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Why Harry Connick Jr. Couldn’t Sit Idle During ‘Idol’

May 5, 2013 in Articles

via NextAvenue.org:

“Not one of the contestants took Connick’s “Then” advice when they got on stage. Substance was thrown out the window for pyrotechnic vocal tricks. Angie sang Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me,” an ode to vulnerability, in full-power voice. She hardly came off as “a little lamb who’s lost in the wood,” as the lyric says. More like a John Deere tree cutter. ”
“Connick squirmed in his front-row seat during the “Then” performances. I haven’t seen such facial contortions since Linda Blair got anointed with holy water in The Exorcist.”

It goes on. But basically, it sums up the whole “American Idol” and the other singing things (like The Voice). Fluff. Crap. I can name TWO people who have done well winning American Idol, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. That’s it. Hardly making an “Idol” out of the winners.

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World’s Largest Saxophone?

May 5, 2013 in Articles, Videos

Very cool video from the Steve Allen show where three of his saxophonists play ONE saxophone.

Here is the video (embedding was disabled)

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2013 NAMM Oddities

April 18, 2013 in Articles

Barry Wood has updated his NAMM Oddities page from this year’s NAMM show. NAMM is a trade show that happens around the beginning of the year for music related items.

Some saxophone related items are here:

Instrument Care Apparel. I guess this appeals to people? I think its a waste of money but whatever…

It’s BAAAACK. Yes, the Vibrato Plastic Saxophone had a NAMM display this year. Though I had a post of it way back in May of 2011, two years later they are finally at NAMM. Whoohoo. So another two or so years until there is an actual shipping product?

Not to be out done in the Polycarbonate playhouse, NUVO has a line of plastic flutes and clarinets. Joy to the world.

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Selmer Adds Yet ANOTHER Line Of Saxophones……Do We Need Yet Another Line?

April 14, 2013 in Articles, News

I came across this today.

Not sure if this is supposed to be another PRO line of instruments, or maybe an intermediate line? Selmer USA is NOT known for PRO horns. Looks kind of cheap to me.

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The Importance of Backups

March 24, 2013 in Articles

For several years now, I have been storing my digital assets on a RAID5 system. The first system was a box I build from old PC parts and a raid controller. It held a whopping 1 terabyte in storage. It was loud.

The second system was a ReadyNAS NV. This was a little shoebox size computer that held 4 drives. It worked remarkably well, even when I swapped out the original 250 gig drives with 1 terabyte drives (to make my total storage close to 3 terabytes). Great little unit, but it was slow (650mhz processor).

Last year I upgraded to a Synology DS1512. The first unit I got had a serious firmware issue, and they had to send me a new unit. It had been running flawlessly until about two weeks ago. Then, a drive failed….

No big deal. I had two drives fail on the readynas unit. You simply take up the disk, put in a new one, and it rebuilds itself…..no data lost. The synology unit should be the same. So, I proceeded to go on amazon and order a new drive…..then the improbable happened……a second drive failed.

Now, RAID5 is designed to handle one drive dying, not two. Technically, the drive didn’t completely die, the system map got screwed up somehow. Basically, the unit crashed miserably, and probably was not recoverable (didn’t even boot)

Luckily, over the summer, I got a two disk synology unit, and had been remotely syncing changes from the DS1512 to it. Plus I had also been using the readynas nv as a backup as well. So, I didn’t lose nearly 3 terabytes of songs, movies, books, and recordings.

Now, you probably don’t have a NAS. But you probably have a computer. You need to backup files now. Get a hard drive and use time machine on the Mac or whatever similar program exists for windows. Backup. Seriously consider getting a CrashPlan or similar service account.

You can never have too many backups.

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Indispensable Finale Tools

March 18, 2013 in Articles

I have been a LONG time user of Finale. Since…..geeze, Finale 2 something (I think I have the floppy disks it came on for my Mac Quadra 660AV). Since there seems to be a new influx of life into MakeMusic, it is time to revisit why it is such an awesome program compared to the competition. I mean, there are reasons like the endless flexibility the program allows you in inputing your music, tweaking the output, etc. No, what really sets it apart are the plugins.

The first plugin that is absolutely necessary for anyone who uses Finale is TGTools. I use this daily. It has so many useful features. It is well worth the price I paid for it.

The second set of plugins are from Jari Williamsson that are available on the FinaleTips.nu site. His latest plugin, JW Accidentals, is amazing. Have needed something like this for a long time.

So check them out. Finale is going places……Sibelius? No so much…..

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Google Shutting Down Reader

March 14, 2013 in Articles, News

One of the things I use A LOT on the internet is Google Reader. It is a way easy way to get feeds from a ton of sites in one place where you can view them all, and if you are interested click on them and go to the site and read more. I spend at least 30 minutes each morning going through my feeds and reading things I find interesting. Google Reader fetches all these and keeps them insync for me, so if I happen to use Reeder iOS app to read some of the NYT Arts articles, later when I am on the computer, it won’t show me those again. It has been a huge thing for me for a while now. Now Google is killing it off.

The internet was in an uproar about it. I was too. Damn Google.

Alternatives? So far I think NewsBlur is the top for me. I already paid for a year ($24). I also bought Fever, but for some reason it won’t import my exported Google Reader data. Fever sounds really great, and it would be my own private store of feeds, and I could use my favorite Apps (Reeder) to view the feeds. Hopefully my email to the creator of Fever gets a response.

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San Francisco Symphony: On Strike, Concert Canceled | KQED News Fix

March 13, 2013 in Articles, News

San Francisco Symphony: On Strike, Concert Canceled | KQED News Fix:

Musicians for the San Francisco Symphony went on strike today after eight months of fruitless talks with management centered on wage and benefit issues. The immediate impact: The symphony announced a concert scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday has been canceled.

(Via blogs.kqed.org)

I’m sorry, but when the AVERAGE salary is $165K a year, I have NO SYMPATHY for these guys. The rest of us musicians maybe make $60K a year before taxes, and since Obama and the recession, I think a $40K is more realistic.

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What the best jazz musicians and business brains have in common – CNN.com

March 10, 2013 in Articles

What the best jazz musicians and business brains have in common – CNN.com:

How do you cope when faced with complexity and constant change at work? Successful leaders do what jazz musicians do: they improvise.

They invent novel responses and take calculated risks without a scripted plan or a safety net. They negotiate with each other as they proceed, and they don’t dwell on mistakes or stifle each other’s ideas.

(Via www.cnn.com)

Great article. Must get this guy’s book.

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No One Sets Out To Be A Smooth Jazz Musician | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

March 10, 2013 in Articles

No One Sets Out To Be A Smooth Jazz Musician | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source:

Look, I’m not going to lie to you. Nobody ever just woke up one morning and thought, “Of all the things possible in the vastness that is life, what I’d really like to do is play smooth jazz 250 nights a year.” It just doesn’t work that way.

(Via www.theonion.com)

So True!

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Band In A Box 2013 Macintosh

March 10, 2013 in Articles, Reviews

NewImage

PG Music has released the latest greatest version of Band in a Box for Macintosh. This is one of my favorite programs, hands down.

Here are some of the new featuresI like:

  • 31 More Jazz RealTracks, 35 Rock-Pop RealTracks.
  • New Song Form feature.
  • Remembers recent RealTracks that you selected
  • Easy Buttons for Transposing (Display only) to Eb, Bb and other clefs/instruments
  • Woodshed Tempo button

They also have some “SuperMidi” things, to make the midi tracks sound better. The main feature for me in this update was the Woodshed Tempo button. Now, Band in a Box has HAD this function for a while, buried in the preferences somewhere. I believe during the 2012.5 Beta test I suggested it would be a good idea to put it in a button and move it out front. PG Music did just that. The Woodshed button works by you giving it a start tempo, say 120, and then tell it how fast to get to (say 240) and in what increments. It’s very very nice to have. I’m hoping that they add the ability to have the Woodshed stuff be able to be dumped into an audio file at some point. They seemed interested when I made that suggestion. I think it would be VERY useful for making practice for students and stuff.

Some of the new Real Tracks are amazing, and at least one (Euro Dance) is crap. PG Music STILL hasn’t fixed/added a feature I think is essential, the ability to have the Open by Title be able to traverse subdirectories. It is a great feature, Open by Title, that shows the song name, key, tempo, and style for all the files in that directory. BUT if you have a subdirectory, it doesn’t open and do those files. That is stupid. It is easy to have upwards for 5,000 band in a box files (I have something like 12,000) if you download all the free fake book changes and what not freely available on the internet. Does PG Music want us to store everything in ONE directory? Yikes!

I still rate Band in a Box is an ESSENTIAL tool for anyone learning Jazz. Or learning music. Or composing. The ability to pick a key, type a chord progression, pick a tempo, and then a style and go is amazing. And the Real Tracks add to the program. Anyone buying this program needs to pony up for the Real Tracks, or at least the Real Tracks they would be using. Once you start using them, the Midi Stuff is just so 1990s.

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Musicians Need to Rethink Their Struggle with Piracy

March 10, 2013 in Articles

Musicians Need to Rethink Their Struggle with Piracy:

This isn’t a ’4 steps to beating piracy guide’, but we might as well start at the beginning. Prepare a game plan for your music. Figure out what path you want to take with your music and then stick to it. Do you want to get your music out in the world trying to get the most people to hear it, or do you need to make a monetary return on your recording investment? If you need to make a return, don’t give away your music for free, expecting some people to pay or donate. If your goal is awareness and popularity, then giving away a bunch of songs or the entire album may be the way to go.

(Via news.allaboutjazz.com)

 

Interesting. I had a discussion with a bass player about things like Spotify and Pandora. He was all “they pay you” and I was “like .000001 cents per play”. I think the way to go is to either put it into iTunes, or perhaps do what some people are doing and make it a “pay what you want” thing. 

UPDATE – Actually, the rate is $0.21 per 100 streams of a song. And Pandora supposedly pays $0.12 per 100 streams.

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Kenny G Played and Signed Saxophone Now $1000

March 2, 2013 in Articles

I first posted about this back in December. Some guy bought a saxophone and had Kenny G sign it and wanted $1600.

Well, lo and behold, it is now been marked down to $1000. This is the star power that the might G brings to the table……NOT.
Screen Shot 2013-03-02 at 12.16.19 AM

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Sibelius Refugees Building New Notation Program

February 24, 2013 in Articles

The computer notation market is dominated by two players, MakeMusic’s Finale and Avid’s Sibelius. Avid didn’t always own Sibelius, having bought it in 2006. Sibelius started WAY back on Acorn Computers. And Avid, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to gut the core team who have worked on Sibelius for many many years and users were not happy about this. In my opinion, this is pretty much the death blow of any further development of the software. I think Avid will eventually just roll the whole program into ProTools at some point, to help it’s cash cow do better in the Consumer/Prosumer market against programs like Logic, Ableton, Reaper, Cubase……to name just a few.

Anyhow, the team that was developing Sibelius and that was sacked by Avid have been hired by Steinberg and tasked to create a new notation program. No actual betas or screen shots. A lot of lofty ideas though. Steinberg is a Yamaha subsidiary, meaning that funding probably isn’t an issue, and we will, at some point, see a notation product by them.

Am I excited? Not really….unless this new notation program contains an essential feature. The ability to open and properly convert Finale and Sibelius files into the program. Not the crappy MusicXML stuff. If they want me to use the program, then I need to be able to open my old files with no issues. Or they need to at least have a batch converter.

I don’t expect to see anything from this effort for at least a year. Hopefully, in my case, MakeMusic won’t go out of business in that interval.

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SmartMusic Updates It’s Pricing

February 19, 2013 in Articles, News

Today, MakeMusic, the makers of SmartMusic, announced new pricing for SmartMusic. I believe they have jacked up the price by $5 a year, BUT they allow you to install it on multiple computers and devices (like iPads for their upcoming iPad version).

So this is actually GOOD news for the average student. But….

If you are a school, it is going to be a lot more expensive. They are charging a per student license of $8 a student, which what I hear is about 7x’s more expensive than it was.

Still, with all it’s quirks, the SmartMusic program is still an excellent tool for practice. The shear amount of band music they have in there is worth it.

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