Anything music.
There are 320 posts filed in Music (this is page 6 of 32).
Little Raleigh Radio
The server has a full install of the Rivendell radio automation software and 2GB RAID1 mirrored drives for a HUGE storage space of music. It still lacks a monitor and sound card but those are on the way.
Now the difficult work begins of getting the rest of the staff trained on how to use Rivendell.
Mali has shaken off the Islamic militants … for now.
“In one of the meetings I had with Iyad Ag Ghali, he told me that the whole world knows he is the master of Timbuktu. But today it’s me that is the mayor of Timbuktu, and he is on the run like an animal.”.
One thing I had to look forward to for almost all of 2012 was Raleigh’s Hopscotch music festival. Kelly gave me Hopscotch tickets as a Christmas 2011 present and for months just thinking about the show made me smile. When September showed up I was ready to go. And you know what? It lived up to its hype!
I scoured all the local websites and picked the brains of my musically hip friends to find out what bands to see. Some of those suggestions were unbelievably good while others were so-so. With a festival as big as Hopscotch you can usually find something that you like.
I decided at the end of the festival the perfect plan for picking what to see at Hopscotch. I will take all the band suggestions gathered from friends and music authorities and then go see all the other bands! I found the most interesting bands were the ones that no one was talking about. Those gems made it all worthwhile.
I hope we can go again to this year’s Hopscotch so it can make next year’s list of highlights!
As I walked out of my son’s piano recital at Ruggero Piano last month, a colorfully-painted piano, decorated with pencils, caught my eye. A sheet on a nearby music stand carried an explanation:
My name is Arnav Subramanya. I am asking for your help in obtaining a new acoustic piano for a rural elementary school in Gates County, North Carolina.
Last year my brother performed with a group at several elementary schools in the eastern counties of our state. He came back with horror stories of elementary schools which thought that a 51 key casio with no pedals and no speakers was a piano. I doubt very much that the students sitting on the gym floor 15 rows back even heard the music being played!
I decided to do something about improving this situation. I can’t fix our country’s budget deficit; but with your help, I can change the musical lives of 1500 elementary school children in one district. To achieve this goal a fund has been set up at Ruggero Piano. 100% of all money donated is going towards the purchase of a studio piano, to include delivery, 2 years of tuning, and a “truck”/dolly for the piano to sit on.
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Here’s an update on the deteriorating situation in Mali from the Guardian’s Andy Morgan. Islamic militants have declared “war” on music in northern Mali.
The pickup halted in Kidal, the far-flung Malian desert town that is home to members of the Grammy award-winning band Tinariwen. Seven AK47-toting militiamen got out and marched to the family home of a local musician. He wasn’t home, but the message delivered to his sister was chilling: “If you speak to him, tell him that if he ever shows his face in this town again, we’ll cut off all the fingers he uses to play his guitar with.”
via Mali: no rhythm or reason as militants declare war on music | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Here are a few more pics of me with Tinariwen musicians. I still have trouble believing I actually got to meet these musicians without traveling to the other side of the world to do it.
Tinariwen’s Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and me
Tinariwen
When they took the stage in their traditional Tuareg garb I really didn’t know what to make of them. The audience was also a bit hesitant. Before long, though, the crowd was clapping along. Soon a dancing group of audience members took over the area in front of the stage.
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I have been enjoying a 6-month deal from Sirius XM to keep my satellite radio running but that deal runs out tomorrow. I called SirusXM to find out what the cost was to renew it or if I should cancel. It turns out the same 6 months for $25 is still in effect, so I was easily able to renew. What’s even better is that it was almost free for me as I had a $21 balance on my account.
To get my radio renewed I had to wade briefly through a voice-response system, which I detest. As soon as I’d selected the “cancel” option, though, I was connected with Sally, a woman with a Midwestern accent in SirusXM’s Listener Care department. Sally had just the right amount of small talk and business, chatting about her dirty glasses before finding my information. Her folksiness conveyed readily over the phone and I never heard any apologies for “slow computers” or other excuses. In short, I can tell Sally loves her job and I have no qualms spending more money with SiriusXM. Heck, she almost had me ready to buy the company’s higher-priced service.
In an age when many companies outsource their call center operations and treat customer care as an afterthought, I was delighted to discover SiriusXM treats its customers right. Outstanding job, SiriusXM!
So for my audition Friday night I decided to buy the sheet music for the song I sang, Somebody’s Baby by Jackson Browne. An outfit called sheetmusicplus.com sold me the song’s sheet music for $5.
After thinking it over a bit I realized just how absurd a price that is. I can buy the song in MP3 form for a buck with Jackson Browne singing and playing it (far better than I can), or I can spend five bucks and do all of the singing and playing myself. Seems a bit backwards that with the sheet music I’m paying more and getting less.
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Life’s What You Make It
Talk Talk
Baby,
life’s what you make it
Can’t escape it
Baby,
yesterday’s favourite
Don’t you hate it
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