Quote of the Day
It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
- Dizzy Gillespie
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Quote of the Day
A Jazz Thing
So, I have been reading and researching a lot about Jazz lately, and I have been absolutely facinated with the brilliance of the minds of many of the jazz artists we know and love primarily from name only. I mean we have the album A Love Supreme, but we wouldn't know a flatted fifth from a G7, or an Eric Dolphy solo from a John Coltrane one. I used to think jazz was all about feeling and emotion, but I have come to learn that these great artists are able to express their innermost being so well because of the highest level of musical training, a rigorous practice regiment, and a highly creative mind bent on coming up with solutions to problems they have with self-expressions. For example, Charlie Parker has so much to say but the prevalent model for improvising limits his ability to express Himself. So, he devises a way to improvise based on the chordal structure of the composition instead of basing the solo on the melody. He comes about this discovery because of his knowledge, music training, and his intellectual curiously. He is able to pull off the performance of this ideas because of his musical training and incredible work ethic. The manifestation of all these elements into a solo is an incredible expression of the being of Charlie Parker, and we, the hearer, experienc the deep emotion in his expression without understanding all that is behind it. Thats that Jazz. Check out youtube for all kinds of videos of footage of vintage jazz performances and documentaries on Jazz. Here's couple samples:
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Friday, January 11, 2008
I am a winner!
I am a winner !
I can't even believe it, somebody pinch me because I think I am dreaming. See, I never win anything, when I sign up for contests, donate to charity drawings I never win anything. Well, things change. Okay, so I am a member of facebook the social networking site, I hear through either mashable or digg that the new smartpen Livescribe, which I have heralded here at thehallelreport, has started a group on facebook and is running a contest. The contest states that they are going to pick two people from their facebook group everyday to get a new Livescribe pen until its official release on January 28,2008. All you have to do is sign up for their group on facebook
to be elligible. So, of course I go over to their facebook group
to take a shot at a free smartpen, whichl I argue is the coolest of the utilitarian gadgets to come out since the tablet pc (maybe because I am into writing and am fascinated with digital ink). Anyway, I get this message from facebook that some unknown cat wants me to add him as a facebook friend. Like I normally do when I get an anonymous, random, friend request I click the person's name and go to their profile page and check them out to see how we might be connected. Nothing, I don t know this guy, could have never have known this guy, different political views, different coasts, different career paths, not one friend in common. I am thinking, ''who is this guy?" When I go back to my profile page I see I have one message in my inbox, which was distinct from the friend request. And there it was a gorgeous message from the same guy who requested to be my friend stating that I was one of the winners of a Livescribe smartpen. Oh yeah, I am a winner baby. So now I only I have to buy one pen (when I was going to buy two one for me and one for my wife who is in school and will really be able to use one of these pens). I am so excited, I can't wait till the 28th to get my pen. You can bet I am going to be blogging with it, I think it is going increase the number of ink bloggers by a couple of orders of magnitude, its supposed to have this easy blogging feature. I am already getting used to blogging with a digital/smart pen. lately I have been blogging exclusively with my Logitech Io2 pen. The Io2 can't hold the Livescribe pen's jockstrap (metaphorically speaking) if it lives up to all the hype, and does what they claim it will do. In the meantime, I am just counting the days till I get one of the hottest new gadgets to hit the market, and free!
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