Alistair Johnston's Blog

Pachelbel's Canon in D to Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

2011-05-24T20:51:00.000Z

It's that Canon in D music again. This time overlaid with the theme tune to the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

Free Music Downloads

2011-05-24T16:03:00.195Z

That's right, I've decided to make all the piano, instrumental and electronic music at alistairjohnston.com available for free download.

Why?

Because the basic aim of my website is to share with other people the music I've written. So charging for downloads is a barrier to achieving this objective. By forcing site visitors to choose between clicking on a 'pay for download' button or not clicking at all, the sensible option is obvious: don't pay. But by giving visitors the option to download for free, you increase the likelihood that they may refer others to the website, or share the music electronically e.g. by e-mail.

Should every artist give their music away for free?

If your goal is to be commercial musician, then by definition you are going to have to charge people. But charge them for what? I'm not sure it's ever a good strategy to charge people for 'owning' a copy of music. I wonder whether it's even morally right? I'll come back to that in a moment, but as regards a strategy, my observation is that most musicians (now, and in the past) create revenue through live performances, making their recordings available on mass media such as film, television and radio, and even merchandising promotional material (t-shirts, mugs, etc,)

If you are already a commercial success, then it makes sense that you can make money from selling CDs and MP3s. As an aspiring artist, though, it doesn't. No matter how good your music is, and even if it's written for mass market popularity, if you're an unknown artist, selling CDs and downloads is very unlikely to make you a living. You would do far better getting your music 'out there' through live performances, etc.

Is it morally right to sell music?

If by this we mean charging people for owning a copy of music, then I'm not sure this is right. How can anyone 'own' music? You can own a CD, but you don't ever own the recording. You can buy a painting, and while the frame and picture is yours to do what you want with, you can't claim ownership for the painting itself.

Is it really right to sell something that consumers can't actually own, or even rent? I don't think it is. I think it's valid to expect payment when other people make use of your music, such as creating a soundtrack to a film, but not for the soundtrack itself. The end product doesn't belong to the end user, so it's at best inappropriate to expect payment. Perhaps it's even fraudulent?

'Here Comes The Rain' gets 97% popularity rating on Broadjam

2011-04-27T10:26:00.001Z

'Here Comes The Rain', a gentle piano piece by Alistair Johnston, scores 97% in a peer review competition held between March 24, 2001 and April 21, 2011 by Broadjam.

The competition is being run on behalf of a music producer who seeks instrumental piano tracks for a promotional video for a major outdoor-sporting brand. The video will show exciting slow-motion footage of extreme summer sports, and the piano music needs to be peaceful and serene while viewers watch breathtaking footage of surfing, river-kayaking and wake-boarding.

A decision as to who will eventually win the competition is expected on June 10, 2011. Meanwhile, you can download 'Here Comes The Rain' for free at alistairjohnston.com.

You Are My Angel in the Ireland Top Ten at Broadjam

2011-04-04T16:38:00.000Z

You Are My Angel, an instrumental in a Café del Mar style, has entered the Ireland Top 10 at Broadjam, one of the world's largest web communities focused on independent music.

Broadjam.com hosts a massive online database of searchable songs by artists from all 50 U.S. states and over 150 countries.

Facebook Like button not working on Firefox

2011-03-31T08:49:00.006Z

If you're using Firefox on a Macintosh you may find that clicking on a Facebook Like button results in a pop-up window opening and closing in an infinite loop.

Some people are reporting this as a bug, and maybe it is as the Like button functions normally using Firefox on a PC. And surely the developers of Firefox didn't set out to create infinite loops. That said, the problem and solution is all about third-party cookies. The implementation of Firefox on a Macintosh disables third-party cookies by default. And maybe that's a good idea: to understand the risk, see Wikipedia's article on Privacy and third-party cookies.

Hence, to get the Facebook Like button to work on Firebox on a Macintosh:

1. Select 'Preferences...' from the Firefox menu
2. Select the 'Privacy' tab
3. Ensure there is a tick next to 'Accept third party cookies

Land of Hope, Glory and Dragons

2010-11-30T14:50:00.002Z

Has anyone else noticed that the first four bars of the main theme in Edward Elgar's 'Land of Hope and Glory' can be overlaid with the first four bars of 'Puff the Magic Dragon' by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow?

Want to hear it? Click here to play the MP3. It begins with four bars of Elgar, which then repeats with 'Puff the Magic Dragon' played over it. Somehow, it works!

Pachelbel's Canon in D with Waltzing Matilda

2010-07-15T10:16:00.009Z

Back in November 2009 I was playing Pachelbel's Canon in D when it struck me that the note sequence goes hand-in-hand with Australia's most widely known bush ballad, Waltzing Matilda.

Now a lot of people have played around with Pachelbel's Canon. The famous chord progression features in modern songs such as 'All Together Now' by The Farm and 'With or Without You' by U2. Variations on the theme have been widely used in TV series, movies and games. If you're interested in finding out more about this, then check out Stefan Helander's website pachelbelcanon.com.

But to my knowledge, no-one has tried to overlay the Canon with Waltzing Matilda. (It happens to overlay very neatly with the theme tune to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as well - but that's another story.)

Today, Australia's ABC Classic FM played my arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D with Waltzing Matilda, which you can listen to and download for free at alistairjohnston.com.

The music was also played at a wedding in Bath, England this weekend. The mother of the bride contacted me back in January after searching for a piece of music to be played while her English daughter walked up the aisle with an Australian stockman from NSW. She was hoping to find some music that would embrace the bride and groom's backgrounds, and felt the Canon in D with Waltzing Matilda would be ideal for this.

The wedding took place on Saturday. I'm told it was a perfect day and that a few tears were shed as the bridge and groom walked down the aisle, which is lovely. I wish them the very best of luck for the future.

Why we'll never be able to define Cloud Computing

2010-05-21T14:51:00.014Z

Don’t worry if you don’t understand what Cloud Computing is. You’re not meant to. By its nature a cloud of any type is something vague or ill-defined. Were it any different, Cloud Computing would simply evaporate.

The origin of the term Cloud Computing derives from early network design where a cloud represents what Douglas Adams once called an S.E.P. – Somebody Else’s Problem. It came about because network designers – used to meticulous modelling of the components, connectivity and contrivances of a network – had to link their carefully crafted network to somebody else’s. They were loath to describe the intricacies of somebody else’s network in as much loving detail as their own, so went about representing this incursion as a cloud.

Were they to describe in just a little bit more detail what exactly it is they were connecting to there would be no need for a cloud. Just as today there would be no need for Cloud Computing if we really knew what it meant.

With a real cloud it’s possible to define it succinctly, such as ‘a visible mass of droplets suspended in the atmosphere’. No such joy with Cloud Computing. The often quoted NIST Definition of Cloud Computing runs to a couple of pages.

My argument is that in time the definition will become crystallised as being this or that, depending no doubt on the size of this or that’s marketing budget. And when it does become one thing or another, it will – by definition – no longer be a nebulous Cloud-like thing.

- < > -

This article first appeared on Bloggertone on 28 April 2010 at:
http://bloggertone.com/technology/2010/04/28/why-we’ll-never-be-able-to-define-cloud-computing/

It takes two to Jango

2010-02-08T14:01:00.015Z

All it takes is an artist and a listener, and you have Jango: an internet-based radio station that brings artists and listeners together.

As a listener, you just type in the name of an artist you like and it will start playing their music, completely legally – and free. What makes Jango different is that it inserts into your personalised radio station similar favourites chosen by other Jango users who share your musical tastes. You can further tailor what your station plays by adding more artists and rating songs that you want to hear more or less.

In the United States alone there are seven million unique visitors a month. That makes it very appealing for a budding artist to upload their music to the Jango network. What the artist gets is rapid access to a community of people who like listening to exactly the kind of music the artist creates. Without Jango, it could take a lot longer for an artist to reach out and find its audience.

You could say it’s a bit like computer dating which matches your profile against compatible profiles of potential suitors… except in the world of Jango the resulting relationship is a much more straightforward one-dimensional affair. In Jango-land, you are brought together because you already like each other. No need to meet up for lunch to check each other out: it’s a done deal.

This creates for the artist a challenge – listener feedback. And it’s a big challenge, because an emerging artist has two primary objectives: firstly, to find an audience, and secondly, to get constructive feedback so they can gauge how best to develop their talent.

Jango gets you an audience, and pretty much immediately. But that audience is about as unbiased as a BMW salesman telling you what make of car to buy. A Jango listener will, by definition, think your style of music is wonderful, precisely because ‘your style’ is ‘their style’. For a Jango listener to proactively advise you to consider doing something a bit different is like a BMW salesman recommending you go to a Mercedes dealership to get a better car. It’s just not going to happen.

What an artist can do, though, is upload multiple songs, and thereby see which ones are played more often – and voted for – compared to others. But what does this really mean? Given that in Jango-land an artist can always find a listener, then it follows that no matter how good or bad your song really is, Jango will find someone who really likes it.

So, it takes two to Jango, but quite another to see whether the performance is any good or not.

Using Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO) v4 in Logic 8

2009-11-01T13:35:00.006Z

Can't get Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO) to work in Logic 8?

Here's how to do it:

(1) Create a new file (File | New... from the menu bar)

(2) Select 'Empty Project'

(3) Create a New Track, and make sure it's a Software Instrument, as follows:

(4) Assuming you haven't customised your Logic layout too radically, on the left-hand side you'll see the Arrange channel strips like this:

(5) On the left channel strip, just below the 'I/O' label is a blank rectangle. Hold your mouse down and select 'AU Instruments | Garritan | ARIA Player | Stereo' like this:

(6) You'll then see the Garritan ARIA Player pop-up. Select an instrument as you would in ARIA i.e. click your mouse on an empty instrument bank and hold your mouse down to navigate to an instrument of your choice, like this:

(7) Close the ARIA Player and you're back in Logic and your instrument is available to you!

(8) If you want to change your instrument go back to your Arrange channel strips and double click the rectangle that was blank earlier and now says 'ARIA Player':