Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

I have a band in the game, I can muster eight players. I have my main paid account, plus seven free-to-play accounts, which exist only to provide me with additional musicians. I can run all eight copies of the game on my 32 gig Asus gaming laptop. If I want, I can also run one of my wife's accounts for nine. And I'm planning on bringing that number up to 11 as I have some more complex songs that I want to play.

The way music works in-game is you find a MIDI version of a song you like, let's say Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick. You run a program called Maestro, or other similar programs, that converts it to a music format called ABC. ABC is a text file that breaks the tracks in the MIDI into a text representation, it's been around for ages - predating computers - and is a file format that can be read by the game and played by characters in-game! We have frequent band jams/dance parties, both spontaneous and planned. Tuesday night was planned.

If a MIDI cooperates, I can convert a song from MIDI to ABC in 5-10 minutes and preview it in a program called ABC Player, which takes as long as the song actually is. I also need to play it in-game, because the ABC Player isn't always 100% faithful to how it sounds in-game. That takes time, because you have to start up all the instances, load the players, start a party, invite everyone, load the correct instruments, tell them to load the song, then FINALLY you can start play! It takes some effort.

All that setup takes time, usually you do the MIDI/ABC conversion and preview of a whole bunch of songs, then fire up LOTRO, set up your band, and preview a whole bunch of songs in a private place. Make notes on changes that you need to do, and you're good. So that way you're only spending setup time once.

Last night we were playing in Bree, a famous town of the first book of Lord of the Rings and a major city in the game. We're down at South Gate, where we frequently play. One of the bands whom I regularly play with, led by Fersinda, we got in to playing as much Jethro Tull as we could, going back and forth. It was well after midnight, finally a friend announced we could play one more song each, then she had to leave. That was fine, I also needed to get to bed. I suggested to Fersinda that we each play Bouree, a wonderful instrumental based on a work by Bach. Fersinda's version is awesome! Mine I'd never played before in-game, I'd just made it last month.

So she player hers. I played mine. Mine was better than I expected, had some good points and was well-received. I used a harp in place of a piano and a special deluxe bassoon instead of a flute, and it sounded pretty good. And we realized we used the same MIDI to make our songs! Completely different ABCs, but same MIDIs.

And I think it was Fersinda suggested we should play them synchronized.

AND WE DID.

We had both split our songs in to four parts (four musicians), with different instrumentation. We grouped our bands together into something called a raid party, it allowed us to have all eight of us in one group and to start our songs simultaneously. We faced off several yards apart, which was my suggestion, to create a more pronounced stereo effect. She loaded up our musicians from her version on her computer, I did the same with my version from my computer, and did I a /playstart, which triggers our musicians to start playing simultaneously.

It was amazing.

The synchronization was perfect, and standing in the middle between the two bands was fantastic! You could spin your character around and the song swirled and was just incredible! I had dismissed the rest of my band, but brought back one so I could run around and listen because if you move a musician while they are playing, you break their playing and you can't re-enter a song.

The friend who was going to bed, Dreamy, then set up so she could record it - she's going to post it on a private YouTube channel! So we moved a little closer and did it a second time. It was so cool, I can't wait to hear the video! We're going to do it on a regular Friday night band jam at the Pony, one of the inns in Bree, but not this week.

Here is a Youtube recording of the album track of Tull:

He revealed recently that he's been privately fighting it for three years, and his doctors have pronounced him clear for several months. This is his second brush with cancer. Rod is now 74 years old and was awarded his Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Years Honors, in 2016 he received his Knights Bachelor.

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/rod-stewart-reveals-he-battled-prostate-cancer-for-three-years-and-is-now-in-remission/ar-AAHn9hu

This is one fashion in which I've corrupted my wife: I can say something that others would consider a nonsequitur or just complete nonsense, just really weird stuff, and she'll recognize the thread, pick it up and run with it.

Last night I'm playing Lord of the Rings Online and I notice in the world chat someone says
What's Aragorn got to do with it?

I have no idea what the context of the message is, but I immediately reply
What's Aragorn but a second-hand emotion?

And shortly after appears
Who needs an Aragorn when an Aragorn can be broken!

And I cheered! Someone with a compatible insanity who could riff on a 35 year old Tina Turner track!

Queen the British rock band, not the monarchy.

"Since Queen had named their albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races after two of the Marx Brothers' most popular films, surviving brother Groucho Marx invited Queen to visit him at his Los Angeles home in March 1977 (five months before he died). The band thanked him, and performed "'39" a cappella.[9]"

Wow. I've always thought Groucho was an amazing wit, but I think that's pretty awesome.

The song '39 has always been one of my favorite Queen numbers, partly because acoustic guitar dominates but also because it has an astrophysics reference in it, and at that time - 1975 - that was unheard of.

We drove up to Albuquerque yesterday for the show, leaving home at 2pm and getting home about 3am! A long day and lots of driving, but well worth it. We both hate casinos because we both have bad lungs and asthma. The poodle was with us, so Russet gave him a stroll while I went in to the casino and found the theater so we could get to it as rapidly as possible, and that worked well.

Here's the set list: Living in the Past Nothing is Easy Heavy Horses Thick as a Brick Jack-in-the-Green Bourrée Farm on the Freeway Songs from the Wood Pastime with Good Company/Henry VIII Sweet Dream Dharma For One A New Day Yesterday Toccata and Fugue in D Minor ? Aqualung Locomotive Breath

The opening was both awesome and sad: for some reason they pointed Ian's microphone too high, and he was having problems singing in to it, making it sound like he had almost no voice. So that song was almost wasted. But let's face it, much of Tull's music is a third vocals and two thirds instruments. While they were playing Nothing Is Easy, you'd see Ian playing, then on the projection screen behind them, they'd show Ian from the '70s playing the same piece! It was very interesting, seeing the massively shaggy hair, compared to the almost 70 year old almost bald Ian. Same process for Florian, the lead guitarist. Very cool effect.

When they performed Heavy Horses, they synced a projected video performance with Icelander Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir(?), singer and violinist, which was really cool - that's one way to make up for a small stage! Very good use of back projection throughout the show.

Dharma For One was a very funny intro. Ian was talking about how (IIRC) Clive Bunker would go in to this ridiculously long drum solos that would last hours, days, weeks! He then says something about respectfully dedicating this next song to Clive, respectful clapping follows. Ian then says "Oh, he's not dead! He was quite well the last I spoke with him on the phone!" They then go in to play Dharma to give their touring drummer, Scott Hammond, a solo. And he did a very good solo. Which gave the rest of the band five minutes to nip off the stage for a drink and a sit.

Throughout the show, aside from the flute, Ian also played guitar and harmonica. And gamboled around the stage with his left leg bent and keeping time.

Here's what I don't understand. People paid probably $100 or more for a pair of tickets, came in late, and left early. One couple ahead of us the girl wouldn't stop yapping at her man for a song or two. A couple arrived late for the seats next to ours, the guy clearly already drunk and stinking of beer, yelling what an honor it was to see Ian Anderson. Gee, what a respectful way to be honored: showing up late, drunk, and leaving early. Why would you pay $100 to hear five or six songs then leave? I just don't get it. Is it just to be able to say "I saw Tull, dude!"

This is the banner for the tour. It'll probably break eventually as I'm linking it directly from what I thought was the Tull web site, but it's something else.

Left to right that's John O'Hara on keyboards, Scott Hammond on drums, Ian Anderson who plays the flute or something, Florian Ophale on lead guitar, and David Goodier on bass.


In other Ian Anderson news, he has a new album which released in March called Jethro Tull - The String Quartets. He got together with the Carducci String Quartet, conducted by John O'Hara, his keyboardist. It released complete with a factory defect! For some reason on the first pressing the track list on the back of the box does not match what is on the disc, so they slapped a sticker on top of the shrinkwrap, which doesn't do you much good after you remove the shrinkwrap! But once you rip it to MP3 or whatever, you're OK.

The album is quite good, but one track strikes me as kind of odd: Living In The Past. It's already practically a chamber piece: I think it would have been better to put a violin in a high register playing the vocal and put Ian on the flute in to playing trills, I think that would have been more interesting. But what do I know.

Here's the album cover. Definitely recommended.

I expect that eventually there will be an album/DVD released of this tour, which I will probably buy. Saturday night was their third USA stop: Friday night was in Colorado at Red Rock with a full symphony orchestra, and a night or two before was in Utah. If you pull up the tour schedule from the JethroTull.com web site, you'll see that they tour like mad men!

EDIT: for some reason paragraph breaks appeared when I previewed it, but not when I posted it. Odd.

Sir George really helped make the Beatles what they became. This tribute in Rolling Stone is quite interesting, contrasting his approach compared to Brian Epstein's. He was 91.


Keith Emerson took me by surprise. He was one of my 'introduction to rock' bands when back in the late '60s/early '70s my brother and I and some friends discovered a station wagon with boxes of LPs in the back. It was in a semi-demolished apartment complex, the car clearly abandoned and undriveable. There were albums by Elton John, King Crimson, Crosby Stills and Nash, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Moody Blues: it was an amazing find and totally changed my taste in music as my dad was an inveterate C&W listener and mom listened to whatever he did. I have no idea where my taste in classical came from.

Anyway, Keith passed Friday at 71. Comments to this Rolling Stone article (with auto-start music video) mention that he was diagnosed with cancer last year: apparently his death was a suicide and may have been from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In addition to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Keith recorded with Greg Lake and Cozy Powell as Emerson, Lake and Powell and later got back together with Carl Palmer and recorded the album 3.

I don't have a lot of ELP on my phone, but I was able to put together a 15-20 song playlist and listen to it tonight while doing errands, we're in Phoenix right now for my mother's birthday so I don't have access to my full library.

Very sad. I would say that it's been a rough year for musicians, which it has, but I imagine that any given year there are lots of musician deaths.

Mojo Nixon had a song "Don Henley must die!" which contained the line "Don't ever let him get back together with Glenn Frey!" Well, Don is safe: Glenn died yesterday at age 67.

The cause was reported as pneumonia along with rheumatoid arthritis and acute ulcerative colitis, sounds like he might have had an autoimmune disorder. Sounds like a very unpleasant collection of symptoms.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463510638/glenn-frey-guitarist-for-the-eagles-dead-at-67


Elsewhere in the good news/bad news department, Rolling Stone spoke with David Bowie's long-time producer, Tony Visconti. Tony reports that Bowie wrote and demo'd five tracks for a new album to follow Blackstar! So there's a chance that we'll see an EP at some point if Bowie's estate decides to complete the tracks.

There was one paragraph that was particularly touching to me:

Bowie had already finished Blackstar by November. But even before then, Visconti noticed the tone of some of the lyrics and told him, "You canny bastard. You're writing a farewell album." Bowie simply laughed in response. "He was so brave and courageous," says Visconti. "And his energy was still incredible for a man who had cancer. He never showed any fear. He was just all business about making the album."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-planned-post-blackstar-album-thought-he-had-few-more-months-20160113


Last night my wife and I watched Galaxy Quest, what a wonderful Rickman movie. We also have Love Actually, which we watched last month, and all of the Potters. While the role of Snape was a great and memorable performance, I really don't want to watch them as a memorial to Rickman. My wife mentioned, while reading IMDB, that he also did Quigly Down Under. Not a great movie, but it had its moments. I'd like to get ahold of his movie January Man, starring Kevin Kline, where Rickman played a gay architect and did a really great job.

My wife turned me on to an unusual Scottish group called The Easy Club. Their blurb on Amazon describes them thusly: "Easy Club was formed by four musicians who had been playing together in Edinburgh’s legendary folk pub, Sandy Bell’s Bar in 1982. The Easy Club name comes from an eighteenth century Edinburgh drinking club which had been opposed to the union between Scotland and England.

The idea of The Easy Club was to explore new possibilities in Scottish music, by bringing in influences from more modern music such as jazz and early pop. The band saw that traditional musicians were inevitably influenced in some way by the culture of their own era. The Easy Club were happy to embrace modern styles and ideas, because this is the way that traditions develop naturally. It’s actually unnatural, in their opinion, to try to play music in a ‘historical’ manner, as this usually results in a fossilised, ‘heritage’ culture instead of on that is living and breathing.

The band found that they could bring Scottish music and swing rhythms together very successfully, in a way that sounded completely natural. They even found a quotation from the Duke Ellington, who apparently said that "There are only two types of music – jazz and Scottish music." The Easy Club went on to develop its signature style of ultra-swingy Scottish traditional music."

Pretty cool stuff, swing/jazz/folk. They were short-lived, formed in '82 and dissolving around '89. I read that they've released three albums, but I've only been able to identify two: Skirlie Beat and Chance Or Design.  My wife already had the latter, so I ordered the former last week.


And now for something completely different.


I've been a fan of Devo for a long time. Back around '90 I was in San Jose doing a massive solo drive from Phoenix to San Jose up to Portland then back to Phoenix via Twin Falls, Idaho (2700 miles, Google Map.) All to attend an anime convention and take a vacation (and it was a very good vacation). Anyway, whilst in San Jose, I stopped in a music store. They had a dozen copies of a Devo album that I'd never heard of, it was called the E-Z Listening Disc. Apparently someone commented to Mark Mothersbaugh that "You never have to worry about someone recording Muzak versions of your music! Yuk yuk."

So Mothersbaugh wrote an album of 19 cuts, all E-Z listening. I am listening to it right now, and it's quite amusing, I think it will probably be a regular on my iPhone for listening at work, I think it's good background music.

Well, the problem is that I didn't buy it in San Jose, and I hadn't seen it since. Sure enough, it's available on Amazon, but for an utterly ridiculous price, on the order of $50! Well, I am a patient man, and eventually someone listed a used copy for $12 or so. I snagged it toot sweet.

(It is definitely my longest solo driving trip, and it was my longest driving trip until 2012 when my wife and I drove 7,000 miles in 7 weeks. The Google map doesn't show you the whole route, but basically we just went back to New Mexico after Milwaukee.)

What do these albums have in common, truly alternative alternative and jazz/swing/folk?

They came out in the same year, 1987.

I am amused.

And I also like sharing it.

Last year on Project Kickstarter, there was a project to fund researching, recording, and releasing under a free Creative Commons license a new recording of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations by pianist Kimiko Ishizaka. Apparently transcripts of classical music are as locked down as modern music today is when it comes to licensing, so part of the funding was for the original folios to be researched and a new score to be transposed. It was also to pay for Ms. Ishizaka's services in recording this project.

The project is now done!

In addition to being able to download all the music for free, you can also download an app for the iPad that lets you follow the score while the music is playing, and you can download the score which can be used in the MuseScore app, which I know nothing about.

This link lets you download tracks individually in MP3 or Flac or if you scroll down a bit there's a 132 meg zip that you can download or Torrent down. I was really happy to help fund this project, I should be getting my CD in the mail real soon now.

http://www.opengoldbergvariations.org/