I have dreams of one day shredding my way to the top. Until then, I have a Wii. Also, a vibraslap.
I recently graduated from college, where a cappella basically comes out of your ears. Leaving such a place has been a rude awakening.
Let’s start things off with a joke that the illustrious Brian Barone told me recently.
This is a very special day for this blog. Today, I introduce my newest musical gimmick, Ditty a Day. Here’s the basic premise: every weekday, I will create and publish a little bite-sized morsel of music, and post it here. This is all at once tons of fun, absolutely terrifying, and excruciatingly difficult for someone like me, who tends to lack the discipline for an ongoing daily exercise like this. I figure it’s a win for everyone; I force myself to write at least a little bit of music every day, I learn more about Logic Pro, I get (potentially) more traffic to this here site, and you all get something hopefully entertaining on a regular basis.
So, check back later today for the first ditty, and stay tuned for more, each weekday. I have no clue how long this will go on, but I plan on doing it for the foreseeable future, as long as life doesn’t seriously get in the way. So buckle up–this will be fun!
PS – If you like what you hear, make sure to subscribe to the podcast version. Click here to subscribe in iTunes, or use this address in any podcast aggregator: http://www.johnlago.com/feed/podcast/.
I have a Twitter account. I’m not proud, but I really do like it, and I read my feed at least daily. I use it to catch up with friends, follow trendy internety things, and pose questions to the ether, which usually go unaswered due to my lack of followers.
My issue with Twitter, though, is explaining it to other people. It’s at these moments when I begin to think that it really has no purpose, and I begin to wonder why I have it in the first place.
And then it ocurred to me. The perfect way to explain Twitter.
Imagine you’re out to dinner with a group of friends. You politely step out to use the restroom during the meal. Now on your way back, you need to think of that witty, mundane, and concise thing to say to the group about something you noticed while you were up.
That’s Twitter.
So, maybe someone who reads this can help me. I’ve installed and activated, in turn, just about every popular Lighbox plugin for WordPress, and none of them seem to working at all. Every single time, even when I include the rel=”lightbox” part of the link tag, no lightbox. Has this happened to anyone else? What gives?
[EDIT: Fixed it. It was a theme compatibility issue. Look for Lightbox effects here soon!]
I just found this video of some really interesting “electronic” music (sorry this has become a video blog lately):
Now, I’m on the fence about this one. This is one sick set of musical instruments, with some really innovative alternatives to sequencing and sampling, and their hearts seem to be in the right place.
My problem, though, is with the creative choices that these people seem to be making in performance. I just don’t like what they’re doing musically. And it’s a crying shame, because the instruments and sounds they’re using all seem like they could add up to something a lot more listenable and interesting. It all just sounds like an elaborate proof-of-concept to me.
The beat structures aren’t particularly stable, the synth chords don’t really go anywhere, and nothing has much shape. I’m not saying that all good music needs these things, but in a situation like this, when the variable and novelty is the sonic pallet itself, I’d much prefer something with traditional structure interpreted through novel sounds. (The one exception in my mind is the marimba chairs at the end, but that’s not even part of their sequencer setup.)
Has anyone heard these guys play anything else? Are there better songs around?
My family knows me pretty well. This is why I’ve wound up with Guitar Hero World Tour as a graduation present. I played it a fair amount in school, as we had it in our house, but never with the drumset until now. And it’s gotten me thinking; I’m pretty sure this game could actually make you better at the drums. I’m not saying it’ll replace lessons or owning a real kit, but as an introduction to the principles behind drumming, this is much closer to actually playing an instrument than its guitar counterparts.
The drum parts seem to be pretty well transcribed, too. The fills the game has you play on Hard and Expert are generally what the original artist did, and playing these fills and odd patterns actually causes you to examine nuances you had never noticed in classic songs. The physical layout of the kit is decent, and they’ve programmed the parts to mimic the actual placement within a real set: hihat on the left, snare right under that, causing you to cross over.
What really intrigued me was the MIDI-in port on the back. Apparently, Guitar Hero will accept any V-Drum kit with a MIDI output (as long as the note assignments line up). This means that you could hook up a less toyish kit, and actually get some real practice going. Taking it one step further, you could use the sounds from your kit’s brain instead of the in-game samples, and feel/sound like you’re really playing the music, while the game grades you.
I’m probably the 400th person to make these observations, but it’s still really cool. I’ve wanted to get better at drums for a while now, but I don’t own a set, and can’t justify buying one for what would essentially be playing around. So for people like me, or kids experimenting with instruments for the first time, this is a decent introduction to one of them.
