Year: 2011

Farewell: Himie Voxman

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 ericdano No Comments

I heard about this on the Klarinet list this morning, and now it is verified. Sad. He made and complied a lot of wonderful things.

Farewell: Himie Voxman:

Himie Voxman (1912-2011)

Influential music educator and longtime University of Iowa faculty member Himie Voxman has passed away at the age of 99. If you are a woodwind player, you have almost certainly used, at some point in your musical studies, something written or edited by Professor Voxman.

Check out the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s tribute for a nice overview of his life and career.

(Via Bret Pimentel, woodwinds)

News

Sheet Of The Week (Bonus) – Happy Together (The Turtles)

November 21, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Class 60s song……

Happy Together by The Turtles for Eb Instruments (82.2 KiB, 246 hits)
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Happy Together by The Turtles for Bb Instruments (79.5 KiB, 139 hits)
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Sheet Of The Week – Home (Breaking Benjamin)

November 20, 2011 ericdano No Comments

I like Avenged Sevenfold better, but these guys have some good stuff too.

Home by Breaking Benjamin for Eb Instruments (85.3 KiB, 106 hits)
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Home by Breaking Benjamin for Bb Instruments (85.4 KiB, 54 hits)
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The Pressing Of Vinyl

November 18, 2011November 18, 2011 ericdano No Comments

The Telegraph has an interesting article and video about the resurgence of vinyl records. I know a few people with really high end record players who swear the vinyl sounds way better than CD. And it does. CD technology hasn’t changed since the 80s. We are still pressing out 44.1Khz 16bit music for the majority of the stuff pressed. On iTunes, I think they upped the bit rate to 256 AAC, but the music is generally mixed down to 44.1 and 16 bits still. There are exceptions here and there. Most computer speakers and the headphones that come with an iPod/iPhone won’t do that stuff justice anyhow.

Five years ago, vinyl records were facing extinction but the past few years have seen a remarkable change in fortunes. In 2011 alone, sales have risen a further 40 per cent, to a quarter of a million units. Radiohead’s The King of Limbs, the year’s biggest seller on vinyl, shifted 20,000 copies. That was enough to persuade the band’s label, XL Recordings – also home to the mega-selling Adele – to announce the launch of a new vinyl webstore in the United States this month.

Articles, Videos

Sheet Of The Week – Rolling In The Deep (Adele)

November 13, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Yet another from her. I dunno….kinda not into her music.

Rolling In The Deep by Adele for Eb Instruments (93.2 KiB, 677 hits)
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Rolling In The Deep by Adele for Bb Instruments (101.6 KiB, 273 hits)
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Sheet Of The Week – Lucky (Jason Mraz)

November 7, 2011 ericdano 3 Comments

Another song by Jason Mraz. Good stuff.

Lucky by Jason Mraz for Eb Instruments (96.0 KiB, 325 hits)
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Lucky by Jason Mraz for Bb Instruments (90.3 KiB, 169 hits)
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Two iPad Goodies

November 5, 2011November 5, 2011 ericdano No Comments

There are a lot of accessories out for the iPad that a musician can use. Two that have caught my attention. The Digitech iPB-10 which slashgear had a review of

This week the the DigiTech iPB-10 has been revealed, a digital pedalboard which will allow your iPad to play host to several music pedals at once. Inside with your iPad running the official app for this device as its plugged into the device itself, you’ll have access to 87 different pedals, 54 amplifiers, and 26 cabinets, all at a flick of your finger. What more could you want? And don’t say a DJ station, because that’s separate, and we’ve done that before as well — read on for guitar iPad action!

This thing sounds awesome if you are a guitar player or a EWI effects addict (raises hand meekly). Except…..$499. Though it sounds like it works without the iPad in it, so, you could have presets all ready and not have to put the iPad in there. This thing also has it’s own DSP chips so the quality of sound and perhaps latency might be better. But still…..maybe $299 would be a better price point?

The second piece of gear is the Alesis iO Dock. This thing is $199, and has phantom powered mic inputs, quarter inch outputs, pedal input, headphones. And it works with Garageband, so you can record or whatever you want on it. This sounds amazing and is on my Christmas list this year. XLR inputs means you should be able to hook your sax up and start using effects with this baby.

By the way, Garageband is a MUST HAVE iPhone/iPad/iTouch app. It works on all three now. $5.

Uniquesquared.com had an excellent review of it using Garageband.

Articles

Sheet Of The Week (Bonus Bonus) – This Is Halloween (Danny Elfman)

October 31, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Ok, one more. Classic song. Danny Elfman is awesome. You need to check out Oingo Boingo sometime…..

This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman for Eb Instruments (153.6 KiB, 257 hits)
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This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman for Bb Instruments (194.0 KiB, 133 hits)
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Sheet Of The Week (Bonus) – Thriller (Michael Jackson)

October 31, 2011 ericdano 1 Comment

Happy Halloween.

Thriller by Michael Jackson for Eb Instruments (105.8 KiB, 524 hits)
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Thriller by Michael Jackson for Bb Instruments (107.5 KiB, 232 hits)
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A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

October 30, 2011October 30, 2011 ericdano No Comments

In case you haven’t noticed, I am insanely interested in Steve Jobs. This man was amazing. I really……really wanted to bump into him someday. Just to say hi. And thanks for the fish…..I mean, cool stuff. Life changing stuff. World changing stuff. iPod. Mac. iPad. iPhone. Computers that run without the need for virus protection. I could go on all day.

Steve’s sister had some amazing words and stories about him….

A Sister’s Eulogy of Steve Jobs:

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.

Good stuff.

Articles

The Convergence of Owning Music and Renting Music

October 30, 2011October 30, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Digital Audio insider had an article up about Renting and Owning music. I wrote some comments on the site that basically say no, I don’t see it happening. People have been saying this since Napster was out. Heck, Rhapsody has been offering this for a long time…..streaming music. Pandora has been doing it for a few years. And now everyone is excited that Spotify (what a stupid name….as stupid as FaceBook…ugh) is in the US. Renting your music just has never taken off.

I certainly don’t see it happening now that AT&T, and Verizon have capped data usage on mobile devices. Oh, but the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile will fix that right (Bullshit!). And they all now cap your internet usage at home (Time-Warner & U-Verse is capped at 250 gigs a month and so are others). So….that is another hurdle for streaming to contend with.

Basically, I like free things that let me FIND music I like. Like Pandora or a PodCast. I LOVE PodCasts. Single best way to find new albums or even hear great things for free.

Then I will buy that song for $0.99 and own it. No re-occuring monthly fee. It’s mine.

The Convergence of Owning Music and Renting Music:

image by TheTruthAbout via Flickr

Earlier in the week, Hypebot pointed to this eMarketer summary of two recent studies about consumer attitudes about owning music vs. renting it:

The first of the two studies was a survey conduced by Insight Research Group on behalf of eMusic that revealed the widely noted insight that 91% of those polled preferred to own music rather than subscribing to it.

There are real differences, both logistical and psychological, between owning and renting music. But I’ll bet that the preference for ownership will decrease as the listening experience for “owned” and “rented” music converges. If you’re using a website or app to listen to music on your computer or portable device, where the files are coming — your hard drive, your cloud drive, or the server of a music subscription service — doesn’t have much effect on your listening experience. And a year from now, even more people will be using Spotify, iTunes Match, Amazon’s Cloud Player, Google Music, and other services to listen to music. The more they do, the more willing they’ll be to forgo actual ownership.

(Via Digital Audio Insider)

Articles

Sheet Of The Week – Written In The Stars (Tinie Tempah)

October 28, 2011 ericdano 1 Comment

Supposedly this was the theme song for the world series or something…..baseball? I dunno. Kinda a good tune. Didn’t do the rap section…..deal.

Written In The Stars by Tinie Tempah for Eb Instruments (61.1 KiB, 241 hits)
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Written In The Stars by Tinie Tempah for Bb Instruments (61.2 KiB, 92 hits)
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Ten Years Ago Today: iPod

October 23, 2011October 23, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Ten Years Ago Today: iPod:’

Apple’s iPod, a 6.5-ounce MP3 player the size of a deck of cards, is one of the most exciting products to come from Apple in years. Powered by FireWire, the iPod can hold as much as 5GB of data, providing a compelling balance of size and capacity. However, this combination of features comes at a relatively high price: $399.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Hard to believe, but 10 years ago today was when Apple unveiled the first iPod. It was an unusual move. Apple was known for Computers and operating systems, not music a consumer good like an MP3 player. Boy, did Apple come in and change everything. Perhaps some of you don’t remember the players before the iPod. It was by far the smallest one as I remember, but it was the one that nailed how to do things. It was fast with it’s firewire interface (USB 1 was still the de-facto standard in the PC industry), and simple with iTunes 2 as the computer to device interface.

I remember being sort of “why the heck would you want that” about it. I mean, it was kind of expensive, and I didn’t see the point of it when I could burn a CD or CD-RW of songs to listen to. Yeah…..and then I got the second generation iPod…..and that opinion of mine changed and I immediately ripped all my CDs…..which took MONTHS to do, into AAC 160 format. And I have never…..ever…..looked back.

Articles

Sheet Of The Week – Billionaire (Bruno Mars/Travie McCoy)

October 23, 2011 ericdano No Comments

The rap section got left out….cuz….well….it’s rap. So…yeah.

Billionaire by Bruno Mars & Travie McCoy for Eb Instruments (65.8 KiB, 466 hits)
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Billionaire by Bruno Mars & Travie McCoy for Bb Instruments (65.8 KiB, 203 hits)
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Top Ten reasons how Steve Jobs accomplishments have changed Music Education.

October 19, 2011October 19, 2011 ericdano No Comments

Some interesting things. I think the biggest accomplishment is making it accessible, easy, and legal. Accessible in that you can now find all sorts of music in iTunes. And sample them. And buy them easily and legally. And he (and Apple) also made music accessible by bundling GarageBand with Macs……for free. GarageBand is a great little recording program, and tutorial program for Guitar and Piano. PLUS…..there is the iPad. Which you can now take just about your whole library of sheet and audio music with you. Anywhere. And now with iCloud, you can have access to just about everything you own (up to I think 30K songs) via the internet.

Remember the Microsoft’s entry into Music? Yeah, me either…..Thanks Steve Jobs!

Top Ten reasons how Steve Jobs accomplishments have changed Music Education.:

Written by Larry Marra of musicteachers911.com

I know that many of you mourn the passing of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers.

I would like to take just a moment to reflect on how his contributions to music education have affected Music Education over the last 30 years.

Here’s what teaching music was like for me in 1976 (before computers).

1. I would write and arrange music by hand with an ink pen on staff paper.

2. I taught general music with chalk and record player.

3. I would have to wind the metronome before checking tempos

4. I created letters on a manual typewriter and used white-out instead of the delete key.

5. I carried a pocket calendar from the bank and a miniature golf pencil around for scheduling.

(Via Music Education Magic)

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