One of my photos (see right) has been shortlisted for the 2nd Edition Birmingham Schmap Guide to be published in December 2007.

Hi John, I am writing to let you know that one of your photos with a Creative Commons license has been short-listed for inclusion in the fourth edition of our Schmap Birmingham Guide, to be published late December 2007. www.schmap.com/shortlist/p=85158235N00/c=SF1007252 Clicking this link will take you to a page where you can: i) See which of your photos has been short-listed. ii) Submit or withdraw your photo from our final selection phase. iii) Learn how we credit photos in our Schmap Guides. iv) Browse online or download the second edition of our Schmap Birmingham Guide. Our submission deadline is Sunday, December 16. If you happen to be reading this message after this date, please still click on the link above (our Schmap Guides are updated frequently - photos submitted after this deadline will be considered for later releases). Best regards, Emma Williams, Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:29:37 +0100
From: Stockhausen-Stiftung
Subject: Stockhausen Farewell / IMPORTANT PRESS RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away on December 5th 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and will be buried in the Waldfriedhof (forest cemetery) in Kuerten.

He composed 362 individually performable works. The works which were composed until 1969 are published by Universal Edition in Vienna, and all works since then are published by the Stockhausen-Verlag. Numerous texts by Stockhausen and about his works have been published by the Stockhausen Foundation for Music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer, who have performed many of his works and, together with him, have taken care of the scores, compact discs, books, films, flowers, shrubs, and trees will continue to disseminate his work throughout the world, as prescribed in the statutes of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, of which they are executive board members.

Stockhausen always said that GOD gave birth to him and calls him home.

****

Šfor love is stronger than death.

IN FRIENDSHIP and gratitude for everything that he has given to us personally and to humanity through his love and his music, we bid FAREWELL to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to GOD and GOD may hear His children.

On December 5th he ascended with JOY through HEAVEN'S DOOR, in order to continue to compose in PARADISE with COSMIC PULSES in eternal
HARMONY, as he had always hoped to do: You, who summon me to Heaven, Eva, Mikael and Maria, let me eternally compose music for Heaven's Father-Mother, GOD creator of Cosmic Music.

May Saint Michael, together with Heaven's musicians in ANGEL PROCESSIONS and INVISIBLE CHOIRS welcome him with a fitting musical GREETING.

On behalf of him and following his example, we will endeavor to continue to protect the music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer in the name of the world-wide family of musicians who love him, together with everyone who loves his music.

****

On Thursday, December 13th 2007, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. it will be possible to personally say farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen in the chapel of the Waldfriedhof in Kuerten (Kastanienstrasse).

A commemorative concert will take place soon at the Sülztalhalle in Kuerten. Programme, time and date will be specially announced.
Memorial Booklet

The history the 'break beat', the Amen break created by maxpounder, thank you!

flickr is a great way to organise and share photos. Then once in a blue moon, web designers use my photos on their sites under licence. Here's some I've found through search engines and those resulting from the web authors contacting me for permission. I prefer the latter approach, it's polite.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

If you find anymore, click here to let me know. Ta.

My father John Wesley Barker was born on the 11th May 1927 and died on the 25th July 2007, his Mother's birthday and the Feast of St James The Apostle. He was Music Director of Christchurch Cathedral in Nelson, New Zealand.
Today I listened to a cassette recording of the Funeral and read the letter he wrote to me a few hours before he died. He developed an Acute Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm on 5th November 2004. He defied all the odds, and survived until its rupture, over 2.5 years later..
Donations to be sent to Health Research Council of NZ, "Barker Fund" for Vascular Research, PO Box 5541, Wellesley Street, Auckland, New Zealand.


My Tribute read at the funeral in Christchurch Cathedral, Nelson, by my brother-in-law Kemp English
As I write this from the Isle Of Arran on the west coast of Scotland, the other side of the world from Nelson in New Zealand, the size of this world cannot diminish the immense sorrow I feel on the loss of my Dad, nor diminish the love and respect in which I hold him now and will do so forever. He was funny, quirky, quite a character; definitely 'his own man'. But, most of all, a musician, dedicating his life to worship, through music of the highest standard and deepest devotion. We spent a wonderful time with Dad, Angela, Helen, Kemp and friends last Christmas and it will remain forever, a precious time we will never forget. We intend to return this Christmas to be a family once more. We will miss him. We will remember him. Wherever we are in this world, we will, today, celebrate his life. A wonderful person: my Dad.
'Toast Is Toast!' Johnny

Yesterday, the 20th July, we had a flood here at Stoke Wharf, as did many other parts of the country. I got home, just, having threaded my way back from Telford through flooded country lanes, often having to turn around and seeking an alternative route.

The Worcester & Birmingham canal overflowed at Stoke Bottom Lock where the water drained away through the canal cottages onto the Hanbury Road and into the car park of Metal & Ores (pictured). The road was blocked for some hours, some people got lifts on tractors over the water to continue their journey on foot.

More photos...

Excerpt about electricity pylons from BBC R4's PM

Programme: BBC Radio 4 PM
Presenter: Eddie Mair
Guest: Bill Bryson
Duration: 58"
Date: 9th July 2007

This evening on BBC Radio 4's PM programme presented by Eddie Mair, Bill Bryson made some comments about electricity pylons to which I felt I should offer a reply.

May I put in a word for the pylons. They are, in my view, beautiful. - my e-mail sent 17:47:40 BDT

I later added more of my views on the PM - blog

Matthew sent me the link to this amazing tabletop synthesizer.

The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

From: http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable

No One Driving - TOTP
No longer embedded, sorry.
Click on the still above to start video.

I'm currently checking out Webwag which serves content from the web to my mobile phone, a Motorola V3x.

Have a look at the Webwag Blog It has the feel of iPhone applications but without the interface or design.
Webwag displays widgets on the phone and synchronises them:

• clock
• weather
• Flickr
• RSS feeds
• Gmail

The synchronisation can be set to every half-hour but no more often. The display is full resolution.

From today it is now possible to purchase my music from this website using Google Checkout The first items are the sheet music for the three Transit Of Venus pieces for flute(s)

• Transit Of Venus 1 study for flute
• Transit Of Venus 2 for flute duet
• Transit Of Venus 3 for 2 solo flutes and flute choir (piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 alto flutes and bass flute)

Go to the Catalogue section.

I live in the countryside not far from the major industrial conurbation of Birmingham and surrounded by major infrastructure M5, M42 and A38. Still, my BT Broadband is slow! Thanks to a great BT Engineer, half-an-hour ago, my BT line was reconnected. The local wiring was old and finally fell over on Monday when I lodged a complaint. I was advised by the Helpline to change my ADSL Filter. I knew the moment the advisor offered this help that she was probably wrong. What's been happening since I was connected a couple of months ago, is that the connection kept dropping out. This got unbearable by last Monday, when I finally had enough time to phone and complain. It took over an hour to get the wrong advise. I plugged the modem directly into the phone line to see if it was the filter at fault. Nothing happened. I unplugged the modem and then the phone didn't work. The line was dead. The BT Engineer which has just left told me that the local distribution box in the room next door was in a bit of a mess. He rewired it and now (touch wood) I back online. All problems will now be logged here in case I need to report faults again in the future.

Thanks to MaJiKer, the Paris based record producer, composer and artist from Birmingham, has sent me a preview download of his new solo (with guests) album - Body-Piano-Machine BPM.

I've been listening to it all afternoon today. On my 5th listening as I write and no doubt I will be listening many more times. BPM is very witty, inventive, poppy, entertaining and very moving. As the title suggests, the sound canvas is derived from sounds made by the body, the piano and the machine.

Guests include:

• Indi Kaur
• Camille (who's best selling and award winning album Le Fil, MaJiKer produced),
• Maya Barsony,
• Heather Juno,
• China Moses,
• Benedicte Le Lay,
• Rosa Rebecka
• and many more...

It's also likely he will have a deal for it's release soon and be taking his solo concert on tour. So watch this space, in the meantime, to hear it for yourself, visit www.myspace.com/majiker and listen.

MaJiKer, AKA Matthew Ker was a pupil of Birmingham Schools Wind Orchestra when I was the conductor, then Matthew and I started Birmingham Young Composers with an Arts4Express grant. I am privileged now to see him flourish and make a successful and rewarding profession in music.

For those of you who are involved in Music Education, pupils and teachers, I urge you to visit and use SoundJunction

The SoundJunction website's all about music. You can take music apart and find out how it works, create music yourself, find out how other people make music and how they perform it, you can find out about musical instruments, and look at the backgrounds to different musical styles.

Check out the New Tool for making music.

SoundJunction is an initiative of the ABRSM and has received a BETT award for Digital Content at Secondary Level.

Read More...