For readings from Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" click on the picture below:

This is an example from the Vimeo site which hosts high definition videos. So many places to explore on this virtual world called the Internet.

These guys make it look so easy. No rhythm section save clapping and these guys are tiiiiiggghhhtt! They are tighter than a panty-less lady on a ice cube chair!

Locally we have DoctorfunK which "was established in 1995 and has set the standard for new soul music in the Pacific Northwest. Echoing the legendary passion of famed horn band Tower of Power and that  "Bay Area Sound," this 10-piece ensemble has maintained the tradition and more."

Think I'm kidding? Check out "Can't Fight the Funk" sound clip here. My friend Scott Dart wasn't on this recording but does the bari sax honors for DoctorfunK now. He's the third in from the right side of this picture.

As reported by theAtlantic.com is 1,474 megapixels big. You can zoom in on lapel buttons for as far as the eye can see. Seriously: amazing shit. David Bergman made it out of 220 separate photos. Click on the picture below to visit the GigaPan.org site:

This should put Gigapan.org on the map. 

My mom recently got an email that highlighted ten of the most unique churches in the world. She knows that I am very interested in Architecture and this write up was stellar. But it was a direct lift from the always fascinating Oddee.com. Why don't people give credit to the writer or company that produces these things? It would be so easy to do and I think is the right thing to do.

My favorite church on the list reminds me of something you might see in a Lord of the Rings movie, with hobbits milling about outside the church:

The article states, "The Borgund Stave Church in Lærdal is the best preserved of Norway’s 28 extant stave churches. This wooden church, probably built in the end of the 12th century, has not changed structure or had a major reconstruction since the date it was built. The church is also featured as a Wonder for the Viking civilization in the video game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings."

I think my grandson Nicky would have recognized it from the Age of Empires video game.  :o)

My dawgs and I was watching the Air and Simple Gifts composition at the inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday. John Williams composed this song explicitly for the inauguration performed by Itzhak Perlman on violin, Yo-Yo Ma on bass, Anthony Mcgill on clarinet, Gabriela Montero on piano. My 13-year old grandson, who is living with us now, mentioned that much of the school day was devoted to watching the inauguration too.

The Leblanc company was so proud that Anthony played using the new Leblanc Bliss clarinet with the Backun barrel and bell that they posted this picture on Facebook. Yo-Yo used a special fiberglass bass because the cold weather would have probably hurt his regular bass.

Here is the video of this new song on YouTube:

For me this was but one of the highlights of the ceremony. Combo are all about working together, listening to each of the performers so that the mesh results in beautiful music. Sounds like a metaphor for life, does it not? :o)

I'm doing some sax quartet practicing and Helen points to this very fine YouTubeage by the musical theater group Cuatro Vientos. I find it to be a very artful montage of some the most commonly played sax quartets.

I'm working with my grandson to teach him to be a sound technician and roadie for my bands. So I sent his this classic 'Far Side' cartoon. :o)

So far he has schlepped heavy equipment using a cart, set up speakers, set up the saxes and stands. Next on the to-do list is to setup and run the mixer board. Running the mixer board requires a deft touch and a good set of ears.

To develop a good set of ears he's been playing clarinet, sax, and bass clarinet. He's also been listening to me practice and perform for going on 8 years. Now he is in a garage band playing drums and all this at the tender age of 13.

My challenge will be learning the ends and outs of the use of a mixing board myself. I've eschewed mic'ing the band unless there's a tech to do it for us. But it is really something I'd like to learn about.

So far I've bought the instrument, piano, vocal and bass mic's and amps. I've played with portable and stationary mic's and stands. But introducing an amplification system really changes the sound of the bands. And if you don't have a huge space, it really doesn't make sense.

Ah, so many projects and so much to learn. Isn't life grand.

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing.

He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the metro station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it?  Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could  be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Snope.com article says this is true and discusses it further. The kicker, "The Washington Post won a Pulitzer in the feature writing category for Gene Weingarten's April 2007 story about this experiment.

I have been kinda putting together and taking apart a sax quartet for a while now and this incarnation resulted in two videos being taken during a sight reading session. I've been all over the place with the names from 'the Bis Keys' to 'Inspector Gadget, to this group. The players are:

• Soprano Sax - Jeff Miller
• Alto Sax - Scott Dart
• Tenor Sax - Jim Glass
• Baritone Sax - Greg Cagle

The first song is called the 'Intergalactic Rag' and the sax quartet piece is arranged by one of my favorite arrangers Paul Coats. It is also known as 'the Star Wars Bar Song' by the masses and 'Creature Cantina' by the fellow who originally penned the chart, John Williams.

This was kinda nice for a read through and shows real promise. The next piece is an sax quartet arrangement of Billy Joel's  'Just the Way You Are' by Jeff Miller. There is one obvious bad note in the whole read and that was by yours truly.

I didn't get a recording of 'An American in Paris', one of my favorite sax quartets. But maybe next time.

Lisa and Greg posted this crazy, I mean seriously crazy picture of what happens when you have record breaking rains at Snoqualmie Falls. Here is the before and the after pictures:

    Taken by Greg a couple years ago                                                Taken by the Seattle P-I

If you believe what some new stations are saying the combination of the record breaking snows and then rains from the Pineapple Express have resulted in Washington receiving the most precipitation ever. Can you say flush! Here are some pictures from Stephanie Zimmer's Facebook photo album. Now I know why the concert band director didn't make it in Thursday night. Both bridges to her town are trashed.

              The little bridge into Duvall                                                     The big bridge into Duvall

Click on the picture for the full size. I like the night lighting of the Falls picture which makes is more dramatic, kinda like putting a flash light under your chin pointing up when telling a ghost story at night.  :o)

On my list of music software to explore is Microsoft's Songsmith. The Seattle P-I covered it yesterday in a piece called Microsoft's Songsmith makes music using PC. This article includes a great video for those starting from scratch. It's kinda a reverse Karaoke. I'm gonna try it with my sax or clarinet.

There there is this one from the research group who came up with this new product. It's kinda cheesy and I wonder what musicians will do with this? I suspect the midi aspect of the songs will become old fast to the pros. But the kids, the kids are gonna luv this. Oh no, singing presentations have replaced Microsoft PowerPoint decks at work! Kill me now.  ;o)

Well one of the guys at work beat me to it (albeit with his voice and not an instrument). You can view his results on YouTube:

He sez, "This is a demo I made using a new software by Microsoft called Songsmith. It's pretty sweet! You basically click on the record button, start singing, and it figures out the correct chord structure for your song. Just about anyone could make music with Songsmith..."

Isn't technology amazing. My kids are gonna luv this. There is no science fiction anymore. It's all becoming reality. Still I'm waiting for my teleporter. ;o)

I have been looking for a great and free resource to help me manage my various bands. I think I have found one that is good enough to recommend to my friends. It is the Windows Live Group platform and it looks like this:

First a disclaimer, I work for the company so I *might* be biased. But I have tried other sites and this one being tested by my group the Dissonance, a jazz xTet is very painless to use. Also, I already have a Hotmail and Windows Live ID. So does everyone in the group. But many of them are using other email aliases for this group.

Setup: This was accomplished through some forms. Very few inputs were mandatory. So far, I haven't found anything that couldn't be changed. The result is one page with everything you need to know. And the site is private, members only.

Invites: This was as simple as selecting the members emails from some of my various address books. The first person to accept was about 10 minutes after I sent the invite. Other sites had problems where some people couldn't access the site even after they'd been invited and accepted. We saw none of those problems.

Calendar: Full Hotmail feature set here. I can set a recurring (every two weeks for this band) practice time and add gig dates. Very nice. I haven't tested how hard it is to transfer this calendar to other systems like the calendar in Microsoft Outlook.

Files: This group uses the Windows Live SkyDrive. I've dropped some arrangements in the folder, the band roster, the band music list, setlists, and WMA (audio) files to practice against.

Photos: I've moved some pictures here as an archive and to use on posters and for programs.

Conversations: I now have a stream of info coming from this site into my Windows Live stream. Discussions also automatically generate an email. So between the two systems I can be pretty responsive.

Messenger: I have a new category call Dissonance in my IM. But I haven't tested it yet.

I'm toying with move the Pacific Cascade Big Band to this format. But I want to hear what my band mates in the Dissonance think first as most of them are in both bands. And now I thinking of doing a group for my extended family so that I can keep up with those I care about.

To start the new year let's sing a song and pretend we are all together:

Be well family, friends, and coworkers.