Mobile Music: Tracker for Nintendo DS, DS Homebrew Music Roundup - createdigitalmusic.com

Yet another reason for a musician to by a Nintendo DS!

This article on createdigitalmusic.com announces a new homebrew music composition tool for the Nintendo DS.

I'm still waiting for the Nintendo DS Lite to come out, as opposed to the current Nintendo DS, on account of the reportedly brighter screen.

I finally put some of my own music online

I was recently talked into creating a MySpace page. It looks like a convenient place to share music, in that listeners are not required to register and a player is built-in, and the MySpace site is very, very popular.

The two songs:

16-Tone Tag - Laptop improvisation using the following software: Numerology, FM7, Quicktime Instruments (for the cheesy drums at the end). Performed at Open Minijax, recorded and mastered by Derek Morton.

The Call Of The Nafs - Improvisation on kemancheh and Cocolase Device. Many thanks to Peter Blasser, the brilliant electronic instrument designer and musician, for making my Cocolase and the piezo pickup taped to my kemanceh.

Oh, and the MySpace page is here

Good "Introduction To Synthesis" thread

If you ever wanted to get into synthesis as a musician, this thread on Harmony Central is as good a place as any to start.

In the Express Lane: Learning the Cello as an Adult

In the Express Lane: Learning the Cello as an Adult is an excellent article for adult beginning cello students. Excellent reading!

Time to Shine for Autistic Boy

Great story on this news video clip about an autistic boy who is given a chance to play for his basketball team on the last day of the season. Includes footage from his game!

Selective Tension Breathing Technique by Scott Sonnon

The article Selective Tension Breathing Technique
, by Scott Sonnon, explains how one applies Selective Tension in conjunction with Performance Breathing while practicing exercises from Scott's Circular Strength Training (CST) system.

A key quality of CST as opposed to other exercise methodologies is Performance Breathing and how it works along with the movements. One learns how to be breathed by the movement instead of forcing the breath and generating unnecessary tension - this really comes into play during sports performance, martial arts, and other movements outside of the gym. Selective Tension is how one is able to perform movements that require effort without locking up the entire body with full-body tension, which is rarely needed in life aside from a max effort barbell lift or holding a strenous posture on the gymnastic rings.

Note the article was published in 2004. Since that time, Trinity Breathing exercises have been included in a more recent RMAX product entitled Intu-Flow. I highly recommend Intu-Flow as the starter program for CST.

New link added - Edge

From the About Edge page:

Edge Foundation, Inc., was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world.

The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society. Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

From the About The Reality Club page:

In January, 1997, The Reality Club has now migrated to the Internet on Edge. Here you will find a number of today's sharpest minds taking their ideas into the bull ring knowing they will be challenged. The ethic is thinking smart vs. the anesthesiology of wisdom.

Through the years, The Reality Club has had a simple criterion for choosing speakers. We look for people whose creative work has expanded our notion of who and what we are. A few Reality Club speakers and/or Edge presenters are bestselling authors or are famous in the mass culture. Most are not. Rather, we encourage work on the cutting edge of the culture, and the investigation of ideas that have not been generally exposed. We are interested in "thinking smart;" we are not interested in the anesthesiology of "wisdom." The motto of the Club is "to arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves."

Whether you agree or disagree, Edge has a lot of intellectually stimulating reading material. Check it out!