Five years later a “new” French Horns recording

 

In 2005 I wrote a vocal melody and lyrics on top of a blissy keyboard instrumental by Slavagoh. I really liked the repeating three chord progression and had planned to incorporate his recording into the French Horns demo, but decided to keep it minimal.

I kinda had always regretted that, so five years later I managed to glue those recordings together:

[audio:http://mrclay.org/mp3s/Surest%20Things_untitled%20bliss.mp3|titles=Surest Things – The French Horns & Slavagoh]

screenshot of Audition mixing session Both recordings were almost the same tempo, but the Slavagoh recording was about a semitone lower in key. After nudging his recording into the same key and time-stretching (thankfully both were recorded to drum machines), there were still some beat mismatches on the ends to deal with. Eventually I ended up with three instances of “untitled bliss” spliced in because I really liked how its ending had this smoother sound and how that part mixed with earlier parts of the track.

My demo was also bass-heavy, too dark in the vocal range, and overly punchy on some beats, so I did a bunch of surgical volume cuts and EQ on my track before mixing.

Wins: Extended the end of the track a bit by having the “guitar solo” twice. Worked hard on the fades at the beginning and end so the track starts and finishes with just the Slavagoh track.

Losses: Not remixing my recording from scratch to remove that annoying click track. Not using some of the violin tracks laying around from an older mix session. Not saving the session used to master it.

If you’re not patient, it’s easy to mix down and then immediately start mastering the resulting WAV file without keeping track of the changes you’re making. When you do this, there’s no way to duplicate that process in case you need to change something in the mixing session. I kinda did this on purpose though; after 5 years of sitting around I wanted to get this recording to “good enough” and move on. There’s a lot more piled up that needs working on.

Maria Napoleon “Think of Rain”

 

Louis Philippe and Maria Napoleon put together a fine version of one of my favorite tunes. I usually don’t like covers that mess with the melody, but at the end of the choruses I really love how the vocal playfully jumps to what a high harmony might sing, if Margo Guryan had written one in. I’ll have to check out the compilation this is on, “Simultaneous Ice Cream“.

StackExchange folks, KeyMinor already exists

 

Why is there a StackExchange proposal in the works for a “Musical Practice and Performance site” when KeyMinor already exists on the SE platform?

The proposed site is “for people who play musical instruments. On-topic questions will be about technique, practice, theory, composition, and repertoire.” KeyMinor already serves this purpose, it’s just not known about.

I’d add a comment to the proposal but I see no way to; I probably don’t have sufficient reputation points.

Why the Pernice Brothers Don’t Tour

 

From “Will he/they tour?“:

JP: We make any money if we tour for two weeks?

JL: You mean ten days, if rehearsals are included.

JP: Yes.

JL: No.

JP: Well then why would we do it?

RM: Because Menck wants to rock.

JL: Theoretically, the tour is just one piece of the things you do if you want to sell records.

JP: We don’t sell enough records at shows to justify that. Especially if YOU work the merch table, because people are scared of you.

JL: Theoretically, it’s not just the stuff you sell at the show, it’s the review that you get in the local paper, the placement you get in the local record store, none of which happens if you don’t play a show in that city.

JP: So you think we should tour?

JL: The extent of the fuck I do not give about whether you tour can’t really be measured.

RM: Doesn’t anyone care that Menck just wants to rock?

PHP UTF-8 string class

 

A couple years ago I put together a class for UTF-8 strings, kind of a smart wrapper around Harry Fuecks’s phputf8 string functions. All Utf8String objects—if I’m not missing bugs!—are guaranteed to house valid UTF-8 strings. The factory, make(), enforces UTF-8 validity, stripping non-UTF-8 bytes (default) or replacing them with Utf8String::$replacement (? by default).

$str = Utf8String::make('āll īs & ōk');

All the major string functions are methods with similar signatures (dropping the input string argument). Since native string assignment is always a copy, I felt all Utf8String objects should be immutable to avoid accidental referencing. After the following line, $str actually points to a fresh Utf8String object:

$str = $str->ucwords(); // Āll Īs & Ōk

Of course this means they’re chainable:

$str = $str->strtolower()->toAscii(); // all is & ok

Casting to string does what you’d think:

echo $str; // out come UTF-8 bytes.

Checking for UTF-8/ASCII-ness can be slow, so methods that create new objects propagate this info into the constructor so the new objects don’t have to check again. The constructor is private to avoid misuse of those arguments. I also threw in some convenience methods:

// input() returns false if $_POST['msg'] isn't present
if ($msg = Utf8String::input($_POST, 'msg')) {
    echo $msg->_; // escape with htmlspecialchars
}

In theory a framework could use a class like this to force safer string handling throughout:

function handleStrings(Utf8String $input) { /**/ }

It’s a proof-of-concept anyway (it’s missing preg_* methods and a lot of other stuff), but if the API could be ironed out, someone could make it into a proper C extension.

Research Chain E-mails in 30 Seconds

 

A friend or family member has just forwarded you a wonderful piece of propaganda: It’s filled with inflammatory bare assertions, stirring anecdotes, and a dare to pass it on to everyone you know! And no sources.

1. Find a phrase in the message that’s a) unlikely to appear in anything else on the web, and b) contains minimal or no punctuation.

Bad: “Really important!!! Will take thirty seconds to read+-+-+Aren’t you mad!?!?”

Good: “Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term”

2. Search for the phrase without surrounding quotes.

3. Look for results on sites with names like: Snopes, Urban Legends, Politifact, Truth or Fiction, Hoax Busters, etc.

4. If you can’t find any page debunking your forward, search again with quotes around it, try another phrase, or add “hoax” or “myth” to the search. E.g. the next phrase in the e-mail with “myth” added returns the same top three results, all to myth-busting sites.

If you still can’t find anything, you have scientifically proven the forward to be 100% true! If the message confirms your preexisting beliefs, it must be true.

Chords: The Flaming Lips “All We Have is Now”

 

[Song on YouTube] All the tabs I could find were crap, so I wrote up a guitar arrangement. The inverted voicings in the choruses made it tough to figure out, but capoing the 2nd fret gets it pretty close.

Capo 2nd fret. / = 1/4 note

V1)
  A    3-5-5-4-3-x  (2 bars) As logic stands you couldn't meet a man who's from the
  G#m  2-4-4-2-2-x  (2 bars) future.
  A    3-5-5-4-3-x  (2 bars) But logic broke as he appeared he spoke about the
  G#m  2-4-4-2-2-x  (2 bars) future.
  B    5-7-7-6-5-x  (1 bar)  "We're not gonna
  A    3-5-5-4-3-x  (1 bar)  make it."
  B    5-7-7-6-5-x  (1 bar)  He explained how the
  A    3-5-5-4-3-x  (1 bar)  end will come.
  A    3-5-5-4-3-x  (2 bars) You and me were never meant to be part of the
  G#m  2-4-4-2-2-x  (1 bar)  future.
  B          x-0-7-6-5-x  / /
  Bsus4add9  x-0-x-4-3-x  /
  Bmaj7      x-0-6-6-5-x  /

C)
  Amaj7      3-2-0-0-0-2  (1 bar)     All we
  Dmaj7/F#   0-3-2-0-0-0  (1 bar)  have     is
  C#m7/G#    2-2-4-2-3-2  (1 bar)  now.
  F#7sus4    0-x-2-2-3-x  / /
  F#         0-x-2-1-0-0  / /

  All we've ever had is now.
  All we have is now.

  Amaj7      3-2-0-0-0-2  (1 bar)    All we've
  Dmaj7/F#   0-3-2-0-0-0  (1 bar)  ever had     i-
  G#m7       2-4-2-2-2-2  (2 bars) is now.

B1)
  F#m7       0-2-2-0-3-x  (1 bar)
  B7         x-0-2-0-2-0  (1 bar)

V2)
  I noticed that he had a watch and hat that looked familiar.
  He was me from a dimension torn free of the future.
  "We're not gonna make it." He explained how the end will come.
  You and me were never meant to be part of the future.

C)

B2)
  F#m7       0-7-5-7-x-x  (2 bars)
  Emaj9      x-5-4-6-5-x  (2 bars)
  D9-5       8-x-8-7-7-x  (2 bars)
  A          3-x-0-0-0-3  (2 bars)
  Bm6/F#     0-0-2-2-1-2  (1 bar)
  E7/G#      2-0-0-2-1-2  (1 bar)

Outro)
  Amaj7      3-2-0-0-0-2  (1 bar)     All we
  Dmaj7/F#   0-3-2-0-0-0  (1 bar)  have     is
  C#m7/G#    2-2-0-2-0-x  (end)    now.
  ...
  C#m9       x-2-0-2-2-x  (organ adds D#)
  ...
  C#m11      x-2-0-2-2-0  (synth adds F#)

Reasons to Extend Unemployment Benefits

 

From the left, Ezra Klein: the Bush tax cuts certainly majorly increased the deficit [CBO], and it’s unfair for the GOP to demand that the unemployment extension be deficit-neutral.

Further, if tax cuts don’t need to be paid for because they generate so much taxable economic activity that they pay for themselves, then neither do unemployment checks. After all, the two work very similarly: A tax cut puts more money in your pocket. Unemployment insurance puts more money in an unemployed person’s pocket. The difference is that the unemployed person is likelier to spend that money, which will generate more taxable economic activity than if that money is saved. That’s why Mark Zandi, an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, estimated (pdf) that a dollar spent extending the Bush tax cuts would generate .32 cents of taxable economic activity, while a dollar spent on unemployment benefits would generate $1.61 of taxable economic activity.

In other words, using the theory under which tax cuts pay for themselves, unemployment benefits are a lot likelier to pay for themselves. …

More reasons to extend them:

  • Ending benefits doesn’t magically create jobs
  • Among those who can’t find work, spending will drop to nothing, depressing local economies
  • Walked away from mortgages and desperately-liquidated assets will destroy tremendous amounts of long term value for short-term needs.

From the right, Megan McArdle:

…in recessions, the length of time for which people need “temporary” assistance stretches out. That means that the government has to respond with temporary benefit extensions. These aren’t just good for the people who are unemployed; it’s also good for us. Unemployment assistance is one of the “automatic fiscal stabilizers” that all but the most hard-nosed conservative economists agree help smooth the business cycle in modern industrial countries. Indeed, it’s one of the most effective forms of stimulus we have.

… [Not extending benefits would be] terrible economic policy–suddenly cutting off the taps would have nasty knock-on effects on the economy. And while it’s a lot of money, it’s one of the few government programs that pretty much unequivocally improve the net welfare of the American people. If Bunning wants to hold up something, how about finding some useless defense appropriations to complain about?