I’m somewhat intrigued by this propagation of sound waves using (what looks like) an ordinary fan but is the TRW - 17 - The Worlds first True Subwoofer. The blades of the fan change pitch (attitude) which controls the frequency of the sound waves (as illustrated in the animated sequence) and the fan rotates at a constant speed.

• The Specifications for this VERY low note sound device is:
• Amplifier Requirement: 200 watts @ 8 ohms
• Impedance: 8 ohms 0Hz - 40Hz
• Frequency Response: 1Hz – 30Hz +/- 4dB
• Suggested Crossover: 20Hz @ 18dB/octave
• Sensitivity: 94dB 1 watt 1 meter @10Hz
• Maximum Acoustic Output: >115dB between 1 and 20Hz.
• Distortion: Typically 3% or less between 1 and 30Hz @90dB Warranty – 3 years parts and labor Patent Pending

To give you an idea of how low 1Hz - 30Hz is: the lowest note “A” on the piano is 27.5 Hz, or twenty seven and a half vibration per second.
> Note names, MIDI numbers and frequencies - University of New South Wales Music Acoustics
> TRW - 17 - The Worlds first True Subwoofer, Eminent Technology

Thanks to Chris who alerted me to this installation, the Telemegaphone, yes, that’s Tele (telephone) + Mega (big) + Phone (sound). We can dial +47 90 369389 and, thanks to Unsworn Industries our voice will be relayed by Solar Powered speakers to the remote Bergskletten mountain in Norway.
Please contact me with your explorations of this facility.

The Music Sack is a new internet resource offering a large database of people, books, bands, churches, pianists and theatres associated with music. This is a new web site and may deserve our support and contributions. I will have sort out the entry on John Wesley Barker as the listing is confusing several people of that name, besides myself and my dad, who has the same name.

Hooray! The International Music Score Library Project has reopened.

Welcome to the International Music Score Library Project! IMSLP attempts to create a virtual library containing all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music with the world without charge. You can read the full list of goals that IMSLP will try to achieve.IMSLP also encourages the exchange of musical ideas, both in the form of musical works, and in the analysis of existing ones. Therefore, feel free to create/edit a page with your analysis of a particular piece (please use the "Discussion" link on the work page of that particular piece)

While I was emerging as a musician in the early 70’s in Australia, the Young People’s Concerts written and presented by Leonard Bernstein were broadcast on television. I have not seen these until yesterday when I finally received the 9 DVD set released by Kultur® in the USA. Although somewhat grainy, mono and in black and white, the content of these programmes was, and remains, truly inspiring. I can’t recommend these concerts too highly.

Yesterday I completed the 2 day Digidesign Pro Tools 101 Certification Course and passed the exam, many thanks to Simon Hall, the trainer, at Birmingham Conservatoire and congratulations to my peers, Andy and Phil. The next level on the certification program is the 110 and I hope to do that course and exam soon.

Read More...

Another "free" music site offering downloads and streaming music as long as you can put up with the ads. WE7 supports unsigned artists and also runs competitions. The downloads are DRM (Digital Rights Management) free and some content can only be listened to online, unless you have a way of recording from your computer. I use Audio Hijack Pro.

While I was lecturing this year, the students and I started the blog, Sound and Multimedia which seems to have fizzled out of use now, and I also made this SWIKI search to incorporate, added here as a widget. You can add more criteria (in case you didn't know).

Grab this swicki from eurekster.com

Times like these I wish I could read Kanji, because these Korg Nano controllers look like fun for the MIDI and MAX/MSP/Jitter musician.
There's 3 controllers:

1. nanoKEY
2. nanoPAD
3. nanoKONTROL

You can order them to buy them when they arrive in October 2008 HERE at Digital Village and there's some information in English. There's a review over on Music Thing.

I've recently been exploring things Avant-Garde once again after many months of being somewhat conservative in my outlook. I think it's lecturing that's made me go straight, which is odd, don't you agree? You'd think I'd be radicalised by my students, but they seem so conservative these days, with some notable exceptions.

UbuWeb is a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts. All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s). UbuWeb is completely free.

Friend and lovely person - Gareth Jones, music producer, engineer and programmer is undergoing treatment for cancer and keeping a blog: A Journey With Cancer

The International Music Score Library Project was a repository of more than 15,000 musical scores that are in the public domain here in Canada. I was forced to close the site due to circumstance after receiving lawsuit threats from music publishers that do not want the public domain to exist. The immediate threat was from Universal Edition, a publisher in Austria. Whereas copyright in Canada lasts until 50 years after the author's death, copyright in Austria lasts 20 years longer. Universal Edition threatened to sue me, perhaps in Canada or perhaps in Austria, for violating Austrian law. There is no reason why Austrian law should apply to this site in Canada, but as a student I did not have the resources to resist even an absurd threat from a company with money to pay lawyers to attack music. from: imslp.wikidot.com

The IMSLP is hopefully going to be back online soon. Such an invaluable resource for music study.

Finally I am deleting all the content from my primary Madasafish server. There is much content that is old and out of date. I am however, backing it up to my desktop file system in case there are requests for content. E-mail me if you've searched for something here and not found it. It will be possible to retrieve from my Backups.

OK, it's not April Fools anymore, but while it was I had fun with this

BBC Breakfast 5th March 2008 Item on hearing loss, Pump Up The Volume with students from Birmingham Conservatoire Music Technology Course - 4'36"

I found one of our photos: Torrent Bay, taken in the Abel Tasman National Park being shown and appraised here

A life full of music


John Wesley Barker

A MAN who grew up in Alnwick and had numerous musical achievements in Australasia died this summer.
John Wesley Barker, who died suddenly in July, was brought up in a Methodist family in Alnwick, his first experience as an organist was in his father's church at the age of 14.

By the age of 21, he had been appointed organist and choir master at nearby Alnmouth Parish Church; had attended a Royal School of Church Music course in choir training, liturgiology and organ playing at Canterbury Cathedral; and had gained his Associate of the Royal College of Music in organ playing. In 1949, he won a scholarship to Hatfield College, University of Durham, and embarked upon a BA Honours degree course in music. It was during his time at Durham University that John became a devoted confirmed Anglican.

Following a move to Surrey, in 1961, he emigrated with his first wife and young son to Australia to become organist and choir master at St John's Church, Tamworth.

In 1965, he moved to Adelaide to do a BMus research degree in Musicology at the University of Adelaide.

He left Australia for New Zealand following his appointment as lecturer in musicology at the University of Otago in 1970.

After retiring in 1993, he completed supervision of his Masters and PhD students, and continued with research, publishing international papers until 2005. He was also appointed organist at St Joseph's Catholic Cathedral in Dunedin. However, it was not until 2002 when he moved to Nelson that his life-long ambition was fulfilled, becoming Director of Music at Christchurch Cathedral, Nelson.

His second wife Angela Pack said: "John Wesley Barker was a gentle, thoughtful, kind-hearted, generous, compassionate and modest man with much humility. He had strong integrity, was not afraid to uphold courageous principles and throughout his life was an ardent pacifist. He exhibited a quiet wit, and high intelligence. Throughout his 80 years he was a good and faithful servant of our Lord, who used his wonderful talent as a musician in his service to the very end."

He is survived by his wife, his son John C Wesley-Barker and his daughter Helen English.
Last Updated: 29 November 2007 10:59 AM

Red Bull Academy TUTORS - Martyn Ware kindly referred to our collaboration on Temptation at Air Studios in his seminar. I then had a few hits via their website. Hi to you all!