Tag Archives: Music

This is what I have my nose in…

This is what I have my nose in for at least the next couple of weeks…

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Happy Mother's Day, Mom

I would of course be remiss if I failed to also mention my own mother today. From my mother, I inherited my ability to teach, the strength of my passion and dedication, and my musicality (among other things).

I’m sure I haven’t been the perfect son. I’m fairly certain my actions and passages through life have come close to driving her over the edge. I sometimes forget to call her and have even forgotten her birthday on a few occasions. Sometimes we fight with each other—but mostly because we’re very much alike.

But I always know my mother supports me. She worked hard to raise my brother and me even while she was teaching. (And I don’t blame her for skipping me past the fourth grade. She says it’s because I was too smart, but I’m pretty sure it’s really because she couldn’t handle having me as a student for a second year in a row.) I think she did a pretty darn good job of it.

And I always know that she is proud of me and everything I am able to accomplish as a son, a husband, a father, and a worker. Now that she has grandchildren, it’s fair enough that they get all the attention, but I know she speaks well of me and I hope I’ve been able to reflect well on her as a mother.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom.

There Are Changes and I'm Rolling with Them

I don’t know why, but this is my favorite Rock Band track for this week. How can I turn down a song with three awesome and very different solos?

This is an example of a full Rock Band track, with all four parts. The bass is on the left, lead in the center, drums on the right, and the vocal track is not shown, though the lyrics are at the top.

Thoughts on Ebook DRM Standards

I’ve recently been performing some research into so-called “social DRM” as it applies to digital files for my own knowledge bank. I’ve been very interested in the approaches to DRM shown by groups such as The Pragmatic Programmers and ebooks purchased from outlets like Lulu, where the name of the purchaser is automatically embedded within the purchased file in order to provide it with some measure of discouraging sharing/piracy.

iTunes has done this from the start, and even though they have dropped the traditional notion of DRM from their music files now, they still mark each and every file you download with the email address of the Apple ID used to purchase the song. It’s not used in any sort of enforcement application (that we know of to date), but knowing it’s there stops some people from posting the tracks publicly or sharing them with anyone who is not a close personal friend or relative (my conjecture).

In doing this research, I ran across a two year old blog post from Bill McCoy of Adobe. He has some words to say about the same, which is fascinating coming from the GM of their ePublishing department. His comments are in reaction to the Steve Jobs note from 2007 regarding music and DRM—something that ended up happening less than two years after the fact. I also ran into some more recent comments from McCoy, speaking to the establishment of a DRM standard that is cross-platform instead of complete advocacy for the removal of traditional DRM systems from ebook titles.

Let’s talk about why this isn’t feasible and how we can learn from the past.

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Because Some of You May Not Be Familiar with Fake Plastic Rock

I realize that not everyone who reads may have an understanding of what Rock Band is and why it’s perhaps one of the greatest timesinks I’ve ever run across. I post often about it and will even throw up YouTube videos of note charts for songs I’m really interested in. For those of you who might need a small primer, I present to you this series of videos and explanations.

Rock Band is a “rhythm game”. What that means is that you are handed some music in the form of a track playing on your television courtesy of a video game system. You are also handed a plastic instrument. The first game to tackle this idea handed you a guitar. In Rock Band, there are four instruments: Guitar, Bass, Drums, and Vocals. Each plays slightly differently. The goal is to hit the right “notes” within a certain “window” of a graphic crossing your screen.

The game comes on a disc with about 80 songs, and there are weekly releases of downloadable songs you can purchase and play. The songs cost $2 each, which is a steal considering you’re not only hearing the music, but you’re also “playing” it.

To save those of you who might not want to load everything, I’ll put the rest behind a cut; please read on if you are interested.

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