I decided to retire my Leeworks and Fields on Fire blogs--not because I didn't like them, but because I didn't have the time to keep them up. And I figured there was no point in just leaving them there, the mp3s being (mostly) inactive, and all. So, to use a term from the original Outer Limits series, I "uncreated" them. Fields on Fire, in particular, was harder to keep going than I thought it would be. (God's will, you say? Very funny!) One big problem, right off the bat, was lack of material. I had drastically downsized my gospel music holdings, plus I didn't have very many tracks burned and ready to go, and... like that. I knew I was in trouble, for example, when I decided to post a white-gospel version of His Eye Is on the Sparrow, only to discover that... I didn't have any. Once upon a time, I had more versions than I could have used.
Vintage Lounge and MY(P)WHAE are the blogs that have flourished, and so they will get my full devotion. Survival of the fattest, I think that's called.
As I type this, I've got a lot planned for both sites. I'll be taking my Christmas MP3s down before long, but I want to be sure everyone has a chance to download what they want. So, let's say Monday for the day I start removing them from box.net. If anyone needs them up longer, let me know.
And I promised an album's worth of tracks to a kind reader--those will be on the way, once I've edited them. But I'll probably be less able, in the future, to honor old-file (or special file) requests, as I'm finding I just don't have the time. I don't mind digging things up, and the requests have been extremely friendly and gracious--but the time isn't there. I'm really sorry. What I need is a staff!
So... in the future, I'll be happy to dig things up if time permits, but only if. As a rule, I keep MP3s up for a month, unless files are specific to a particular date--say, Vet's Day. In which case, I might clear them out faster than usual.
Today, I was unable to get any playback sound at all from my Alesis Proton25 MIDI controller--not a peep. Or, rather, from my Dell's playback software. And notes continue to show up incorrectly on my music software, the only consistency being that, when the notes are wrong, they're a half-step too high. When they're right, they're... right. No logic to the pattern at all. So, I wrote to Alesis' tech support, and I'll probably hear from them on Monday. I picked a fine time to write--the middle of Friday afternoon. Brilliant. Until I hear back, I won't touch the keyboard or the software. This is the first time I've ever been utterly stumped by an electronic device. Usually, if I keep messing around, I can find my way. I have met my match.
My best guess is that I'll have to upgrade the MIDI software on my Dell. Since the notes are showing up wrong, it must be a MIDI-in issue. Not exactly my area of expertise. I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date on this very exciting and suspenseful story. (Announcer: "Days of Trying to Use a New MIDI Device has been brought to you by....")
The keyboard is laughing at me. I just know it. I can read its mind. Go ahead, laugh while you still can. Soon, you'll be doing my bidding. ("That's what he thinks."--Alesis Photon25)
Last night's cat fight was over by the time I went to investigate. Either that, or it had relocated outdoors, as in, outside the cat window. Or maybe, just maybe, the felines in question were able to talk things out rationally. Maybe they chose peaceful coexistence over fur-tearing. We'll never know.
By way of remembrance, I've decided to post an old (months-old, anyway) Leeworks file--my very own Godzilla on Broadway. This was to be part of a Godzilla Suite that never made it to town:
Godzilla on Broadway (Lee Hartsfeld), played from software into a Casio synthesizer, 1995.
And here's a self-penned routine I've been planning to post whenever the right time came. I've decided to make this the right time:
Information Magazine (Advertisement), Written and performed by me, 2000.
Memory tells me I kept laughing during that bit. Luckily, it was simply a number of short takes strung together. I achieved the muffled narration by putting my hand over my mouth. Innovative, no?
Lee
Friday, January 06, 2006
Waterfall music, 1962
O.K., I may be cool, but even a cool dude like me can appreciate Roger Williams. Especially when he's arpeggiating up and down the keyboard to the 1962 George Martin composition Niagara Theme. And, after careful and thoughtful analysis, I've determined that there's nothing I can do to save that last sentence. I can only move on....
Yes, George Martin, before he became the famous producer of (and orchestrator for) the Beatles. Just before, or perhaps just as. I'm not up on my Beatles dates like I should be. All I know is that the Fab Four first rocked my country's world in late 1963. I saw their premiere Ed Sullivan appearance, which occurred after my bedtime--my brother and I had been called downstairs by our parents to witness this great event. Standing there in my pajamas, I wondered why the heck all the girls were screaming. Because, for one thing, I could barely hear the music. I wasn't completely sure what I was witnessing. (You were expecting a "Beatles changed my life" testimonial?)
I thought the Beatles were all right. In fact, the first album I ever bought (my brother and I combined our pennies) was Beatles '65. But I liked the Beach Boys better. Until they did Good Vibrations, which I regarded as being pretty lightweight. I had no idea that the song was a cutting-edge pyschedelic pop symphony, or whatever the critics subsequently decided it was. (That theremin--such a modern touch.) I thought that Brian Wilson had lost his songwriting skill, and all I can say is... I was right. Nine-year-old music critics should be taken more seriously.
I know, I know. GV is the high point of 1960s rock. What-ever.
Wait--this post is about George Martin's Niagara Falls. What happened to me? Sorry. So, this is one of the most boring pop-instrumental works ever conceived, in my opinion, and I'm someone who normally likes this kind of thing. And I've spent the past 15 minutes trying to come up some word play--any word play--to introduce this with, but I've come up dry:
Niagara Theme (George Martin), Roger Williams, 1962. From Mr. Piano (Kapp KS-3290).
Keep this file on hand so that when someone asks, "What was George Martin doing before the Beatles got really big?" you'll have an instant answer in music. It looks like Martin himself recorded Niagara Theme in 1965. I don't know why.
MY(P)WHAE--where you'll hear music like this.
Lee
Yes, George Martin, before he became the famous producer of (and orchestrator for) the Beatles. Just before, or perhaps just as. I'm not up on my Beatles dates like I should be. All I know is that the Fab Four first rocked my country's world in late 1963. I saw their premiere Ed Sullivan appearance, which occurred after my bedtime--my brother and I had been called downstairs by our parents to witness this great event. Standing there in my pajamas, I wondered why the heck all the girls were screaming. Because, for one thing, I could barely hear the music. I wasn't completely sure what I was witnessing. (You were expecting a "Beatles changed my life" testimonial?)
I thought the Beatles were all right. In fact, the first album I ever bought (my brother and I combined our pennies) was Beatles '65. But I liked the Beach Boys better. Until they did Good Vibrations, which I regarded as being pretty lightweight. I had no idea that the song was a cutting-edge pyschedelic pop symphony, or whatever the critics subsequently decided it was. (That theremin--such a modern touch.) I thought that Brian Wilson had lost his songwriting skill, and all I can say is... I was right. Nine-year-old music critics should be taken more seriously.
I know, I know. GV is the high point of 1960s rock. What-ever.
Wait--this post is about George Martin's Niagara Falls. What happened to me? Sorry. So, this is one of the most boring pop-instrumental works ever conceived, in my opinion, and I'm someone who normally likes this kind of thing. And I've spent the past 15 minutes trying to come up some word play--any word play--to introduce this with, but I've come up dry:
Niagara Theme (George Martin), Roger Williams, 1962. From Mr. Piano (Kapp KS-3290).
Keep this file on hand so that when someone asks, "What was George Martin doing before the Beatles got really big?" you'll have an instant answer in music. It looks like Martin himself recorded Niagara Theme in 1965. I don't know why.
MY(P)WHAE--where you'll hear music like this.
Lee
1) Am I cool, or 2) what?
Wow--I haven't felt this cool since I was living in Ohio's 18th district and Rep. Bob Ney coined the flag-waving term "Freedom Fries" and I thought, "Hey, that's MY congressman!" And now Bob Ney is "Representative No. 1" in the big bribery probe, and, even though I'm no longer in the 18th district, I can proclaim with pride that I did live there while Congressman Ney was working his way to the top.
Well, not pride, exactly. Red-faced embarrassment. Yeah, that's the noun phrase I was looking for.
So, actually, I've been feeling somewhat less than cool lately. Then along comes a plug for this very blog in LA Weekly, courtesy of an excellent piece by Reverend (Music for Nimrods) Dan! And, suddenly, I feel cool. As well I should (an e-friend living in California told me that "LA Weekly is totally the arbiter of cool"). Follow this link to the article: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/06/07/culture-blogs.php
Many thanks to Dan for my hopefully more than 15 minutes of cooldom (or nimrod-dom, at least). I'll try to stretch it to 16 or 17. As the suddenly-famous stand-up comic said, "Now, all of those people will be sorry they didn't laugh at me!"
Meanwhile, I've got to get in gear. 2006 hit without warning. How was I supposed to know a New Year was on the horizon? Nobody tells me these things.
Seriously, I've been in post-Christmas-posting post-depression depression. Something like that. Post-Holiday-post depression, perhaps. That sounds better. Anyway, Reverend Dan's plug was just the medicine I needed!
Meanwhile, a cat fight just started--literally. Bill versus... Perry? The territorial howling is increasing in vigor and volume. It's happening outside the door to this room. Better see what's up.
Lee
Well, not pride, exactly. Red-faced embarrassment. Yeah, that's the noun phrase I was looking for.
So, actually, I've been feeling somewhat less than cool lately. Then along comes a plug for this very blog in LA Weekly, courtesy of an excellent piece by Reverend (Music for Nimrods) Dan! And, suddenly, I feel cool. As well I should (an e-friend living in California told me that "LA Weekly is totally the arbiter of cool"). Follow this link to the article: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/06/07/culture-blogs.php
Many thanks to Dan for my hopefully more than 15 minutes of cooldom (or nimrod-dom, at least). I'll try to stretch it to 16 or 17. As the suddenly-famous stand-up comic said, "Now, all of those people will be sorry they didn't laugh at me!"
Meanwhile, I've got to get in gear. 2006 hit without warning. How was I supposed to know a New Year was on the horizon? Nobody tells me these things.
Seriously, I've been in post-Christmas-posting post-depression depression. Something like that. Post-Holiday-post depression, perhaps. That sounds better. Anyway, Reverend Dan's plug was just the medicine I needed!
Meanwhile, a cat fight just started--literally. Bill versus... Perry? The territorial howling is increasing in vigor and volume. It's happening outside the door to this room. Better see what's up.
Lee
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The soundtrack to my New Year's weekend: "Huh?"
My waking hours, this holiday weekend, were spent trying to coordinate my Alesis Photon25 MIDI controller with my music software while, simultaneously, concocting an arrangement of Auld Lang Syne such as Raymond Scott might have written. My brain has spent most of its time in the following mode, as flawlessly evoked by The Top Kicks, whoever the heck they were:
Huh? The Top Kicks, 1954. From Guyden label 78.
Huh? is possibly my favorite song title of all time. (Other favorite song titles: Go to Hell; Mothballs; and Ah-Ha!) I first posted it several months ago. It's proud to make its return appearance today.
My Scott approximation was created using a trial ("unregistered") version of Noteworthy Composer, and it's only half-complete, and then only half that. I spliced the following file together from what I had:
Auld Lang Syne (as Raymond Scott might have arranged it), Lee Hartsfeld, 2006.
The patches (voices) aren't quite right, but I think I managed a decent imitation of Scott's cluttered, piled-on texture, and the rhythms are cornball enough to pass for the real thing. My plan was to write a slower, bluesy middle section a la Powerhouse, but by the time I had finished the sixteen-bar first section, I was without bar lines and, hence, without much of a time reference. I'm sure there's a way to make the program produce bar lines automatically, and I thought that entering the time signature would take care of that, but... no. Curses. The right-hand-riff rhythms, in 2/4, involve sixteenth-note rests, and those are hard to notate without knowing where the measures begin and end.
For an initial effort, not bad. This is how one learns software--i.e., by discovering, through trial and error, what it does and what it don't do.
So, that's what I've been doing. Computer-wise.
More to come on the Alesis Photon25--in particular, the way that the notes aren't appearing correctly in my music program in step-time entry. (F, A, C, for instance, registers on the staff as F, A#, C#. Oops.)
Lee
Huh? The Top Kicks, 1954. From Guyden label 78.
Huh? is possibly my favorite song title of all time. (Other favorite song titles: Go to Hell; Mothballs; and Ah-Ha!) I first posted it several months ago. It's proud to make its return appearance today.
My Scott approximation was created using a trial ("unregistered") version of Noteworthy Composer, and it's only half-complete, and then only half that. I spliced the following file together from what I had:
Auld Lang Syne (as Raymond Scott might have arranged it), Lee Hartsfeld, 2006.
The patches (voices) aren't quite right, but I think I managed a decent imitation of Scott's cluttered, piled-on texture, and the rhythms are cornball enough to pass for the real thing. My plan was to write a slower, bluesy middle section a la Powerhouse, but by the time I had finished the sixteen-bar first section, I was without bar lines and, hence, without much of a time reference. I'm sure there's a way to make the program produce bar lines automatically, and I thought that entering the time signature would take care of that, but... no. Curses. The right-hand-riff rhythms, in 2/4, involve sixteenth-note rests, and those are hard to notate without knowing where the measures begin and end.
For an initial effort, not bad. This is how one learns software--i.e., by discovering, through trial and error, what it does and what it don't do.
So, that's what I've been doing. Computer-wise.
More to come on the Alesis Photon25--in particular, the way that the notes aren't appearing correctly in my music program in step-time entry. (F, A, C, for instance, registers on the staff as F, A#, C#. Oops.)
Lee
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)