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Stuck for compositional inspiration? Is the I Ching not quite up your alley? Want to do some serious Bard roleplaying in D&D? Take a gander at these bad boys:
Available for a bit less than twenty bucks at musiciansdice.com. (via Wired)
Tags: dice, musicThe geekier amongst you may have been aware of the latest please-oh-please competitor to Google being released last Friday. It’s called Wolfram Alpha, and it’s actually pretty clever — it’s got a little search niche all to itself. The idea is that it’s an interface to organized data, instead of just an interface to a bunch of other webpages. That means you can do queries like: “Wisconsin median household income / musician salary” or “calories in 1 bowl of corn flakes + a glass of OJ” or “probability full house“. And tonnes of other stuff.
Some of my favorite tools are the music ones, since (as I’ve harped on about before) I don’t have a music education, but love trying to understand formal structures and intervals and such. It lets you work out:
All of these produce cute little diagrams of piano keys, along with other miscellaneous information.
You can also search for composers and get a little timeline, but that isn’t terribly impressive right now. It seems pretty clueless about pieces as well: Beethoven’s 5th give you info about the (horrible) movie, for example.
Does anyone have any more musical searches which work out nicely?
Tags: music, wolfram AlphaThis. This is the link of today, not quite really writing properly. It’s collaborative AND in B flat. I think… I still can’t determine keys without plinky plonking on a keyboard, or (if it’s in C major) blowing down the harmonica I found in my bottom desk drawer a few days ago. I’ll trust the wisdom of the URL.
This is a beautiful step. With all of the interconnection in the internet, I don’t think we’ve had a really killer appy collaborative music web 2.0/3.0/n+1 site yet. This isn’t IT, exactly, and IT might not exactly exist; but this is a pillar under the pyramid. A stepladder.
Aaaahh screw the postulating. It’s just pretty neat.
Tags: collaborative music, excessive hyperboleWhat really, really puts me in the mood to listen to my music is being forced to listen to someone elses music. Like, if I am at over at a friends house and they have some experimental neo-electro folk falling out of the speakers (which actually sounds kinda intriguing, post typing). That’s when I want to go back home and concentrate all my attention on aurally devouring Prokofiev PC 2, or Shosty 15, or the Grosse Fugue. It’s a bit of a “my music is better than yours” kneejerk, except it’s more of a slo-mo Matrix timefreeze knee extension than a jerk. The more the electro-folk plays, the stronger the urge gets.
The MMIBTY bias is a really strong one, and it seems pretty universal. It’s the same with movies. I’m consistently stunned into little bits and pieces when someone who I think I know pretty well turns out to have a freakin’ bizarre taste in music or film. Of course, it’s only freakin’ bizarre by my own blinkered standards. They’re are probably feeling just as WTFey about MY taste.
And sometimes it happens even when a huge amount of your tastes overlap, I think it’s a law:
No matter how much you have in common with someone there will be at least one thing they love which will make you want to commit violence.
Well maybe violence is a bit too strong. Perhaps light battery. You know, like when you saute instead of deep fry.
I know I know, variety is the spice of life, blah blah. It’s the differences which make us unique and special, and liable to frolic with rainbows and unicorns and crap.
Tags: vague music stuffOMG guys, auto-tuning *everything* is the latest internet meme of the minute:
