Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Self-tuning Guitars The Performer™ is a computerized mechanical tuning system that adjusts the tensions of the strings, making it possible to keep your guitar in tune and change tuning while you play. 1. Can you bend note without the system adjusting the tension automatically...i.e. would you have to turn the system off to play the blues? What about whammy bars, my personal favorite? 2. What about the fact that every experienced guitarist will subtly adjust the sound of certain chords by slightly pulling on the string that doesn't sound quite right? There is no way that every chord sounds right on any given guitar without these small adjustments from chord to chord. It is against the nature of the instrument. I spoke to luthier Rick Turner in the early Eighties. He had built a guitar like this, but gave up the idea after Jerry Garcia played the instrument for the first time, tried to bend a note and the instrument promptly adjusted the tension...and sounded no bend at all...... Thanks to Ole for this one. 10:26:07 PM    comment []; Boing Boing is grey Music: La Semana work mixes Mood: perplexed Kottke's got the right approach: I can't afford the bandwidth to mirror the Grey Album, but Boing Boing is going grey for 24h to protest EMI/Capitol's heavy-handed response to DJ Danger Mouse's brilliant Grey Album project. Apologies for reduced legibility. kottke.org is grey today because I believe that musical sampling without prior consent of the copyright holder should be legally allowed because it does our society more good than harm. [BoingBoing] 1. Are you saying that anybody should be allowed to say take my instrumental music, add some rapping or singing and sell the resulting work? 2. Are you saying any corporation or even a politician should be allowed to get creative with my work by adding words or content? 3. Or are you saying that it is OK as long as the resulting music is not sold? I think the problem with writers is that they are in a solitary and inexpensive profession. All they need is a typewriter or computer and time to write... - well, music is not like that. Our instruments are expensive, rehearsal time can be expensive, studio-time sure as heck is expensive, hiring other musicians is expensive, and if you need the services of an engineer or producer that will cost you an arm and a leg as well....Did you know that a percussionist can charge for each regional drum he is playing? If somebody played two brazilian drums, an African drum, and an Indian drum during a session, he can charge triple scale. And, why do you think there are so few new classical orchestral works recorded every year? Because classical music rarely sells enough CDs to break even, since an orchestra recording costs around a million bucks. So, while your expenses are limited to the morning latte and maybe internet access for research, an album can very easily cost 100,000 to make and often much more - and that's before it goes into manufacturing and all of he expenses associated with that. Let's see....Book - free, Record - 100,000 bucks, hm... Do you still feel that anybody should be allowed to use a musicians work and add to it at will and without permission? I do agree that copyright is going too far at present, but there has to be a difference between quoting a few paragraphs of a book, which cost nothing to create, and sampling a section of a piece of music that cost a lot of money to produce. Lawrence Lessig wrote this today: Under American law, you don’t need permission to make a cover album. That freedom has been assured since 1909 when Congress granted creators a compulsory right to remake music, so long as a small fee was paid. But the cover right does not cover a remix. So DJ Danger Mouse must, under the law, ask permission before he can practice his art. Some artists think this is fair. Some don't like the idea of their work used without permission. What if Disney remixed DJ Danger Mouse into a re-release of Mickey-jailed-since-1928-Mouse, without asking or paying first? (emphasis added) Well, I think there is a huge, a gigantic difference between re-performing and re-recording and thereby re-creating a sound or a composition, a so-called "cover", and simply sampling that composition. If you re-create and re-record a sound, you are adding your own sweat and work into the fray, if you sample you add nothing. Music is not free, because it costs money and sweat and a lot of time to record. PS: I sample my own work all the time and have a rather large library of my own sounds I can always use. PPS: I have no problem with artists choosing to let others sample their work. I think that is a fine choice to make, but any artist should also have the right to deny other people to sample their sound. A few years ago I denied one pop star's producer the usage of a sample from Heart Still Beating, not because I am opposed to sampling, but because I didn't like how the sample was being used. I have allowed other artists to use other samples of my work and strongly believe that I should have the right to make that decision every time based on whatever criteria I choose. 7:45:17 PM    comment [];

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