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.
Author: ericdano
Polymath, musician, awesome.
What Is Up With Avid?
Protoolerblog posted this yesterday:
“If you’re a Avid stockholder you might just freak out a bit right now: the company has postponed earnings from last quarter of 2012 and is now under investigation by at least two law firms.”
Avid makes ProTools….and they used to own M-Audio until they sold it this past summer. They also own Sibelius….after they fired the core developer group. Sorta a BIG deal when this company has two big industry leading (ProTools) or at least industry tying (Sibelius) pieces of software.
The Boston Herald has more:
“The digital audio and video technology maker said the company needs additional time “to evaluate its current and historical accounting treatment related to bug fixes, upgrades and enhancements to certain products which the company has provided to certain customers.”
Now, is this bad news? Probably……www.investopedia.com answer on why companies delay earnings doesn’t sound good:
“However, most often, the delay will be a result of the company not completing the report on time due to audits taking longer than expected, inexperienced officers completing their first report and the firm losing some or all of its financial data due to a technical error, fire or theft.”
Ok, no fire, or theft. Inexperienced Officers? Perhaps. Losing it’s financial data? Probably not. So…..it is probably them trying to polish a turd. Meaning Avid’s sales sucked last year, that users are still baulking at the price of ProTools 10 and it’s upgrade price from previous versions. That selling M-Audio didn’t do much for the company, and in fact might have hurt them more.
I guess we will know in 45 days or so the exact financials, but I don’t expect it to be good at all. May I suggest all you who use ProTools consider learning other programs just in case (like Logic!)
Sibelius Refugees Building New Notation Program
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.
Sheet Of The Week – One More Night (Maroon 5)
Another song by Maroon 5.
One More Night by Maroon 5 for Eb Instruments (93.9 KiB, 92 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
One More Night by Maroon 5 for Bb Instruments (99.1 KiB, 59 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
SmartMusic Updates It’s Pricing
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 $8 a student, which what I hear is about 7x’s more expensive than it was.
Still, with all it’s quirks, the SmartMusic program is still an excellent tool for practice. The shear amount of band music they have in there is worth it.
Sheet Of The Week – You And Me (Lifehouse)
Another from the archive…….don’t even know if Lifehouse is still together or not….
You And Me by Lifehouse for Eb Instruments (88.4 KiB, 133 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
You And Me by Lifehouse for Bb Instruments (87.5 KiB, 90 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
History Of Music
Sheet Of The Week – This I Promise You (N’Sync)
Kinda going into the archives and digging up some songs. Got inspired by JT’s (formerly of N’Sync) performance at the Grammy awards.
This I Promise You by N'Sync for Eb Instruments (86.4 KiB, 67 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
This I Promise You by N'Sync for Bb Instruments (85.9 KiB, 58 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Sheet Of The Week – I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor Swift)
Another song by Taylor Swift. Sorta dub step-ish……sorta….
I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift for Eb Instruments (101.8 KiB, 79 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift for Bb Instruments (101.7 KiB, 51 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Sheet Of The Week – They Don’t Know About Us (One Direction)
They Don't Know About Us by One Direction for Eb Instruments (80.6 KiB, 48 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
They Don't Know About Us by One Direction for Bb Instruments (79.0 KiB, 35 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Sheet Of The Week – Die Young (Ke$ha)
Song by Kesha…..or Ke$ha…..or whatever
Die Young for Eb Instruments by Ke$ha (72.8 KiB, 94 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Die Young for Bb Instruments by Ke$ha (75.6 KiB, 63 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Going All Digital
If you’ve noticed, there have been a lack of new posts lately? “Oh no, he’s losing interest in the site. Where are we going to get our latest Katy Perry sheets?” you might say. Fear not, there are a lot of things in the pipeline. So where have I been? Busy. Actual high paying gigs, working on CDs for my students, and…..finally going paperless.
Since getting an iPad in 2010, well, actually, before that, when I decided in 2007 to get a second monitor attached to my computer in my teaching studio, I have wanted to abandon all my physical books. Actually, probably iTunes ushered in this era, where you could have ALL your teaching materials (Aebersold, other play-alongs) available instantly on your computer. When I first started teaching full time in 1999, I bought a 300 disc CD player to hold all the Aebersold volumes I had, then other play-alongs I had. I had books strewn all over the place. I had printed sheets, which some of the kids called the “Reject pile”, on the floor (songs that I had made on Finale and printed to try, but then for various reasons it wasn’t going to work for them). It was a mess. But iTunes started to change that. Spending a few months ripping my mass collection of CDs into iTunes, it was amazing. All of a sudden I could instantly pull up a Aebersold blues in F, or in C on separate volumes. Gradually the CD player was being used less and less. Now, it is still in my studio (above the DAT recorder I have). It hasn’t been plugged in for well over a year, probably two. I really don’t know.
When I put a second monitor on my teaching computer, partly to use SmartMusic (which started to put sheet music play-alongs in the program), and partly to see the songs/exercises/arrangements I did in Finale, I was stunned by how it changes your teaching. Finding stuff is simple. In the case of having something in Finale, does it need to be in a different key? Click….done. Transposed down an octave? Click…..done. And no more piles of paper.
But, I still had a huge collection of books. Aebersolds, Fishman, Snidero, more flute books that I care to count, clarinet books, oboe books, jazz books. Books books books! Great stuff in the books, but it was and still is a PAIN IN THE ASS to find something. Maybe there was an exercise in flute book X…..now where is flute book X…….oh, I can’t find it…..did I lend it out to someone never to get it back? So, sometime in 2008 I decided to scan some of my books that I use a lot.
Scanning a book though is a pain. Mainly, because they are double sided. It takes a lot of time to scan, even if you break the binding or cut the binding off. I had been using a Brother All-in-one to scan one side, then I’d have to scan the other side, and then go through and number them, then assemble them into a PDF…….it was a lot of work….but I did it for a lot of books I used a lot. It made finding them instant now, and copying a page as simple as a Command-P now. But there are still hundreds of books left…….
Enter my Christmas gift…..a Fujitsu Scansnap 1500M. How do I explain this…..it is like maybe being Christopher Colombus and getting GPS and a modern boat at the same time? No…..maybe getting an iPhone in 1970? That is closer to what it is. This machine was not cheap ($430 or so), but it is worth it. It does well over 20 pages a minute, double sided, high resolution. Puts them into a PDF, OCRs them…..it is amazing. In the week and a half I’ve had it (it came Jan 2), I have blown through 2 boxes of old music magazines, and probably a hundred books (a lot of them are drum books for a drum teacher….who’s paying me to do the scanning). And now I have easily tripled the number of books in my digital collection. I’m using stuff out of books I had totally forgotten about. It’s great.
The ONE downside is that I still have NOT found a good organizer of PDFs. The big issue is that I have all my digital stuff on a NAS (RAID5). I mean, it would be STUPID not to have some sort of digital insurance like that (plus Crashplan). But all the cool PDF like organizers either don’t find the OCRed text in the files on a network share (iDocument) or what to put all the PDFs into a tome (Devonthink Pro). I don’t want to put them into one tome/database file because I still want to have them in iTunes (I have playlists with the PDF and the tracks on ones that have audio tracks). So, that is the only weak link right now. Like if Devonthink would just symbolically link to a PDF and still be able to search the text there…….that would be great. Supposedly iDocument is going to add this.
So, that is what I’ve been up to. No more paper or paper books. I’m digitalizing all of the stuff I have that I use or want to use. Things seem like they are getting less cluttered in my studio as the books disappear (they go into the recycle bin once I am happy with the scan). It’s great. I’d HIGHLY recommend this scanner to everyone. It EATS paper.
Enter Sandman – Smooth Version on Gig
These guys killed it. I like it! Not quite as good as this version though.
Sheet Of The Week – Waking Up In Vegas (Katy Perry)
Seems like this is a lesser known Katy Perry video…..but it is still good.
Waking Up In Vegas by Katy Perry for Eb Instruments (72.3 KiB, 55 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Waking Up In Vegas by Katy Perry for Bb Instruments (75.1 KiB, 42 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file. Go register first.
Les Misérables 2012
I think most people have heard of Les Misérables (or Les Mis as a lot of people call it). It has epic music. In fact, I HATED musicals until I heard Les Mis on PBS on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It happened to be the 10th Anniversary all star performance. Amazing show, if you have not seen it or heard it. You should.
Now, there seems to be a movie coming out Christmas Day. Now, I haven’t seen the movie obviously, but the soundtrack is out. And it is HORRIBLE. Utterly HORRIBLE. Russell Crowe’s singing is terrible. In fact, I’d say a pig being castrated could carry a tune better than him. Anne Hathaway……I know you are pretty, but it does NOT entitle you to butcher songs left and right. Fucking Sacha Baron Cohen…….this guy’s success in Hollywood is beyond me. He’s performance is shitty….and that is being nice. Hugh Jackman is ok…..like a good community theater OK.
Now, as a movie, it seems to be getting awards left and right even though it is not out yet (how does that work?). But it’s essence is the music. That is what makes Les Misérables the great show it is. Imagine Phantom of the Opera with…..wait, they already did that. Ugh….maybe the visuals will distract me from the amateur singing on display….