Tipsy's Music Digest

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Four Guys Playing Guitar

Everybody has an iPhone today. If you don’t have one yourself, there is no doubt that you are incousciously used to it. With the oceans of toys and useless tools on the AppStore, it is difficult to say that this machine is a telephone. It must be considered as a multi-cultural and multi-technological pocket machine.

As far as I’m concerned, I use it as a musical instrument. In fact, some apps can transform it into a whole new surface of expression. American keyboardist Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, David Bowie) has been a precursor in the exploration of these technological tools. As you can see on this video Jordan Rudess Iphone Solo, he uses it as a continuum keyboard live with the help of an App named Bebot, and has developped his own iPhone App, named Morphwiz.

The Ipad has also been a revolution for these geeky musicians, and some of them has decided to make a song outta 4 iPads, as you can see on this video. It is certain that this new way of expression will become a standard in music creation in the next years, according to my personnal vision of music. As it grows bigger and bigger, the Apple technology will invade music creation far more than it already had with Garage Band or Pro Tools.

So here’s a selection of Musical applications you should check:

-Bebot: a nice robot synthetiser. Extremely sensitive and innovative, it is easily customizable and has got a great Theremin sound. Incredible.

-Morphwiz: Jordan Rudesse’s Bebot. He took the best of the original App and transform it into a much more editable technology. You can transform every single sound, and the graphic environnment reacts to your moves and the touch of your finger. Amazing, but a bit difficult for the beginners.

-ThumbJam: This app is a masterpiece. It allows you to control more than 30 instruments with your Thumb and to record some samples. The quality of the sounds is much better than on many keyboards (the violins are just amazing, as well as Jordan Rudesse’s (again!) personnal keyboard sounds). Even if it is a bit difficult to jam and to control each instrument, it is a real pleasure to ear the sounds and manipulate the dictionnary of scales (more than 200!!).

-Ocarina: This soft developped by Smule is quite impressive and realistic. It transform your iPhone into a flute! As you blow on your iPhone’s head, you can use your fingers to manipulate the notes and sound like a real instrument. The funny idea of the developpers was to include a worldwide linked option, where you can hear any live performance of the instrument around the world, including yours in the data! This one is a lot of fun, but difficult to record.

-I am T-Pain: This other Smule project is based on the well-known (and criticized) Auto-Tune vocal effect. It tunes your voice automatically according to the chords you have selected in a song in a way that is pretty surprising. A must have for all the hip hop fans.

-Hexatone: Another App developped by Jordan Rudess (I love the guy!). This one is pretty difficult to use, but can be considered as a great tool. It allows you to create some loops with some spooky and special sounds. The interface is quite complicated, but when you spend a few hours on it, you finally discover a very useful tool to create some electro or space-rock drumming sequences.

Tipsy

People offently think all kind Metal is considered as a music “from Hell”. Well, in someways, it is. When you listen to bands like Burzum (whose leader Varg Vikernes was thrown to prison for murder) or Cannibal Corpse, you will certainly hate the music before of its violence. BUt on the other hand, this music that has constantly being evolving through tendencies, has now reached a very interessting point. They are so many bands nowadays that it is difficult to choose and to classify them, but some of them appears to be “easier” than some others for the uninitiated listenner. Everybody knows Metallica (and their “big four” friends Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer) and Motörhead, but when it comes to their “grand children”and heirs, no one’s there and we speak of devilish music.

In fact, it’s so easy to speak of a satanic influence, just because a lot of band uses this belief to sell themselves and to develop a “terror marketing” that Marilyn Manson has used with intelligence for instance. But people forgot to think of the music and its power. Of course it screams, the drumming is fast and the guitars can scream like a demon, but the essence of this music is SO powerful and inspiring when you’re having a bad day. And some bands has used this philisophy of an extreme power with virtuosity and cleverness. The lyrics, the instrumentals, the themes or the ambiance can be brilliant (and linked to classical music, jazz, romantism, death or dark philosophy).
Some purists would kill me for mixing black metal with progressive metal, but this should be considered as “an introduction to extreme music”.
Because this music should be discovered in another way, there’s a selection of “Demonic Music” you should pay attention to:

-Children Of Bodom: “Towards Dead End”.

-Opeth: Black Rose Immortal

-Cynic: “Veil Of Maya”.

-Dream Theater: “A Nightmare To Remember”.

-Cradle Of Filth: “Dusk and her Embrace”.

-Death: “The Philosopher”.

-Dimmu Borgir: “Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse”.

-Strapping Young Lad: “Love?”.

-Emperor: “Decrystallizing Reason”

PS: If the voice or the hardness of the music scares you, have a break, but don’t forget that the guys playing here are all very very good at their instruments. That ain’t punk-rock!

A very nice website for all the funny folks around:

http://gobarbra.com/hit/

Write what you want and customize ya song!

The Elysée Montmartre, a concert hall that opened in 1807 burned on Tuesday morning. Known for its rock and reggae gigs in the end of the 60’s, it will certainly be closed soon because of the damages caused by the fire. All the concerts that were planned had been cancelled since then, and a community of musicians and music addict has decided to organise a resistance. A Facebook group has been opened to save it from closure, saying that they don’t want a car-park or a supermarket instead, and a meeting will take place on saturday the 6th.

It is a sad event because it has been the place for unforgettable concerts, from Patti Smith to Michel Polnareff and Dream Theater to Alain Souchon. Being a strip and a boxing club in the beginning of the 20th Century, it has always kept a particular ambiance inside, and its outside structure was a kind of monument in the streets of Pigalle and Montmartre. I really hope that it will open again, because it can be considered as one of the city’s most authentic hall. A a place of amazing music.

With all the geeks around the world, we should have expected this kind of invention: mixing the great Miles with the music of a game boy.
With Kind Of Bloop, some guys named Ast0r, Disasterpeace, Sergeeo ou Shnabubula covered the classic Miles album with an amazing respect to the original tunes. We sometimes forget that it has been recorded with the old sounds of a SEGA Megadrive or another old-school machine.

Sometimes a bit noisy, the web record in its entierety is quite interesting. It was a pretty nice surprise to hear in the end!

In fact, this is the proof that Davis’s music is pure and travels through the ages with no wrinkles. It hypnotises us in a way that I wouldn’t have expected. From So What to Flamenco Sketches, the original album is covered with a lot of respect and it’s truly original. Even if I think that The prince of Darkness would have hated it,  I have been listenning to it with A Kind Of Guilt…

Here’s the song:

Kind of Bloop: \”So What\”

As a first note on that blog, I’ll speak about a project that was released last year by amazing jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.
Worldwidely known for his works and influence on musicians, Pat Metheny has been playing for 40 years, being a teacher at Berklee School of Music at the age of 19 and releasing more than 50 records with some prestigious musicians from Jaco Pastorius to Michael Brecker.
The orchestrion was born after an idea: being alone on stage with a machine as an orchestra. Well, not a robot, but a machine controlled by what is played on Pat’s guitar. On tour as well on stage, he plays his music in its entirety and manages to mix technology with a sensitive guitar play. As well as all his other Cd’s, this one is pretty amazing, and it is difficult to believe that there are no other musicians than Mr. Metheny playing.
As you can see on the video here, it is an amazing machine, and we can understand that it has been quite hard to take it on tour!
On the other hand, it helps us understand the genius of one of the best musician of the modern times, and to see another way to mix technology with intelligent music.
I believe this is an example of geniusness and beauty towards composition and live performances.

Here’s a very interesting video:

Pat Metheny\’s Orchestrion

Welcome to our musical blog. You will find a lot of fresh news about this amazing universe, a some unusual informations about some recent tendencies.
Hope you’ll appreciate it!

Stay Musical