adamyntium

Category: music

  • Pandora Mobile highlights awesomeness but also severe lame-itude

    Do you know Pandora?  If you’re in the United States, where Pandora is legally available, you may have come to enjoy this awesome uber-customizable music radio over the past years.  If you’re not in the U.S., perhaps you’ve discovered the beauty of anonymous proxies :cough:, which I’m not going to mention here :p.

    But perhaps you didn’t know that Pandora has become available on mobile phones!  More good news:  It’s available for free on phones that run the Windows Mobile operating system, free on Sprint phones, and free on (some versions of) BlackBerry phones.  Ironically, it’s also free on the iPhone, and I say ironically because AT&T apparently is charging—I swear I am not making this up—$8.95 per month to its other mobile customers for the privileges of using Pandora.  I mean, I love Pandora and all, but even if I were insane enough to be contributing to the income of the evilness that is AT&T, I sure as heck wouldn’t fork over that much dough for Pandora.  For an on-demand mobile music service?  Perhaps.  But for streaming radio?  You’ve got to be kidding.

    One other note on the Pandora Mobile offerings:  Apparently, I’m not supposed to be able to access Pandora Mobile because T-Mobile phones are not supported.  Which is odd, because I’m enjoying streaming music via Pandora on my BlackBerry Curve (on T-Mobile) right now.  Go figure.  I also shouldn’t mention that I was also able to do this while in Ireland a couple of weeks ago (listening to, appropriately enough, The Corrs on St. Patricks day 😀 ).

    *  *  *

    Anyway, if you’re an iPhone user or a non-AT&T subscriber, give Pandora Mobile a go!  If you’re an AT&T subscriber, well, heaven help you, and for reasons way beyond this Pandora issue.

    [Gee, Adam, tell us what you really think about AT&T :D]

    *  *  *

    Okay, okay, I’m thinking I should flesh this entry out a little bit 🙂

    Some stuff I like in the mobile app:
    – Seems to work internationally (though I can imagine this being “fixed” [sigh])
    – Works as a true background app on my BlackBerry!
    – Can play through my BB’s speaker (actually sounds decent!) or a headset
    – Song-to-song time isn’t bad
    – Nice graphics, simple, intuitive interface.
    – Access to all my stations 🙂
    – Can even view “Why [did Pandora play] this song?”
    – Thumbs up / thumbs down works.

    Some stuff I don’t like:
    – Takes a while to start up the app
    – No way to see detailed info on artist or song

    *  *  *

    All in all, pretty damn cool! 😀

  • A music solution that’s so brilliant, no wonder why the music industry has shunned it

    The other day I got a (yet another) piece of inbox spam on the otherwise cool service last.fm.  And no good can come from spam, right?

    Not sure what got into me, but I actually went to the site (which I’ll not name, so as to not potentially give them any customers).  And you know what?  They were doing something brilliant:  they were selling high-fi music tracks for 20 cents a piece.  No, that’s not in itself brilliant; Russian sites doing the same thing are and have been a dime a dozen.  What struck me as brilliant was their way of allowing music lovers to explore the *full length* of songs while still enticing them to buy the track.

    How did they do this?  It’s ridiculously simple yet, IMHO, likely to be remarkably effective:  they overwrote parts of each track several times with a moderately annoying audio blip (sort of a “chirp”).  Only the truly desperate would possibly stream and copy and store such a track as an mp3, and, as we know, the truly desperate are not one’s potential customers.  Had this firm been even more enterprising, they would have instead added once after each minute of song: “Sample brought to you by [companyname]; uninterrupted tracks just 20 cents!”  If they wanted to be both enterprising AND deliciously devious, they’d have seeded a ton of torrent sites with those tracks :D).  Or, at minimum, made it crazy-easy for bloggers to embed any track or album AND receive a cut of all proceeds from people clicking through to the site.

    Maybe I’m naive or missing something glaringly obvious, but it seems like everyone would stand to win with such a situation:
    – Music lovers would get to sample full-length (albeit slightly interrupted) songs, instead of dealing with the 30 second samples found on iTunes and similar sites.
    – Musicians would be happy to see samples of their work passed around in a way that wouldn’t damage their potential for earning revenue on the same tracks.
    – Bloggers and others distributing the tracks (especially if done so out of real passion for specific artists or songs) would be delighted to get commissions (though it’d be hard to grant commissions on just the bare passed-around MP3s).
    – The legit music sites hosting MP3s in this way would probably enjoy greater sales and profits.

    Your thoughts?

  • A cappella birthday silliness — much of it composed by me

    Back in high school, I was not only a band geek, but a choir geek as well!  But I did far more than just sing your standard choral music :-D.  I loved composing, arranging and teaching, and often performing short songs in vocal quartets, and I founded my very own singing telegram business (“The Birthday Brigade”) to support this habit.

    For $3, students could hire us to sing a special birthday song to one of the friends—in class, no less!  We even had teachers and administrators hiring us to sing for other non-students.  And by the end of our two year run, we earned enough money to purchase a sizable first-ever music CD collection for our school library (and back in the 80s, this was a big deal!).  Oh, and we also sang the national anthem at various school sporting events; one of the trios even got to sing at Dodger Stadium!

    Anyway, in the middle of our second year, we decided to sit down at my place and record a bunch of our songs.  We didn’t do many takes, we didn’t use a fancy studio (just my dad’s old tape recorder!), and the results were certainly not perfect, but I think we did manage to capture a lot of the fun and also show off our love-of-singing :-D.

    And alas, the “album” below (from 1989!) is missing some of my favorites, including “Mr. Roger’s [Neighborhood] Birthday” and “A Muppet Birthday” and no doubt others I’ve forgotten about.  But I hope you enjoy the songs nonetheless. [and feel free to see more detailed notes below the player widget]

    (I’m singing on all of these except “Love Me Tender”; I think tenor on all tracks)

    1) “And Why Not!” – music and lyrics composed by me.
    2) “Ole!” – lyrics (as they are) composed by me, and music arranged by me (original melody from “Mexican Hat Dance”)
    3) “Love Me Tender” – not sure who composed/arranged this one; the girls might have arranged this one themselves
    4) “Star Spangled Banner” – composed by Francis Scott Key, not sure who did this arrangement
    5) “Beethoven Birthday” – all composed by me, with deep apologies to Mr. Beethoven
    6) “Celebrate!” – music by me, and I think (but am not sure) that I wrote the lyrics, too
    7) “Merry Christmas” – sung to the tune of “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” with a tiny bit of lyrical substitution. I think I did the arrangement for this one.
    8) “See ya!” – composed, um, on the spot 😉

    *  *  *

    Edited on December 20, 2008 to add:
    I’ve gotten in touch with most of the people in this recording, which I previously didn’t list because I wanted to make sure my memory wasn’t failing me!  My fine co-singers were Robin (bass), Jen aka “Moose” (alto), Stacey (soprano) and Cathy (soprano).  Oh, and Robin insists that it was *his* tape recorder.  I’m still not convinced of that 😀 [and, yeah, I should ask ‘em if they’re comfortable having their last names here, and if so, I’ll add ‘em so they really get their fair notoriety :-P)

  • Great ways to discover and (legally) listen to music online

    Here are a few thoughts on music services I’m in love with online.  CAVEAT:  Many, if not all of these only work in a limited number of countries due to lame licensing complications… typically the United States, often coupled with Canada and/or the UK.  And it’d be wrong, oh so wrong to use proxies to get around this ;-).

    *  *  *

    I just learned that on Last.fm you can not only play tons of (full length!) songs on demand now, but do so without even having an account.  This makes it a great service to share neat music finds with others!

    Here’s an example:
    The short, catchy, and wordless 47 Reasons, from the charming and often hilarious a cappella group, The Bobs.

    Downside:  Individuals are technically only supposed to be able to stream a song full-length three times.

    Other music services online that I love:

    • Yahoo Music Unlimited, but it’s being discontinued soon, sending all of its members to…
    • Rhapsody, with limited free streaming online and a service that offers memberships with unlimited streaming / tethered downloading for $13-$15/month.  Great selection of artists and tunes!
    • Imeem, which—like Last.fm—also lets you stream a ton of awesome music full-length for free… and on Imeem you can even embed/share it, too, but all of this only for folks who are logged in.  Others get 30 second snippets.  Still, better than nothing… and better than services like iTunes which require you to use proprietary software.
    • Pandora, which doesn’t let you stream on demand or download, but it’s a fabulous (and free) online radio service that learns quickly what you love. Not just artists or genres, but actual sounds… swing feel, lots of trumpets, major keys, fast tempos, etc.  Note that you can establish many different stations to fit your mood (big band jazz, laid back acoustic piano, etc.). Try this one out, create a couple of stations, seed ‘em with a few artists and/or song names, and then rate a handful of songs (thumbs up, thumbs down).  You’ll be amazed and grateful :-D.

    Have thoughts on the ones I’ve listed above?  And are there other music services online that you love and I haven’t mentioned? 

    [Hat tip for Last.fm info: DeWitt Clinton]

  • Katamari Damacy – Why is the music so hard to find?!

    Updated Mar 2024 to note that album is now on streaming services!

    Well, hell hath frozen over! More than 15 years after writing my lament here, the Katamari Fortissimo Damacy is now available online; enjoy!

    This morning at work I was chatting with a colleague about my morning commute, and I don’t know what got into me… but for some odd reason I confided that I wished to be a big katamari ball, rolling my way to work and grabbing everything in my path.

    Then, adding to the strangeness and freaking out my poor katamari-less colleague, I started singing “Na NAAAAAAAAA na na na NA na na na, na Na na na-na naaaaaaaaaaa!”

    *  *  *

    What… you aren’t familiar with Katamari Damacy, the psychedelically funky and happy video game in which you, Little Prince, must help out your hungover King of the Cosmos dad by rolling up everything on Earth to make stars that your daddy accidentally splatted during his previous nights’ bender?  If you have a PS2, *go out and get this game now!*  You won’t be sorry, except perhaps for the temporary loss of productivity and your embarrassment from singing jazzy goofy charming jazz/j-pop tunes to all your friends.

    And, indeed, the musical score is that great.  Listening to it is just bound to cheer anyone up.

    Unfortunately, trying to actually buy the soundtrack is not nearly so pleasant.  Amazon?  Nope (they’ve only got a misleadingly-labeled CD that’s inspired by the Katamari tunes… it doesn’t actually contain the songs!).  iTunes?  Nope.  Yahoo Music? Sorry.  Rhapsody?  Sadly, no.

    So far, I’ve only seen it via Play Asia… >$30 for the CD + shipping :-(.  I’m actually willing to pay that much, but not very pleased about the idea.

    Anyone know:
    1) Other places to get this CD for less money?
    2) WHY such a charming, beloved score is not available via an American label?
    3) Why Amazon.com and other American retailers would carry the game, but not the soundtrack?

    UPDATE on May 24, 2008

    I ended up buying the CD from PlayAsia (for, indeed, $30… ouch!)… but now you can all enjoy the music, too! 😀

  • [Music] Instrumental Jazz Soloists – If you can’t sing it, don’t play it

    I’m guessing most of you probably just think of me as an Internet geek, but I used to be a classical pianist geek, choir geek, and jazz pianist geek.  I have performed over 200 times, won a bunch of Bach festivals, and studied under jazz greats Ashley Alexander, Frank Mantooth, and others.  This does not inherently make me a wonderful person, but it does (IMNSHO) give me a right to talk smack about some fellow musicians and a nasty trend which I’ll detail below.

    Sadly, though, there’s little proof of my musical history, or at least little proof that I can share; for instance, I recently called the music department of my alma mater (Northwestern University) to get copies of my jazz performances in ‘90-92, and alas, they no longer have the recordings.  Ack! 🙁  So you’ll just have to trust ol’ Grumpy Gramps today.

    So what’s my cranky rant for today?  Well, I’m sick and tired of jazz musicians ignoring their audience… more than that, downright ignoring the beauty of musicality.  More and more often, I hear jazz performers—young students and adults alike—musically belching through way-overlong solos that—despite oft-impressive technical wizardry (wow, he can play 743 notes a minute!)—bore everyone to tears… perhaps even the solo’ist himself.  And I think back to one of my fabulous jazz teachers at Northwestern who gave me a delightfully straightforward and valuable piece of advice:

    “Play less.  Say more.”

    And so I did… slowly but surely learning to integrate recognizable and fun bits of TV show themes, adding short and sweet call-and-response phrases, and so on.  My solos began to sing—not just shout “look at me!”—and as part of this, I connected more with my fellow musicians (who could hook on and really play with me) and audience members who’d come up to me afterwards and chuckle, “Hey, I caught that bit of the Muppets in your solo!” or even the more basic, “Your solos are FUN!”

    Furthermore, I began to understand why so many of the world’s greatest jazz musicians (particularly in the swing/big-band era) were and for many remain so loved.  Their solos were a conversation, a song in and of themselves with the audience.  Not too much talking, nothing too fancy except for maybe a tiny flash here and there.  When you hear these solos today, you inevitably smile… often because you can sing with them, you know where they’re going, it’s not just a bunch of notes, it’s part of a melody, part of a melody you understand and can relate to and know it was made for you, not for the solo’ist.

    *  *  *

    A few weeks ago, I was at a benefit concert which featured an award-winning youth jazz band.  It was, even according to my friends who invited me, a cringe-inducing evening.  I looked around while these young men—obviously talented but horribly misdirected—were solo’ing and solo’ing and saying nothing worth listening to.  “Artubation,” I ruefully called it, and one of my friends chuckled and sighed.  I looked around at the large audience:  few were actually looking at the musicians.  People were reading their programs, looking around, looking generally bored and uncomfortable.  For crying out loud, I thought, I can understand that these 16-year-old musicians might not know better, but where the $&#$! is their adult director, and why is he so horrendously clueless?!

    Yes, I blame their director 100%.  In his quest to mold musicianship, he’s failed to impress upon his students the necessity and beauty of musicality.  Of connecting with your audience, not to mention your fellow musicians.  Yes, even those kids looked bored up there.  Okay, it’s time for the trumpeter’s solo.  blah blah blah blah… okay, soon it will be my turn.  Quick, think, what am I gonna play this time?…

    Unconscionable.  True, I’m not-so-subtlely betraying my contempt for much of modern jazz and indeed, even many famous “jazz musicians” today, but so be it.  But I’m hoping the pendulum swings back (no pun intended)… so musicians are no longer making music for just themselves, showing off, squeezing in as many notes as they can… but rather delighting dancers, listeners, fellow musicians as well as tone-deaf music-appreciators.

    So, in closing, I simply wish and urge this…

    Soloists:  If you can’t sing it, don’t play it.

  • Fair use, mashups, and profits – why hasn’t anyone figured this out yet?

    Lots of us love music and we love to share it; I think that’s even more powerful than simply “grab lots of music for free”—it’s the sharing that excites us, motivates us.  Music is a shared experience!

    Why, then, hasn’t anyone made it easy to share music snippets legally from a simple iframe, a simple widget that someone can cut and paste or even drag and drop into their blog?

    Let me give an example of how painful it is to share (within, IMHO, fair use) a music snippet:
    1) Identify song you want to share with others.  Determine that it’s DRM’d.  Ack!
    2) Remove DRM (yes, I know this may technically be illegal, but frankly I don’t give a damn.  Call it civil disobedience)
    3) Use software to grab a relevant thirty second snippet and save it as an mp3.  Make sure tags are still embedded.
    4) Upload to server.
    5) Before all of this, download and install a good flash player so others can listen to your snippet whether on a Mac or PC.
    6) Embed the appropriate code into your blog entry.

    Check out this entry on the emotional wallop of strings for an example of the result. 

    I think it took me at least 20 minutes just to prepare, upload, and post this one clip.  Does that sound very conducive to sharing to you?!

    So you know what massively puzzles me?  Why on earth hasn’t any major player (Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, Apple, etc.) made this process easier… not only facilitating the discovery and sharing of music by the increasingly powerful blogosphere, but increasing subscriptions and download sales?!  Let me explain how I envision this working…

    What the blogger / music lover does:
    1) Blogger goes to associates.amazon.com or embed.rhapsody.com or whatever and looks up an album or specific track.
    2) They then selects an embed method (php include, javascript, iframe, etc.) and optionally set other customizable widget options.
    3) If not already logged in, they enter in their subscription ID or affiliate ID so they can get credit from referred subscriptions and purchases.
    4) They copy the specified HTML and paste it into their blog, along with (hopefully) personal comments.

    What the person visiting the blog sees:
    A simple mini-player widget that contains a play button and a short description of the clip (title, artist, album), along with links to:
    – “Learn more about this artist, album, or song”
    – “Purchase this song” (on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.)
    – “Subscribe to service for unlimited listening to 3 million songs” (again, on Rhapsody, Napster, etc.)

    * * *

    Of course, even cooler would be all the online music folks coming together to make a common standard of some sort, so this widget could actually have a small pulldown menu enabling listeners to buy the tune on or subscribe to their preferred online music service.

    So why hasn’t any of this happened? Some guesses:
    – Music services are shortsighted and want to more tightly (and obnoxiously) control the listening experiences.
    – Music services are scared crapless of lawsuits; despite the fact that any sane person would envision 30 seconds being pretty much fair use, the RIAA would probably sue anyway.
    – Fears over brand tarnishing (putting the names of artists and music services on splog sites featuring child porn, for instance)

    I’m skeptical about the third issue, though. After all, Amazon seemingly lets pretty much anyone embed jpegs of book covers or album covers on raunchy or spammy sites.

    * * *

    So, what to do in the meantime?
    If I wanted to be lazy AND give the finger to non-Windows-users, I could just link to Amazon.com clips, for instance, like this clip of “Where Does the Wayward Footwear Go?” from The Bobs. But that’s pretty inelegant, and it also depends upon Amazon:
    – having the song I want to show off
    – including a decent snippet
    – not changing the URL or blocking folks from accessing it off the Amazon.com domain

    And, to be fair, it’s not a very attractive option for Amazon.com. I mean, what do they get out of it? No potential sales, no branding (except from my arbitrary mention), etc. And unless I manually create a link to the album (“Songs For Tomorrow Morning” ), it’s not even easy for the listener to learn more about the album or group, much less purchase the CD. In other words, it’s a lousy experience for everyone.

    Surely there’s got to be a better way?!

    — –

    Update at 12:58am the next day:
    Hmm… well, there’s Napsterlinks.

    But…
    – They require people to register with Napster before hearing any music (even a 30 second snippet)
    – Each registered user can hear a track only three times total (which is reasonable, IMHO)
    – The embedded widget doesn’t allow one to fast-forward in a song, nor can it contain multiple tracks (much less an album). Just one track per widget :(.
    – There seems to be a bug whereby any page with the widget on it never finishes loading. Weird.

    So, unsurprisingly, napsterlinks are seemingly quite unpopular (I had never actually seen them in the wild, and doing a blogsearch yielded just a tiny handful in existence). Such a lost opportunity!

    And Rhapsody? Sure, you can listen to free tracks with them, but…
    – You’re limited to 25 total plays per month (kinda stingy).
    – You have to download and install their plugin (not too time consuming, though)
    – The player window can’t be embedded :-(.
    – Any click to play a song opens BOTH the player window and a full-sized Rhapsody page. Boo!

    Obviously NOT a decent experience for bloggers :(.

    So, hey, music services… we’re still waiting. Yahoo? Apple?…

  • Don’t Download This Song! (listen to another gem by Weird Al Yankovic)

    Unless you’re a fan of the RIAA or a bitter, clueless artist… I urge you to run, er, click, not walk to go hear Weird Al’s new ditty: “Don’t Download This Song.” [warning: music autoplays].

    I’m looking forward to the music video promised for this evening, but in the meantime, you can hear the song in its entirety (and, of course, download it!).

  • Brave Combo rocks in countless ways. Here’s why you will love them, too

    Brave Combo is 26-year-old (!) “hot jazz quintet, a rollicking rock’n’roll bar band, a Tex-Mex conjunto, a sizzling blues band, a saucy cocktail combo, a deadly serious novelty act, a Latin orchestra, and one of America’s dance bands par excellence.”  [see their bio page] But they kick ass for many other reasons, too.

    For those of you with short attention spans, fine… you can skip the rest of my brilliant commentary and go directly to Brave Combo’s music. 
    A variety “dozen sampler”(tm) I recommend:  Breslau, Canto a la salsa, Down at the Friendly Tavern, High Bounce Polka, Hokey Pokey, My Tears are Nothing, No Work Today, Spaghetti Twist and Twirl, Swing it Baby Swing, The Hustle, Three Ducks Ondo, Waltz in C Minor,

    Aside from the fact that this band is made up of great musicians that play a huge variety of contagiously fun music, it’s damn cool that they’ve made decent-quality one-minute segments of a ton of their songs available on the Web, no?  In fact, their Web site is informative, entertaining, and pretty comprehensive—a sad rarity for band sites, IMHO.

    Here are other things that highlight why Brave Combo is an amazingly kick-ass band:

    • They were featured on The Simpsons and have also won a Grammy.
    • They have made their full songs available online… from Yahoo Music Unlimited (172 songs!) to iTunes to emusic (live performance: 25 downloads free*!).
    • Their live performances are a hell of a lot of fun (and affordable: under $15!), but surprisingly their CDs manage to capture much of the energy and enthusiasm.
    • At the risk of being poo-poo’d by cynics, they honestly believe that spreading good music around can contribute to world peace.
    • They love dancers and they do a fine job encouraging people of all ages to get up and shake their booties.
    • They’re nice, unpretentious folks who clearly appreciate and respect their fans.

    Unfortunately, they don’t seem to tour that extensively outside of Texas [see their itinerary]… but if you can possibly catch them live, do!

    Edited to add (a few minutes after posting this entry):
    emusic… great idea, noble quest (catering to independent bands and the smart folks who love ‘em)… but dudes, what’s with the “We won’t show you our catalog until you sign up.”  I understand your motivations, but that’s still just rude.—-
    One of my favorite Brave Combo songs is “The Mystery Spot Polka”… but alas, it’s not on their music clips page :-(.—-
    * Credit card / trial required.  Yours truly, a sincere but selfish bastard, get free downloads if you sign up 😛

  • Yet more awesome a cappella & an affordable music studio

    First, a quick note to those SEOs who are still reading my blog hoping for detailed Google search-related tidbits.  It’s still unlikely.  If I ever do post nuggets of search wisdom here, I’m sure you’ll hear about it :-D.  With that said, Google is moving ahead to improve communications, both internally and externally; I recently enjoyed visiting and discussing Search Quality issues with Googlers in Berlin and Dublin and also had a great time meeting with folks at the London Search Engine Strategies Conference.  Photos online soon, I hope!  And yes, we’re further extending the coolness of Sitemaps and related Webmaster tools, improving documentation, and much more.

    Okay, enough about that, though.

    I wanted to bring back the musicness of my blog and so today I’m featuring a catchy tune by my friend Tat Tong… a lousy Webmaster (sorry, Tat) but a fine musician and award-winning sound recording engineer.

    The short song below, Revocation, was composed, arranged, and sung entirely by Tat.
    NOTE: Broadband connection required.  Sorry, I’m not dealing with bandwidth detection and uploading multiple / inferior clips anymore.

    At Tat’s recording studio Web site, you can hear more of his recording work and learn about the awards he’s garnered.

    I’m highlighting Tat and his music for a few reasons:

    • He’s a friend.
    • I like his music and admire his recording skills.
    • I think the power and magnitude of what musicians can do today on modest budgets is amazing and worth showing off (so no, Tat does not have a multi-million dollar studio)
    • I’m happy to demonstrate (in case it wasn’t obvious already) that there’s yet another thing that Big Labels are unnecessary for.  Not to mention that artists can now gain exposure on MySpace or Google Video, sell CDs effectively (and without getting ripped off) via great sites like CD Baby, even sell electronic downloads (full quality, if they choose!) via kick-ass sites like Magnatune (and get a hell of a better cut than via iTunes!).  Admittedly, the day may not have come where artists can become megahit wonders without labels (due to the sheepiness of vast swaths of consumers, IMHO), but that day WILL come in my lifetime, I’m sure :-D.

    Well, enough pontificating.  Enjoy Tat’s music and hire him if you’d like some quality music work done!

    *  *  *

    UPDATE – July 2, 2006
    Tat updated his Web site and the music no longer autoplays.