Entries Tagged 'music' ↓

My latest favorite album is In Rainbows by Radiohead.  I have had it playing in my car and at the gym for about 3 months now.

Forget about your house of cards

And I’ll do mine

Until I bought King Crimson’s The Power To Believe a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t listened to an album like a chain smoker smoking since I was in my early 20s. I’ve been a King Crimson fan since Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair were released in the early 80s, and have kept up with them over the last few years, but this album is just amazing.

Over the last 10-15 years, Fripp and Belew have been creating a very unusual style of music that I can only describe as “architectural”. It is simultaneously hard-edged and delicate. Definitely worth a listen if you like or liked KC, or if you ever wondered what the future of art rock (born in KC, Genesis and Yes) could be.

I think you can listen to one track from the above linked page.

I just discovered Audioscrobbler, and boy is it cool.

If you listen to music on your computer (and who doesn’t these days?), you install a plugin for your music player of choice (I use XMMS), set up an account, configure the plugin with your username and password, and just get back to listening to music. The plugin sends the music information back to Audioscrobbler as you listen to it.

Why would you do this? I can hear you asking…

Here are the first things I thought of in setting myself up:

• Discover new (to you) music that you might like. AS processes the song information leveraging MusicBrainz, comparing what you listen to with what others listen to, and recommends other stuff you might like. Kind of like the Amazon thing, only better.
• Find other people with like musical tastes. This is a big one for me, since my musical bent is, well, let’s call it eclectic. Just watch my profile and see.
• Show my “recently listened to” list here on my website. AS does RDF, so it’s a slam-dunk. Coolness.

I’ve only been messing with it for one day, so I don’t know how finished the whole thing is, but I have found one thing that isn’t working. I listen to much of my music streaming over the web (I use netjuke to manage my mp3s), and that music doesn’t appear to be updating AS. My guess as to why is that the plugin reads the ID3 tag when the song starts, which is fine if you’re reading from a local file. But if you’re streaming, you’re getting the file (the song) like it’s water coming down a pipe, and the last thing you get is the end of the file. And you’ll never guess where the ID3 tag is…

On a tangent:

Didn’t MS try to do this covertly via Windows Media Player a couple of years ago?

I drove all over Marietta and Smyrna today looking for a music store that had something in the line of classical piano music. For a long while there I thought I was stuck with piano transcriptions of Dan Fogelberg albums, but I finally found a place. It was a little like stepping back in time for me… the books looked the same and the prices were about the same as when I last shopped for piano music something like 20 years ago. Here’s what I got:

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier book 1

Beethoven: Sonatas for Piano book 2 (big one, 300 pages)

Chopin: Nocturnes for Piano

Debussy: Complete Preludes

2 anthologies, one modern (Bartok, Satie, et al), the other a total mixed bag

I also picked up a few adult beginners books for Liana since I’m teaching her to play.

Right on schedule, Pascal delivered my piano and assembled the pieces right in my living room. I tried to make light conversation, but he was having no part of it. He made it pretty clear that he thought I didn’t pay enough for the piano and didn’t want to be my friend. You’ve got to love the honesty of the French.

Like it isn’t good enough that I’m finally getting a piano after all these years, AND it’s a baby grand, AND it’s a 100 year old Chickering… I stole it from the guy! Ahh, life is good.

It’s in great shape, too. I kind of figured that, being 100 years old, it would have some rough edges. But this baby is intact. There appear to be only two parts missing; the pins in the lid hinges (you can see he fashioned some from a coat hanger) and the two braces that support the pedal harp from the back. I can fashion something to take the place of those from some cheap doweling. The finish is crazed and has some orange peel, but varnish will do that over that period of time. I actually like the finish like it is. I do think I’ll restore the mechanical parts, though. Someday.

It has a beautiful tone, very warm and not brassy at all. The sound is a bit muddy, though, and the action on a few keys could use some help, but it’s totally playable as it is.

I’m so happy to have a piano in my life again. It has literally been 10 years since I’ve sat at one. Now, where to start?