Music is OK, but seriously……it looks absolutely f***ing stupid. What is next, 5 people playing a Uke?
I do like the song though……
Tag: stupid
Manhattan School Of Music Doesn’t Archive McCaslin
So it seems Donny McCaslin had a broadcasted Masterclass yesterday. But the geniuses at the Manhattan School of music didn’t archive it. Yes, read that again. But the geniuses at the Manhattan School of music didn’t archive it.
Why? This makes absolutely NO SENSE. First, it has value. They invited him to speak, so, he music have some gravitas right? And they broadcasted him right? So…..why not make an archive copy? What if, say, it was such a great masterclass that they want next year’s students to watch it? Nope, can’t do it. It’s gone. What if Donny dies suddenly after watching the latest Twilight Movie at home (his insides literally tore themselves apart sitting through that drivel) and the world is robbed of his talent, and perhaps one of the most interesting discussions he gave was the week before….but they didn’t archive it.
And we wonder why education costs so much.
Now, a smart university would maybe have archived the discussion. Maybe put it on iTunes like say, oh I dunno, Stanford does? Or a TON of other Universities? Or maybe even put it on YouTube and get some revenue from the ads? No no, that would be a good decision. Let’s just broadcast it and throw it away. Maybe NASA should have done that when we went to the moon. Or maybe Stanford should have never archived and made available for free on iTunes. I mean, it’s not like it isn’t probably the most amazing speech given in a long long time, and insight into a genius. No no, no way that Donny could ever do that right? He doesn’t need to be archived.
Stupid Manhattan School of Music. Really stupid. Get into the 21st Century. Archive everything. It doesn’t cost you a dime to upload to YouTube and you could make some money off it.
Sad State Of The “Grammy Awards”
Remember when the Grammy Awards used to hand out awards to great performers. Those days are gone. Seems that the Grammys have axed a bunch of categories
“The people who run the National Academy for Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) have been getting an angry earful from musicians upset by the academy’s decision to drop Latin jazz, Cajun/zydeco, and 29 other categories from next year’s Grammy Awards.
The awards for best Classical and best Classical Crossover albums have been axed, too, along with categories in every musical genre — all part of a major Grammy overhaul, announced in April. But it’s the elimination of Latin jazz, as well as other ethnic-music categories, that has triggered a wave of criticism and protests from musicians and other NARAS members in the Bay Area, New York, and Los Angeles. Big names like Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, and Herbie Hancock have joined the chorus calling on the Recording Academy, as it now calls itself, to reverse its decision..”
So we are going to see the same crap get awarded. If anyone had doubts, the whole LA area now is completely devoid of creativity now. Hollywood cranks out great hits like Jim Carey in Mr. Poppers Penguins, unfunny shows like “the Office”, and now the Grammy awards just wants to pat itself on the back for producing compressed crap they call music.
Terrible.
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.
The Lamest Product Ever
I was watching Versus Network (cycling sundays….yeah), and I saw an ad for this thing called Guitar Idol. I thought Guitar Hero was stupid. This is a whole new level of stupid. Really. Singing in the car rates way higher than this. Singing in the bathroom rates higher. Watching American Idol rates higher.
Somehow, I feel the dumbing down of music is somewhat insulting.
Scientists With Too Much Free Time
I wonder why things like this get funded.
John Coltrane and other famed jazz saxophonists hit piercing high notes that amateurs can’t by expertly changing the shape of their vocal tracts, research now reveals.
No shit Sherlock. It’s called having chops. Practicing for a long time.
Untangling this mystery has proven hard, since it is challenging making precise acoustic measurements inside the mouth during playing.
You think? Really? No way.
“It’s wet in the mouth and the acoustic conditions in there are really variable, and it gets really loud in there during playing,” explained researcher Jer-Ming Chen, an acoustician at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
No, you think?
Can I get a grant to do pointless research like this? Jer-Ming Chen, why not focus on IMPORTANT SCIENCE? Oh, maybe creating renewable energy, or creating a cure for cancer? No? Too hard? Is that why you had to spend time on this “science”?
Chen added that for pro saxophonists to reach these notes, “they say they have to hear the sound in their head, to kind of get a mental image of the sound. This suggests they have some muscle memory with this tuning. I think that means anyone can learn how to do this, but you need to put in a lot of practice to get that same muscle memory.”
A scientific study which “proves” the obvious. I give you a nice “golf clap” for this. Now go freaking do something worthwhile with science. Geeze.