ARCHIVES
A sketchbook for my return to ethnomusicology. Curious? Email me at hymnster(at)yahoo(*)com
Scrap pile
SEM
Monday, December 31, 2007
This blog is no more
It's gone to make it's maker...it's an ex-blog! In the end, ethnomusicology just was not worth the sacrifice of my family life. I'm keeping the blog up because there are some thoughts in here which are meaningful to me, but consider it to be mostly the writings of my cousin Earl, who was an ethnomusicologist, but is now peacefully pushing up the daisies...
Sunday, January 18, 2004
!Slow down and transcribe with Roni Music software - slow down the speed of music without changing the pitch
Back in the day, I used MicNotePad under Mac OS 9 to transcribe recorded interviews. Now I'd like to have an app to use under OS X. I think amazing SlowDowner is intended for learning riffs, but it should work equally well for transcribing interviews. Any others?
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Musicing about music
Lisa Rein, a musician and activist recently said:
"I believe that music is a good way to approach the emotional side of these controversial political issues. I believe that the cultural aspects of, for instance, copyright -- and the common man's loss of our history and heritage in exchange for big business to make more money on it's intellectual property -- are explained better through song."This relates to two things I've been thinking about. One of my previous professors mentioned that I might be a good one to "music about music." I'm still not sure what that meant, but I'm getting a little better idea after reading the quote above. The other is that I've chosen to teach Iran in a Music of Asia course because I hope to get into the "hot" issues through music, thus bypassing some of the presumptions and prejudices which can pop up if you address the same issues directly.
Friday, September 26, 2003
Proper grading scale
Grade inflation is a real concern at colleges. Grading is certainly subjective in the humanities and perhaps a more prose-oriented scale would be helpful. How about this:
A Outstanding, no flaws A- Excellent, few flaws B+ Very good B Good B- Fair C Poor D Unacceptable I don't see the need for shades of "C" in the humanities. That will only come out with numeric averaging. I hope to come up with some illustrations someday...
Monday, September 22, 2003
Sonic Analysis
I don't know if these are the best tools, but they exist. Loris is a library accessed through Python. (Finally an excuse to learn that language!) Lemur is a bit of a dinasaur, but it's easier to use. They are both available at this page at www.cerlsoundgroup.org.
UPDATE 0929: While Loris would be a good excuse for me to get all geeky coding, it may be that Lemur and Soundhack may be sufficient for me to get my work done. Or Loris may be a significant enough improvement in the accuracy of analysis over Lemur and SH that I SHOULD go with it. Who would know?
It's pricey, but it's there.
For $100/year (or $25/quarter) I can purchace a Harvard College Library Special Borrower Card. That's a lot of dough, but it would be worth it if I need to check books out and/or do reasearch in libraries other than the music library. Browsing the music library, however, is free!
Thursday, September 18, 2003
BBS-based Music communities
It's just something to look into. To get started, check the post in Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things.
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
The American Musical Instrument Society Home Page
The American Musical Instrument Society Home Page