Wednesday, February 10, 2010

of cabbages and kings...

Now I will take the time to consider the music thing. What I started out to do (to some extent) was to be a little silly, and to also get an understanding of what kind of music production could be done on a limited budget.

Consider a band, a traditional 4-piece rock-type band, more or less modestly equipped where each musician spends something on their gear in the ballpark of $500-$1000 each depending on how much is used and how much is new. If you consider a guitar, a fairly decent one, for two of the musicians, a keyboard, and an amplifier apiece for three of the musicians, that is about right, and then a drumset in about the same price range. That doesn't include a practice PA, so $1000-$2000 for that depending on various things, new/used, how powerful etc..

So the higher end of that budget *just to get started with a band*, not premium equipment, is about $6000. Then you practice. It is fun to practice, most of the time, and that is part of the fun, but until you are able to play something that people want to hear, you have no chance of making money.

Then, when you have managed to stay together through that and are ready to play, you will most likely first need to play for free, or you will pay someone like a booking service to get you gigs, or you will pay for a venue and promote yourselves.

What tends to get you through to this point is that you are having a good time. But you also are probably working at something else to pay for all of this or you have a nice investment/trust fund income.

It is interesting, about many artists in the modern age: a lot of then don't need to worry about making money with their art. The people who populate communal art studios, the kind where you can walk around and see them painting or sculpting or designing jewelery or involved in creating other works for sale, how do they afford that space? If you sell a painting for $5000, that is really something, but how long does that pay your studio rent and pay for additional supplies? Not very long.

So what's the point? Well the point is that it seems much more fulfilling to pursue whatever art more for the betterment of it, rather than the fun of it, although there is fun in it.

Of course it is all a lot of talk until it is done, not particularly exciting talk either, but my next assortment will be the best I can put out. I've been composing and fiddling and building and exploring to that end over the last two years, and meanwhile I'm getting good responses to my first three although they are highly flawed in many respects.

So it is coming very soon.

Friday, February 05, 2010

ISS live feed, an 'anomaly'

I was watching the International Space Station live video feed, available here from 1pm to 1:08pm EST.

The view is absolutely incredibly wonderful.

While watching, I heard a very low, bass guitar low, voice speaking, unintelligibly, interspersed with some beeps, possibly answered by another voice of the same type.

Then the camera went dark.

SO, they were either having stream problems, or they have encountered the outer space version of Somali pirates.

But it is a wonderfully beautiful view.

[lol] there was a view of the space station, which was live moving video, and a view of the earth, which was a still picture. They were both pretty cool, but the view of the space station external, with a Soyuz visible, was the live one.

Monday, February 01, 2010

well, I missed January...

I had hoped to post at least once a month, but January flew by. Some very very bad sad things in January. Horrible earthquake in Haiti-- otherwordly horrible.

Somebody I love very much was diagnosed with cancer, years after having had an operation to rid them of the same cancer and being cancer free for the longest time.

One of our dogs died-- he was very good, a big old dog who loved my little daughter just desperately.

On the bright side,

I have been working on music, have a Soundcloud page with some new things.

There is this wonderfully talented person that I came across on the internets. I feel dumb not to have known about her before, because I love the sound of the cello, she is a successful DIY artist, and she uses Ableton Live software as well.