Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on March 19, 2012 at 2:33am

I've always considered the presence of chord symbols over notated music to be a Rosetta Stone, that reveals at a glance the structure of the music (not to mention making it possible for guitars).  If I lean my thoughts towards the chord symbols, then I'm a little freer to improvise or adjust the way I do the music, to fit with the other instruments.

There are essentially two ways to learn the cool stuff in music.  One is to pick up ideas from music with notes; the other is to listen to others play, and let your head absorb the ideas. 

But yes, when I first worked with a worship band that didn't read at all, I was wildly frustrated.  They seemed perfectly happy to play the song over and over and over and over and over and over and over until it was finally perforated into their brains.  But they did have a certain advantage from this force-feeding.  By the time two rehearsals were done, they have the song memorized, which can be better than good but lazy sight-readers who think they have the song "learned" just because they played the notes the first time.

Permalink Reply by Stevo on March 16, 2012 at 10:22pm

Aw, stop bragging. You're not the only guy who has those extra strings on his guitar...

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 4, 2012 at 2:43am

Nice - I like the old school vibe. I played my Guild Starfire through a compressor and EQ into my amp this past Sunday. No echo, no reverb, no overdrive. Just my amp. Sounded excellent.

But if you think of an iPad as just an email reader, or just a book reader, or just a Bible study tool, or just a music stand, or just a multi-track recording unit, (replacing one that costs $400), or just a songwriting tool, or just an internet connection, or just a unit converter, or just a tuner, (yes, I spent 9.99 for a Peterson tuner in my iphone and it's better than most everything out there including a Peterson pedal that costs $200+), or just a street location tool, or just a contacts database, or just a calculator, or just a song identifier, or just an ipod, or just song trainer, or just a tool to locate your teenager, or just a tool to schedule our TV recordings - if you think if it as only one thing, it's not worth the money. But I actually use my iPhone for all of the above. It's a very functional and invaluable tool. Of all the tools I can own, it's my number one.

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 4, 2012 at 11:58am

Fascinating. What kind of work do you do? (And bummer about the drop in income. Bravo for counting it in terms of ES335s.)

My workplace is just the opposite - we have two appliances supplied to us (computer and phone) and most folks make with a cell phone (iPhone) and / or iPad. These devices usually go to meetings with the user like a dog in tow (who's towing who?) and are accessed periodically throughout a meeting. It's really odd that before the Blackberry, we all waited to get back to our desks to answer emails. Now we feel that it's necessary to answer in real time. Although it is nice to have your phone ready for when an important call comes in.

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 4, 2012 at 2:07pm

So you don't have a computer at your work space?

It's been a while since I used a slide rule. I usually remind people that slide rules were the rule at one time and we still built quite a manufacturing concern with them.

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on April 4, 2012 at 5:32pm

We watched Apollo 13 (both the Tom Hanks version and the real one where Houston NASA was filled with cigarette smoke).  We sat in awe, seeing people carrying slide rules, and realizing they put a man on the moon using those things for computers.  They came in handy in chemistry class, since the weights they gave us to measure solutions were unequal.  We could fudge the slide a little this way or that and get the answer to come out proper, something you can't do on a computer.  Plus, the beauty of the logarithmic scale, the hash marks getting closer and closer to infinity!  Beats an abacus all hollow.

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 4, 2012 at 8:23pm

So there were computers back then and there was a computer on board etc. I just don't know what they did and to what extent. Heck, I was using a slide rule in 1978. In 1977, we had a computer class in school that had punch cards.

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on April 4, 2012 at 9:45pm

Did any of you have open registration in your school?  At UC Santa Barbara the office gave up on trying to satisfy everyone registering for classes, and had a huge open market in the gym, where we physically got punch cards for whatever class we wanted.  So people were waving those things in the air, shouting "I need a Psych 101 -- does anyone want Botany 3 with Miller -- anybody!!!" 

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 5, 2012 at 12:04am

It wasn't quite like that - but we had to fill out punch cards and hand them through a curtain and then they would call out our names when it was read. We would go pick up a text/dot matrix printout with our schedule on it. And I still have dreams that I've skipped a class all semester and I have a final coming up. Or I have a dream that I can't remember where the class is and I can't find that dot matrix schedule.

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on April 5, 2012 at 5:16am

@ Stevo.  What sort of rituals were they doing behind that curtain?

Permalink Reply by Stevo on April 5, 2012 at 11:18am

Running the VAX and it's army of printers. Thy brought in some amount of a VAX and stationed in this room just for registration. I guess you could extend them with modems back then, so they probably modemed to the central computer. Gosh, I hope that's what they were doing.

Or it was something like the Wizard of Oz. Turns out, when you pealed back the curtain, he was kind of a wimp.

Permalink Reply by Toni on April 4, 2012 at 12:36pm

I wonder how many of these things get bought and then the purchasers starts trying to find uses to justify the purchase?

TBH I somewhat wish I could walk away from computers and related gadgets, even though they are a hobby and an area of great interest. Life was less distracted, and required less self-control when things weren't there to entice one to stay up late or play unproductively. As for reacting to iPads, the more I learn about modern IT hardware manufacturing the less happy I am about owning anything made for Apple (and a number of other large computer corps).

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