out their, hang a virtual shingle, and let the world know about their work. However, it wasn’t about huckstering your product and bombarding folks with spam to inform them about your work (though there was some of that); rather there was an openness that permeated throughout this new platform. There were new channels for sharing what you were doing, as well as for folks, from all the over the world, to share with you.
The Web was, is, the great liberator. It leveled the playing field for artists of all kinds, but for me as a composer, the benefits have been huge. Here are a few reasons why:
These items are unprecedented, and while they have, and will continue to, come with their own struggles, it’s has the potential to be a boon for the working artist, writer, and creative. Therefore, the moral of the, blog/story that I’ve been weaving for the past year starts to look like this:
If you’re a composer, artist, creative, whatever then there’s no excuse to not get your work out there, do the most and be the most you can be; the Web and the many electronic communications tools available to you (including email, social media and even old school listservs and newsgroups) can help you get the message out there about your work.
That’s it.
That’s the fork in the message for creatives out there.
Work Smart: Mastering Your Social Media Life
February 11th, 2010The title of this post, Work Smart: Mastering Your Social Media Life, is the title of a great article by Gina Trapani, of Lifehacker.com fame, that I just read over at Fast Company. I’ve been thinking about putting together an article like this myself. In fact, I was just talking to a co-worker about how I fuse together Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and how I’m looking forward to integrating Google Buzz into the fold.
It’s no simple task coming up with fresh content, doing the postings, cross-posting, etc… and being, basically, a one-man media empire; it takes a heck of a lot of work, and that explains both why so many people start and give up, and why the persistence of doing it is often rewarded with followers, comments, links, etc… in many ways it’s self-regulating. Don’t do it, no love lost… keep it up, and people become interested, you can become a taste maker, or a critical voice.
Having a good social media workflow in place allows you to get more bang for your, content, buck by getting the message to more people right away. So instead of just posting and hoping that something goes viral, or you’ll be found in organic Google searches, you’re taking the message to the people. Some might forward it, some might not read it, some might not care at all, some might really enjoy it, but either way it’s out there, and getting the message out there is what it’s all about. We can only take it that far. After that it’s left to go as far as it can on merit and value alone.
I’m going to post Gina’s video here, as well, because it’s a nice addition to reading the post. Enjoy.
Detroit People Mover – Michigan Radio
February 8th, 2010Pleased to report that I successfully submitted my 2002 recording of the Detroit People Mover to the Sounds of the State collection that’s been playing on Michigan Radio for the last few months. So if you listen to Michigan Radio with any regularity you’ll hear my recording of the Detroit People Mover. You should also check out the Sounds of the State Web site. Very nice.
Gutenberg and this day in tech, inspired by Wired
February 3rd, 2010
Reading about Gutenberg, movable type, and printing in general always makes me think about just how far we’ve come in the realm of communications and the ability to disseminate information. As many of you know, I’m a letterpress printer, using machines that aren’t much different from the ones Gutenberg himself worked with five hundred, yep, that’s 500! years ago!!!
On the other end of spectrum, though, is the work that I’m lucky enough to do every day in the realm of electronic communications. Read the Wired, This Day In Tech, article, and allow your mind to wander, thinking about, imagining, the world of lead type, and heavy cast iron that was needed to get a message out there. Then think back a bit further to a time of hand scribes, and no dissemination at all except what could be passed word-of-mouth.
It’s kind of hard to imagine especially in a world rapid-fire tweets, Facebook status updates, RSS feeds, and blog posts just like this one, that not too long ago there was no Web, or iPhone, or Blackberry or anything else that permitted such awesome real-time, in the moment, communication. Just sayin’… pretty awesome.
Our struggle now isn’t the media, but finding the attention to dedicate to it all… Exciting stuff.
Digitization – Why waste a perfectly good human.
February 3rd, 2010I’m filing this under lessons learned.
When developing anything for the Web or from any IT perspective, there are two things that need to be considered:
1.) It’s very challenging to develop a digital process where there’s no human process.
It’s not that creating a digital process can’t be completed, it’s just that it has to be pursued. When you start developing a Web or IT endeavor it’s all about the process that you’re trying to digitize. So having process map is crucial to developing the workflow for a given Web or IT project.
2.) Sometimes a Web or IT project can’t replace real human contact
Some processes, many processes have the luxury of being able to be replaced by computers. However, there are some that no Web site or computer can replaced. In my business, it’s a beautiful idea to streamline or refine work processes, and it’s a work that I love and look very forward to doing, but sometimes there’s no replacement for human contact. Sometimes, creating a digital process where a human one is needed can hurt the process.
What I’ve learned is that you really have to evaluate the projects, analyze them, and sometimes the best thing to do is avoid digitizing a process, allowing the human process to stand.
