First, they went after the Girl Scouts to have them PAY for singing songs around a campfire. Now, ASCAP wants you to PAY for a public performance of a ring tone. Yes……my mind too hit the brick wall and splattered upon reading this too. Have we become THAT concerned with money? I think it is [Continue]

I don’t know if I am crying cause it is so bad or because it hurts so much. [Continue]

There are a LOT of bad videos on Youtube, but this one looks like the chowderhead is playing for a gig. Hopefully he is paying THEM not vice versa. Sad really. My reeds feel like committing seppuku after hearing this. [Continue]

I’m not quite sure what to think of this. Though it does/can use Band in A Box, the demo video rather disturbs me. Visions of Sanjayas popping up all over the place is something even the late Charlton Heston would have a tough time conquering. This software, from Microsoft, has great little sliders for Happiness [Continue]

No no, it was not some sort of FBI raid, or something that took us down. It was signing up for AT&T’s new Uverse service under the impression that you could keep your existing DSL line (on another number other than what Uverse was going to be installed on). Well, that was NOT the case [Continue]

I don’t know about you, but this is disturbing: Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of the open-source WordPress blogging software, last night celebrated a $25 million “bonus” from investors by purchasing a $1 million Louis Armstrong trumpet, which he plans to use as a fruit bowl. There are a lot of things a trumpet used by [Continue]

It is sad that one of the great makers of mouthpieces and horns has messed up everything. From a Newsday Article: “David Guardala is sort of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the saxophone world, according to federal prosecutors and some of those he is accused of swindling. As of yesterday, Guardala was in [Continue]

One of my favorite whipping boys is SmartMusic. This program could be so great, and yet, MakeMusic seems not to want to put that little extra polish on it. Case in point, the latest “update” to SmartMusic is a large download, some 95 Megabytes. Took some time to download. Here is what is listed as [Continue]

MakeMusic, after much hype, delay, and then more hype, has finally released SmartMusic 10 in April. This is really what the program should have been from the get go. There are a lot of great Concert Band, and String Orchestra music on the screen selections. There are a few Jazz Band ones as well. The [Continue]

For months, MakeMusic has been saying SmartMusic 10 is coming. The amount of hype they have been making is akin to Microsoft and it’s “new” Vista operating system. MakeMusic hasn’t even updated the current version of SmartMusic to handle files generated by Finale 2007 which was released way back in August. To create files, [Continue]

I am part of the BMG “Jazz” Music club. I very rarely buy things from them as they charge you up the *#?@#^& in shipping, and it ends up being not all that cheap. I tend to get most of my stuff off Amazon.com used. Today, I received the BMG Early Spring 2007 Catalog. Not [Continue]

Blender.com, a great music music site, published a great list in 2003 of “The 50 Worst Artists In Music History“. While I don’t agree about #16, Oingo Boingo, I do agree with #4, Kenny G. "Hated equally by jazz and rock fans, Kenny Gorelick's limpid instrumentals and obsequious cameos helped turn the soprano sax solo [Continue]

Over this weekend, I got into this heated argument on a Yahoo group about Wind Controllers. I was interested in perhaps getting a new EWI 4000 to supplement my practicing. I said in one post that I thought a lot of the people using the controller as a sax made it sound cheesy. And, honestly, [Continue]

I just received the latest Woodwind/Brasswind catalog. Have you seen the number of companies that make saxophones. Here is the list (in no particular order): BandNow Barrington (advertised heavily in the catalog) Yamaha Amati C.F. Conn Keilwerth Blessing Allora Selmer LA Sax Jupiter Chicago Jazz Series (LA Sax?) Woodwind Brand Yanagisawa Unison [Continue]

I’ve had my Sony MZ-NH900 for about a month now. Basically, I am not happy with it at all. First, the USB uploading sucks. Unless you own a Sony Vaio, you can not get your recordings out of Sonic Stage. Yes, Sony has promised a WAVE Exporter. No time frame, sometime this fall. Ok, right. [Continue]