SmartMusic – FAIL!

Posted on By ericdano 2 Comments on SmartMusic – FAIL!

If you read the archives here, you know that I have a love/hate relationship with MakeMusic/SmartMusic (same company). Their products have a lot of potential, but I think the corporate environment there is messed up.

The current issue I have with MakeMusic is my SmartMusic renewal. About 2 years ago, you needed to have an Educators subscription to obtain a “code” to allow students to get a subscription for $25 a year. Fair enough. Then they came out with SmartMusic 11 and did away with the “code” thing, and offering educators access to their site to be able to track assignments, grades, send assignments, etc. Sounded good in theory, but it never worked right for me at all. And students never used it. So, why am I paying for it then? I simply want to be able to create some SmartMusic exercises for my students, and take advantage of the huge library they have for sightreading purposes.

So, this year, with money being a concern, I did initially renew my account, which was like $130. This was back in January. I’m pretty sure I gave them all the credit card info and what not. Then, the other week, I get an invoice from them saying that my account is overdue. What? Actually, this is to be expected. They pretty much do this every year I’ve had an account with them. I enter all the billing info and payment info online, and they proceed to lose it or misplace it or something. Upon reflection, I decided I wanted to just have a student subscription. Well, “Chris” from their SmartMusic support says that I do not qualify. What? I could set up a new account and order the software and stuff for $30, but since I had an educators account, they would not move me down to a student account even though I explicitly said I did not need all the “stuff” that the educators account had.

So, I cancelled the account. Stupid guys. You should offer SmartMusic for $30 to everyone, and if an educator wants to take advantage of your “services” (if you want to call it that…..I wouldn’t), then they can add on the extra to be able to track students, send assignments, hear recordings, etc, etc.

I really wish someone would buy MakeMusic, gut the management, and actually force them to start updating their products with more features and better user interfaces. Actually, I’d be happy if they just got rid of the management.

Articles

Super Mario Medley

Posted on By ericdano 5 Comments on Super Mario Medley

Ok, I decided to put this up. It’s an arrangement of Super Mario music I did last year. It is cool. Perhaps even cooler than Tank! Damn it, it is. It is MARIO.

Scored for 5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, guitar, piano, bass and drums. I make no promises on how good the guitar part is (my band does not have a guitar player).

Enjoy (donations are always welcome and an added incentive to put more stuff up!)

  Super Mario Medley for Jazz Band (1.6 MiB, 1,211 hits)
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Look at all the downloads (41 as of 4/29). Not a single contribution. And people wonder why there isn’t more stuff up.

Sheet Music

The Difference Between Speakers

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on The Difference Between Speakers

I found this article today. Rather interesting.
“A speaker’s ultimate goal is “to sound like reality”—the elusive dragon that every audiophile chases—so on a broad, not-very-useful level, how close it comes to matching that reality is the difference between good and bad, expensive and cheap speakers. To be slightly more technical, the “spec” is clarity: The lower the distortion of the original sound it recreates, the better the speaker. In fact, basically every other spec, every confusing number you read on the side of a box is actually totally meaningless, according to both Steve and the Definitive guys. Steve singles out watts as “one of the more useless specifications ever created.” If you have to look for a number when buying speakers, Steve said one that’s “kind of useful” is sensitivity/efficiency, which would be something like 90dB @ 1 watt, which relates how loud a speaker will play at a given power level.”

There is more, but if you have ever had the pleasure of listening to your favorite music on a pair of high end speakers……..well, maybe you shouldn’t. It is like tasting fine wine and then having to go back to the cheap stuff.

Articles

Save The Last Dance For Me

Posted on By ericdano 2 Comments on Save The Last Dance For Me

This is a transcription/arrangement I did for a Big Band I play with. The original Michael Buble arrangement this is based off of has guitar and a string section. This arrangement has no guitar and the string parts are in various instrument sections. If you enjoy this and want to see more arrangements up here, please consider making a donation (look down on the left).

Big Band and Vocals…..Score, 5 saxes, 4 Trombones, 4 Trumpets, Piano, Bass and Drums. I’ll have an audio clip of us playing it at some point. Enjoy!

  Save The Last Dance For Me (1.4 MiB, 478 hits)
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Sheet Music

Tom Dowd and the Language Of Music

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on Tom Dowd and the Language Of Music

I finally got around to watching some of the things that had been piling up from Netflixs. One of them was Tom Dowd and the Language Of Music. The description is a little misleading:
“Rarely do we get a chance to see a feature-length documentary about a true unsung hero. Tom Dowd was an innovative music producer and recording engineer. Historical footage, photographs and classic music tracks underscore how Tom Dowd altered the course of contemporary music via his many technical achievements. Features appearances by Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Les Paul and Aretha Franklin.”

This video is WAY more than that. This is THE GUY who recorded Coltrane. He recorded just about every good jazz album out there. ON THE FLY (the way they did it back then). He also recorded a guy name Ray Charles as well. And a bunch of others, like Eric Clapton…..

Did I mention he was also part of the Manhattan Project and was involved in the Bikini Atoll nuclear weapons tests as well? This video is an amazing look into how recording were made, and how a true legend made them. Check out Tom Dowd’s Wikipedia entry as well.

Reviews, Videos

Possible Downtime?

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on Possible Downtime?

This site, and my others (jazz-flute, jazz-clarinet, jazz-oboe, etc), will probably be down sometime over the weekend. Basically, this is due to be deciding to retire my huge old Dual Pentium III server with a smaller, more efficient Atom powered computer. I’m not anticipating any problems but……you never know. I think it will be rather painless and hopefully things will be faster and better on the Atom powered computer (MSI Wind PC to be specific).

For the geeks and nerds out there, I’m probably going to put Ubuntu Server 8.1 on it. The current server is running FreeBSD. That might maybe be a possibility as well. I just need PHP5, Apache 2.2, and MySQL on it. We’ll see what happens. The only real issue I think will be exporting the databases, though, since I moved everything to WordPress, that should be simple. It will be interesting to see exactly how much quieter (the current beast is really loud) and faster it will be. The only thing is that I’ll be losing the RAID backup that I have on the current system. Not that it really has ever failed, once in almost 10 years. That is pretty damn good. At some point, the new Atom server will get a SSD (Solid State Disk) so it will be totally efficient and pretty much silent. Well, hopefully.

UpdateComputer comes tomorrow sometime. I am going to put Ubuntu Server 8.1 on it. I don’t think it will be an issue at all moving stuff over. Just tar it, ftp it to the new computer, untar, etc, etc. Reading up on it, the Atom computer should make a ton faster than the dual pentium III 450s I have.

Articles, News

What To Use To Remove Neck Buildup

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on What To Use To Remove Neck Buildup

Ok, this is nasty. My tenor and alto have like mineral deposits in them now. We aren’t talking GOLD or anything, but like…….yuck stuff. What really works in getting rid of this stuff? I’m thinking maybe white vinegar (they use this for removing buildup in irons).

This video however, by the Village “Expert” says just to use the brush thing. I dunno….

Articles

Sennheiser Headphones – How They Are Made

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on Sennheiser Headphones – How They Are Made

Doing well in this economy? Need a pair of cans (headphones)? Got $1500 to spend. Then perhaps you need to check out the Sennheiser HD800 headphones.

Want to know why they are that expensive. Look here.

The review of it pretty much sums them up “If you want the most inspiring, mouth-wateringly gorgeous and stunning personal audio on the planet, these are the headphones you want to try out.”

Articles

Louie Bellson Dies at 84

Posted on By ericdano No Comments on Louie Bellson Dies at 84

Sad news today:
Louie Bellson, a jazz drummer and bandleader who combined remarkable instrumental virtuosity with far-ranging compositional skills, has died. He was 84.

According to his wife Francine, Bellson died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications of Parkinson’s disease following a broken hip in November.

Got to play with him a bunch of times while in College as he was living in San Jose at the time (I think). He looked frail back then, but as soon as he sat down at the drums he was like a little kid…….and was simply amazing.

News

Gerry Niewood Dies In Plane Crash

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Lohud reports:
“Rochester native Gerry Niewood, whose jazz saxophone was a familiar sound for four decades in venues ranging from the downtown Rochester Shakespeare Lounge to “Saturday Night Live,” was among the victims of Thursday night’s Continental Airlines crash.

Niewood, who was 65, was on his way to Buffalo to play in last night’s Chuck Mangione concert at Kleinhans Music Hall. The two had known each other since childhood, both growing up in the Clinton and Joseph avenues area.”

AllaboutJazz and MSNBC also have stories on this as well.

Damn tragic story.

News