Something I forgot to say while you weren’t listening…
Music
The sound of a slow Bank holiday Monday
Traditionally a [wikipop]Bank holiday[/wikipop] is a time to slow down and unwind. So I took a short snippet of piano music (by [wikipop search=”John Adams (composer)”]John Adams[/wikipop] if I am not mistaken)
and slowed, unwound and tweaked it:
and then a drum loop
which was slowed and turned on its side so all the percussive (steam train) comes at the end:
Twinkle Twinkle Magic Trackpad
The Trackpad Magic app lets you play various instruments with the Magic Trackpad or MacBook’s Trackpad. It also features a variety of graphical effects and several [wikipop]musical scales[/wikipop]. Pressing the T key shows a grid to aid note finding. Pressing the I key cycles through the scales. The Doe Ray Me scale puts the G in the middle of the trackpad. With the C on the left edge you can pick your way through [wikipop]Twinkle Twinkle Little Star[/wikipop]. Turning off the grid and doing it blindfolded in the dark earns extra points 😉
Captain Beefheart (1941 – 2010)
I used the instrumental “Best Batch Yet” for the Jam Making Movie so here is [wikipop]Captain Beefheart[/wikipop] in 1980 with a vocal version…
The offerings on YouTube seem decidedly low Def so I shall rummage in my boxes and see what I can fish out… “if you want to be a different fish, you’ve got to jump out of the school.”… Beefheart said claiming he tried school for half a day and never went back. His high school graduation photograph somewhat counters the claim.
The BBC obituary
Gregory Isaacs 1951 – 2010
When they get around to inviting me to do [wikipop]Desert Island Discs[/wikipop] I suspect [wikipop]Gregory Isaacs[/wikipop]’ Top Ten will be in there somewhere…
A trip to Cornwall
We had a couple of days overlap between the end of Martine‘s week off and the start of my fortnight off, a rare occurrence, so we had a quick trip to [wikipop]Cornwall[/wikipop] to visit my sister.
After a long slow crawl down the [wikipop search=”M5 Motorway”]M5[/wikipop] and the [wikipop search=”A30 Road”]A30[/wikipop] (everyone else seemed to have had the same idea :-() we strolled along the [wikipop]Gwithian[/wikipop]/[wikipop]Godrevy[/wikipop] beach…
…and across the cliffs to see if we could spot some [wikipop search=”Common seals”]seals[/wikipop]. There was a lone mother seal relaxing on the beach in the afternoon sunshine while a couple of youngsters played in the sea…
The [wikipop search=”St Ives, Cornwall”]St. Ives[/wikipop] September Festival was just starting but we managed to only catch a lunchtime open air poetry and music session. The sunshine seemed to bring out more poets and musicians than planned for so the whole thing overran by an hour or more. So numerous were the participants that we could not recall all their names. There was [wikipop]Charles Shaar Murray[/wikipop] accompanied by Buffalo Bill Smith…
This was followed by a (not very) hot chocolate at the Tate…
We knew it was the Tate because it was more presentation than substance 😉
All too soon it was time to return; so Martine planned an ambling route home over [wikipop]Dartmoor[/wikipop] where we avoided the wild ponies…
…back up a quieter M5…
and home again.
Les Paul (1915 – 2009)
Hardly a day has passed in the last 45 years when I have not heard something derived from the innovations of [W:Les Paul].
Les Paul’s music on Spotify
Spotify on the iPhone
The good people at Spotify have announced an app for the iPhone.
Just what Apple plans to do about the imminent launch of Spotify in the US remains to been seen. Some are suggesting that iTunes will become a streaming service too but it has yet to be shown that anyone can make money out of such a system.