I've been playing around with music on the 'puter. Essentially trying to get a bunch of old and new songs out of my head. Baggage disposal. And way fun too.
Anyway, I've got an assorted bunch of hardware and software and a heap of "projects" on the go and/or in my head. Recently I finally and hurriedly "finished" a song and posted it on garageband.com for review.
Garageband is a great idea. Anyone can put up songs/have a band webpage. There's a pretty serious competition for top spots- won by getting the best reviews- and a lot of good- and not so good- free music.
What you have to do in return for hosting and peer reviews of your music is review other people's songs- reasonably seriously, cut and pasters are anathema and get dumped. After 15 pairs of reviews- and this is a serious commitment if you do it with respect- then you get to post your own mp3.
Which- after a weekend of setting up, mucking around, and not feeling terrific, I did- a song I'd previously recorded, added some guitars, and was secretly pretty pleased with.
That didn't last. Wow did I get some bad reviews! Here's the very first reviewer:
"well, this is super amateurish. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But in this case I think that it is. For one thing, the levels - the mix - is just atrocious. But the biggest flaw here is that the melody is totally uninspired and the pitch is all over the place. I really don't have any idea what you are trying to do here. I mean what are you thinking to accomplish art-wise. Is this to be interpreted as commentary on the medium or something? Because if not, well, this just, taken at face value, is punishingly bad"
and a couple more...
"The song devolves into chaos and confusion. Meaning you had me at the beginning, but then you lost me in a big way."
"This song was different right out of the box, with the opening atonal, rhythmic groove. I didn't like the melody, which mostly existed on sing-song sounding vocals. The song never seemed pull togther into a recognizable meolody to place over a solid rhythm section."
"The chromatic half step thing is very unsettling. I can't just enjoy the music, it this for real? I guees you have to be pretty talented to song such atonal stuff, but I can't say It's fun to listen to..."
I quickly changed the "band" name (it was, I realised somewhat late, suspiciously androgenous) and I did get a few writers who liked it- even got on someone's podcast.
But most people who had some level of musicianship commented on how badly outa tune the singing- and, one noted, the rhythm guitar- were.
And they were right.
I've bought- it hasn't arrived, but I've been playing with a demo- a terrific audio programme called melodyne (I'm getting uno, the baby of the melodyne family). It DOES correct "intonation problems"- amazingly well- and that's not all. It lets you treat audio files almost as if they were midi- you can play with timing, change melodies, create harmonies, really go to town.
But it also reveals with ego-shattering clarity just how outa tune I was.
Sigh.
But just wait for the next one! Now that's bound to be good- and however banal the melody, the vocals are pretty well gauranteed to be "in" that tune.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Thursday, March 31, 2005
autumn
Autumn's early this year.
March 26 I took the three little kids down to the beach and we had a good swim, fossick etc under grey skies- but warm, humid, the sea friendly. On the 29th, it was cold. Still, after getting in and sprint-swimming the first few minutes, it was surprisingly pleasant. Certainly a corporal tingling upon egress, but- or perhaps because of this- uplifting.
Maybe I'm hitting an autumn phase in life, too. Grumpy. Taciturn. Quick to anger.
I feel I love the kids to bits- but I still yearn for time away. The weight of all the things I've started- all those unfinished, forgotten, or still slow-burning projects- there's a kind of panic. Time is slipping away, through my hands. I sense my "consciouness" burning time the way the world is burning oil- as if they weren't finite.
March 26 I took the three little kids down to the beach and we had a good swim, fossick etc under grey skies- but warm, humid, the sea friendly. On the 29th, it was cold. Still, after getting in and sprint-swimming the first few minutes, it was surprisingly pleasant. Certainly a corporal tingling upon egress, but- or perhaps because of this- uplifting.
Maybe I'm hitting an autumn phase in life, too. Grumpy. Taciturn. Quick to anger.
I feel I love the kids to bits- but I still yearn for time away. The weight of all the things I've started- all those unfinished, forgotten, or still slow-burning projects- there's a kind of panic. Time is slipping away, through my hands. I sense my "consciouness" burning time the way the world is burning oil- as if they weren't finite.
Monday, February 07, 2005
new life
involves waking about 6.
making school lunches.
waking kids.
vowing yet again not to swear at them or get too furious.
leaving late.
spending (this morning) 10 minutes inching towards one particular intersection.
dropping them late for school.
sitting around with oscar waiting for his taxi (which he's not happy with.... doesn't enjoy sharing it with a couple of teenagers i think.)
arriving at work about 9 feeling ready for a good kip.
it's been a weekend of heat and swimming and very busy leisure.... so the whole family's tired and grumpy monday morning. ahh well, there's always work to look forward to.
three or five lessons to cut/script/voice... 10am and already i'm dreaming of the sea. cool, blue, the way the wind ruffles it, the salty, deep satisfying smell of it, taste of it.
making school lunches.
waking kids.
vowing yet again not to swear at them or get too furious.
leaving late.
spending (this morning) 10 minutes inching towards one particular intersection.
dropping them late for school.
sitting around with oscar waiting for his taxi (which he's not happy with.... doesn't enjoy sharing it with a couple of teenagers i think.)
arriving at work about 9 feeling ready for a good kip.
it's been a weekend of heat and swimming and very busy leisure.... so the whole family's tired and grumpy monday morning. ahh well, there's always work to look forward to.
three or five lessons to cut/script/voice... 10am and already i'm dreaming of the sea. cool, blue, the way the wind ruffles it, the salty, deep satisfying smell of it, taste of it.
Friday, December 17, 2004
christmas and cornflour
without being one of those wearisome types who mutter "i hate christmas" under their breath while simultaneously kicking a small child and peeing on your granny's flowerbed- while not in that league, christmas has tended to induce a weariness in me over the last few years.
well, less so this year.
i'll never forget talking to fine new zealand author jack lasenby- an outdoors type now in his seventies. after running down the modern world for while, and bemoaning his physical state, he said with wicked (and humourous) relish- "at least i can still hate!"
he had a point.
there's something uniquely energising about hate.
and while i more-or-less endorse the john lennon/jesus line that love's what's really important, some of the ominous trends worldwide- bush, islamic jihadism, global warming- the list is endless- and here in nz - the maxim institute, puling paul holmes, the dead rat in the heater of our van- well, it's energising to have some decent targets.
so raise a glass, haha-
here's to us-
and those like us-
and to hell with the rest!
merry christmas.
unless yr a supporter/employee/paid liar from the maxim institute. in which case, look out. my trained attack weasels will rip the skin off yr anus.
well, less so this year.
i'll never forget talking to fine new zealand author jack lasenby- an outdoors type now in his seventies. after running down the modern world for while, and bemoaning his physical state, he said with wicked (and humourous) relish- "at least i can still hate!"
he had a point.
there's something uniquely energising about hate.
and while i more-or-less endorse the john lennon/jesus line that love's what's really important, some of the ominous trends worldwide- bush, islamic jihadism, global warming- the list is endless- and here in nz - the maxim institute, puling paul holmes, the dead rat in the heater of our van- well, it's energising to have some decent targets.
so raise a glass, haha-
here's to us-
and those like us-
and to hell with the rest!
merry christmas.
unless yr a supporter/employee/paid liar from the maxim institute. in which case, look out. my trained attack weasels will rip the skin off yr anus.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
what's he up to?
this article in the hill, suggests Kerry might have another shot at the presidency.
while i'm impressed by kerry, it strikes a slightly sour note. maybe the vanity and ambition are stronger in jkfII than i'd imagined.
late, but here's some of the new yorker's take on nov 2.
Along with the sadness, there is puzzlement. Incumbents, especially in time of war, have a built-in advantage. But this incumbent had led the country into a war, the war in Iraq, that half the public had come to see as a mistake, and had led the country down what more than half the public saw, in pollster’s shorthand, as “the wrong track.” The election’s outcome defies logic, and perhaps that is the point. The early analyses credited Bush’s victory to religious conservatives, particularly those in the evangelical movement. In voting for Bush, as eighty per cent of them did, many of these formerly nonvoting white evangelicals are remaining true to their unworldliness. In voting for a party that wants to tax work rather than wealth, that scorns thrift, that sees the natural world not as a common inheritance but as an object of exploitation, and that equates economic inequality with economic vitality, they have voted against their own material (and, some might imagine, spiritual) well-being.
here's the full link
while i'm impressed by kerry, it strikes a slightly sour note. maybe the vanity and ambition are stronger in jkfII than i'd imagined.
late, but here's some of the new yorker's take on nov 2.
Along with the sadness, there is puzzlement. Incumbents, especially in time of war, have a built-in advantage. But this incumbent had led the country into a war, the war in Iraq, that half the public had come to see as a mistake, and had led the country down what more than half the public saw, in pollster’s shorthand, as “the wrong track.” The election’s outcome defies logic, and perhaps that is the point. The early analyses credited Bush’s victory to religious conservatives, particularly those in the evangelical movement. In voting for Bush, as eighty per cent of them did, many of these formerly nonvoting white evangelicals are remaining true to their unworldliness. In voting for a party that wants to tax work rather than wealth, that scorns thrift, that sees the natural world not as a common inheritance but as an object of exploitation, and that equates economic inequality with economic vitality, they have voted against their own material (and, some might imagine, spiritual) well-being.
here's the full link
Monday, November 15, 2004
it's the oil, stupid.
This New Yorker article, Pump Dreams, by John Cassidy, treads a little delicately around the core reason for the invasion of Iraq and why "retreat is not an option". It's certainly worth a read- the Bush/Cheney oil baron clique- right out of Dallas, in a stupid kinda way- are not about to raise taxes on gas, or mandate better mpg for cars and light trucks. But high oil prices are likely to do what they lack the guts or foresight or common sense for.
Global warning.... what globe? Isn't the earth flat, like texas?
Global warning.... what globe? Isn't the earth flat, like texas?
Friday, November 05, 2004
kerry
an unfortunate fact of american political life is you run for president as an almost unknown, and if you fail- obscurity.
this is a fault. I'm sure i'm not alone in hoping kerry can play a part in america's future. he's got the mana. and i don't think we can afford to discard this leader.
I'd like tos ee a sort of "opposition" that regularly issues statements and articulates where the democrats would position themselves on policy- over the next four years. we need a relatively uniform and informed and distinguished spokesperson to tell america just how and why and when and where the bush corps are destroying our liberty, prosperity, and happiness.
how about the dems appoint a spokesperson and an "shadow cabinet" and take these issues to the public for the next four years, as happens in democracies worldwide- (like here in new zealand).
the time to do it is NOW!
this is a fault. I'm sure i'm not alone in hoping kerry can play a part in america's future. he's got the mana. and i don't think we can afford to discard this leader.
I'd like tos ee a sort of "opposition" that regularly issues statements and articulates where the democrats would position themselves on policy- over the next four years. we need a relatively uniform and informed and distinguished spokesperson to tell america just how and why and when and where the bush corps are destroying our liberty, prosperity, and happiness.
how about the dems appoint a spokesperson and an "shadow cabinet" and take these issues to the public for the next four years, as happens in democracies worldwide- (like here in new zealand).
the time to do it is NOW!
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