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Blog - John Wesley Barker | Composer, Musician, Teacher & Lecturer

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Songsmith

The Microsoft Research Songsmith site proclaims, “Everyone has a song inside...” and releases an application called Songsmith to enable these songs to be made and heard. It’s only natural to compare this with GarageBand, the iLife application for Mac OSX, but, as ever, when we compare Apple and Microsoft, it’s not a like for like comparison. Songsmith seems to have a very linear workflow. The user picks a style and can modify this with a slider for mood and a drum groove starts, Songsmith then ‘listens’ to the user singing and guesses a ‘harmonisation’ of the impromptu melody. It has to been seen and heard to be believed. Personally, I think it’s simply awful and wholly uninformed from a musical perspective, BUT, if it does help people gain access to music making then that’s surely a good thing.
January 23rd Update: Some amusing results are now posted on YouTube - use this search
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Telemegaphone


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.
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U B U W E B

UBUWEBI'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.

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Pump Up The Volume At Your Peril

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


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Northumberland Gazette

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
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Martyn Ware at the Red Bull Academy


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!
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Twitter Facebook FriendFeed Blogspot Apple Discussions
AudioBoo YouTube GMail SoundCloud Last.fm
Delicious Linkedin Flickr Photobucket
Tumblr Evernote Prince.org Stumbleupon TwitPic
submit to reddit Version Tracker Picassa Google Maps eBay
Sibelius Music Notation TrailGuru ReverbNation Discogs Scribd
Wakoopa Xing Brightkite MacIdol MusicTeachers.co.uk
POSTEROUS SKRIBIT CLEARSPRING BERLIN PHILHARMONIKER CLUSTERSHOT
Identi.ca Google Wave School Of Everything WeFollow My Amazon Wish List
Kompoz Stage Jobs Pro Indaba Music Blip.fm MyOpenID
On Music MXP4 GoodReads Box.net Shooting People
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