Moved on

In case you were curious, yes, this blog has moved on and we’re now tucked away in an undisclosed location: http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/
Keep on keepin’ on!

Technologies of composition

While we are working with technologies that allow composing (Audacity, GarageBand, notation software) the industry is also working on new technologies that allow and support composing.
Microsoft has a new technology, “My Song” which appears to be in a demo/beta phase. The program will create plausible chords to a melody sung by the user. Enjoy the [...]

Horns and Politics

Here’s the link to the in-class survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=urph0nnZVJ2H7bd8UIbfTA_3d_3d
In the mean time, I visited NYC for the conference of the American Educational Research Association, but also stopped by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has an amazing musical instrument collection, including this beautiful horn:

Copyright Caper #3847

The NYTimes does it again: a great copyright caper that gets into rights as they are experienced by college marching and pep bands. Here’s a juicy quote, followed by a link:
In theory, bands need to get approval and pay for the rights to use songs. They often start with the American Society of Composers, Authors [...]

Nerds like us (or, at least, me)

Many lovers of science fiction and fantasy are mourning recent passing of Gary Gygax (creator of Dungeons and Dragons) and Arthur C. Clarke (science fiction writer perhaps best known for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey).
The New York Times quotes Clarke talking about the relation of imagination to technological progress in a way that music [...]

Ken Robinson and Creativity

Here is a link to the video that we watched in class on Thursday. I highly recommend checking out some of the videos on TED’s website. They are very inspiring and thought-provoking. In addition to this one, be sure to check out the talk done by Evelyn Glennie.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

Politics on the web

I hope you all voted today!
Henry Jenkins, in his book Convergence Culture (which we may read some of later this semester) talks about how democratic politics is changing in the modern, digital world.
A great project with students could be looking at political ads on the web and talking about, analyzing, and critiquing the music. Most [...]

Reminder: No class on Thursday 1/31/08!

Adam and Matt will be attending the Illinois Music Educators Association conference in lovely Peoria (birthplace of Richard Pryor, among others).  Enjoy reading the Lessig chapters, and watching the Sibelius videos, and see you on Tuesday. 

Ringtone survey

We will be listening to our ringtones in class, and to give us just a bit of feedback, I’ve created a survey where we’ll respond to each ringtone: 2 p.m. section 3 p.m. section 

Beginning Improvisation Class

Larry Gray is offering an improvisation class which is currently scheduled to meet on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11-11:50 a.m.

It sounds like there are not too many folks enrolled, which would be a great opportunity for beginners to have a comfortable space to explore improvisation. If you are curious or interested, please e-mail Professor Gray: lwgray@uiuc.edu
 
If [...]