Jeremy Mates’s Blog

Rap is not a genre I have explored much, though THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST! is well worth $5: I’ve paid more for less interesting CD. Trent Reznor summarizes the experiment well:

I have to assume the people knowing about this project must either be primarily Saul or NIN fans, as there was very little media coverage outside our direct influence. If that assumption is correct - that most of the people that chose to download Saul's record came from his or my own fan-base - is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I'm not sure what I was expecting but that percentage - primarily from fans - seems disheartening.
Add to that: we spent too much (correction, I spent too much) making the record utilizing an A-list team and studio, Musicane fees, an old publishing deal, sample clearance fees, paying to give the record away (bandwidth costs), and nobody's getting rich off this project.
   — Source: nin.com

Technorati Tags: download spiral

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 20:22 | Permalink

• The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash. Mainly for a cover song, though all the tracks are nonpareil.

• Three Symphonies and Violin Concerto / Flute Concerto / Pilgrims, composed by Ned Rorem. Similar to work by Hovhaness. Excellent, and none too experimental like other modern classical composers.

• Song to Fly and 23 Ji No Ongaku by Yoko Kanno. Good, though does not reach the heights of Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell, and Cowboy BeBop.

Technorati Tags: classical

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 17:54 | Permalink

Eclectic Music Explorer is a representative selection of my favorite music. Mainly to find other interesting music lists to explore…

Recent finds: Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 22 ("City of Light"); Cello Concerto was an excellent and inexpensive introduction to Alan Hovhaness. Also, more Ligeti and more Rochberg. These composers are difficult to preview online, as streaming sites have spotty catalogs, and brief samplers do no justice.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 21:33 | Permalink

Too late for Talk Like A Pirate Day, Amazon recently unleased their MP3 store, as well covered by Ars Technica:

There are a few restrictions. One of the biggest is that there's no redownloading of tracks; you'd better make a backup, because if you lose a song, you'll have to purchase it again to get another copy.

Spotty selection, especially in the esoteric (and not so esoteric) classical section, though much of that has to do with music labels refusing MP3 sales. Went on a mostly Beethoven spree, having somehow never added the Diabelli Variations nor Missa Solemnis to my collection.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 03:10 | Permalink

Now greatly enjoy Beethoven’s Große Fuge. Several years ago, rated an Alban Berg Quartet rendition as average. Did same for the Emerson String Quartet playing. Alex Ross’s Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge by way of Wikipedia lead me to the superb Takács Quartet rendition (available on Rhapsody for those on a shoestring budget).

Works by Ligeti and Rochberg perhaps improved my estimation of the Große Fuge. However! Now must relearn the Quartets and the different renditions…

Technorati Tags: fugue

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 07:40 | Permalink

• Winning Chess Tactics (revised) is a good introduction to Chess tactics, though a few diagrams have mistakes, which makes learning difficult.

• Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960: Usable Strategies of Fischer Random Chess Discovered covers Chess960 in great detail. Includes easy (and unbiased!) methods for board setup, rules for notation, castling, and methods to reduce the advantage of White starting. Most interesting is the discussion of various layouts with regard to 2nd rank pawn support (or lack thereof), 4th rank pawn support, how the Knights interact, and other considerations Chess960 requires.

• 乱 [Ran] sets King Lear (more or less) in Feudal Japan: incredibly well done. Been working through works by Akira Kurosawa via Netflix. Netflix very handy, with the nearest movie store being of limited selection, and the rest a fair ways away (and uphill) from me.

• Mstislav Rostropovich: Cello Concertos collects concerto and encore recordings from the 1950s. Some tracks suffer from a slight background hiss, though nonetheless excellent and enjoyable music throughout.

Technorati Tags: cello

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 01:36 | Permalink

• Inquisition Symphony is an excellent rendition of Metallica and other bands on cello. Apocalyptica produces amazing tones from their instruments that reproduce what one normally expects only from a distorted guitar.

• Also grabbed Pianotarium. Very different tone than Metallica, as played on a Piano, though songs transcribed well. Liked the same Metallica songs I rate higher (Fade to Black, Master Of Puppets, Nothing Else Matters, One). Use for subversive “classical” piano music playing in the background.

Most tribute band material at best only for streaming over Rhapsody rather than CD purchase…

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 05:57 | Permalink

Discovered Solo Piano by Philip Glass after following a Valley of Darkness tip on wikipedia. Reminds me of work by Eric Satie, but different. Less enthused by the chaotic György Ligeti String Quartets and Duets, especially compared with the Rochberg String Quartets.

Technorati Tags: composers

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 20:42 | Permalink

Greatly enjoy the Rochberg String Quartets Nos. 3-6, especially the variations on Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The opening of Quartet No. 3 and other parts took some getting used to, given my preference for older forms of classical music.

The music also brings to mind work by György Ligeti and the film 天使のたまご (Angel’s Egg).

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 03:36 | Permalink

The Rhapsody website player now sports a shuffle (and repeat) button. Yay! Random new band I like thanks to a tip from a Rhapsody sysadmin: Explosions In The Sky.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 07:26 | Permalink

Highly recommend Daniel J. Levitin’s This Is Your Brain on Music. Picked up copy after attending an Amazon Fishbowl lecture on the book: great talk, entertaining speaker.

Interesting trivia: the Catholic Church at some point banned polyphonic music (two voices somehow challenge the unity of God) and augmented fifths (C to F♯ or a tritone or Diabolus in musica). However, the 6% increase in frequency between each semitone of the Western music system makes any sequence such as C-C♯-B-B♯ represent three sixes of change. Diabolus in musica, indeed.

Music by Bach delightfully polyphonic, so will have to research the bans in more detail. Some searching turns up the motu proprio by Pope Pius X on Sacred Music.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 00:42 | Permalink

Four excellent recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations:

• Bach: Goldberg Variationen with Pierre Hantaï, Harpsichord. My favorite of the bunch, better than the excellent piano interpretations and chamber orchestra.

• Bach: Goldberg Variations by Murray Perahia, Piano.

• Bach: Goldberg Variations by Tatiana Nikolayeva, Piano.

• Bach: Goldberg Variations performed by the NES Chamber Orchestra with Henry Grossman.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 03:11 | Permalink

I played music by all these composers on the piano. Could play the piano well, but never figured out sight reading, so learning new works took months of memorization.

• Bach.
• Beethoven. Amazing piano sonatas: the Complete Piano Sonatas by Alfred Brendel, or Piano Sonatas Nos. 14, 8 & 23 by Rudolf Serkin.
• Claude Debussy.
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk.
• Scott Joplin.
• Rachmaninoff. Consider Simon Trpceski Plays Rachmaninoff.

By and large do not like Chopin: too flashy, not enough substance, even in the excellent Piano Sonata No. 2. Similar mixed feelings about Mozart.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 10:10 | Permalink

• Beaux Arts Trio. Did not like Shostakovich until heard Piano Trio No. 2 played live by the Beaux Arts Trio. For starters, consider A 50 Year Celebration in Music.
• Emerson String Quartet. Particularily enjoy Bach: The Art of Fugue.
• Miró Quartet.

If at all possible, hear string quartets in concert, and sit close to the stage.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 11:21 | Permalink

Music purchased due to Rhapsody thick client use late 2005 through mid 2006. Cannot use Rhapsody now that I am at Amazon, as prefer the thick client, which requires Windows, which I do not run at home. Also, I buy the actual music, not Digitally Restricted Music (DRM) audio. Rhapsody is great for streaming and finding new music, though one should start with a lossless source, and skip the DRM shackles. Disclaimer: I used to work for RealNetworks.

By way of background, my music tastes run from Bach through bebop to bizarre by way of metal, notably minus certain genres.

• Coming on Strong by Hot Chip. Probably found as a new release under some genre or another.
• Flyleaf’s self-titled album.
• Wholeness and Separation by Halou. Found via some “you might like this” link based on who knows what I was streaming at the time.
• Ok Go. Actually found band following NPR coverage, though Rhapsody great for full length streaming while decide whether or not to buy. Excellent upbeat music for coding.
• 1909 by Scrabbel. Recommended by coworker. Great eccentric band.
• We Shall Overcome by Bruce Springsteen. Found in new releases listing.
• First We Waited Then It Started by Summer Lawns.

Three kinds of music: bad, stream only, or buy. Despise radio, as they either yammer, or worse, put on advertisements. A directed streaming service like Rhapsody lets you control what gets streamed (exactly via playlist, or roughly via radio options), and listen long enough to decide whether to buy or not.

Some online services sell music unencumbered by DRM, though the library sizes and samples did not suit me when I looked at them.

Posted by Jeremy Mates at 07:36 | Permalink