News

MySpace commits musical suicide

According to the BBC: 

 MySpace, one of the first online social networks, has apologised after a server migration caused a huge loss of data.

A message on its website says that "any photos, videos and audio files" uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available.

There had been complaints going back several months that links to music were no longer working.

Another reason why we shouldn’t be so eager to build houses on an unsteady foundations.

A perspective on vinyl record engagement

The trend is no longer a trend: Vinyl is back and it’s not going anywhere. And, the entire record store business breathes a collective sigh of relief! 

Apart from the obvious benefits, ie better sound and larger artwork to name two, there is one perspective that I’d like to add: Engagement. Owning a record player forces us to be one with our music collection, handling records, caring for them, and flipping them when we’re done with a side. 

When we engage with anything, we care for it more. I enjoy the music of the records I have, therefore I happily give them my involvement. I expect I’ll get a little closer to the soul of each record with each listen because of that. 

The death of idea generating places?

Here’s a quote from Alan Fletcher’s book “The Art of Looking Sideways”: 

 Ivan Chermayeff does much of his thinking in taxies, Lon Dorfsman on planes, Steve Guarnaccia on the subway. Designers also talk of getting ideas when they are on the sleep borderland...”

Challenge: Can you successfully not pick up your smart phone in a taxi, on a plane, on the subway, or in that sweet transition from sleep to wakefulness? Can you do this in the service of idea generation? 

The War

In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield describes the ways in which we doggedly resist being creative. He sees resistance as the biggest hurdle to overcome in living a creative life. It’s my understanding that I must intentionally engage with a free act of creativity everyday, beyond judgement, blame, fear of negative consequences, without expectation of either reward or result.

In other words, I don’t care if I win or lose. 

D WComment
Re: Scoring

A page of score sounds twice as elaborate as it looks.

George Frederick McKay

 

D WComment