Music, Music, Music

Recorded music was once heard by the public on jukeboxes, and the forerunner of the jukebox was the nickelodian, a player piano (or mechanical band) that performed automatically from paper rolls for the price of a nickel:

Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon
All I want is having you and music, music, music!
I'd do anything for you, anything you'd want me to
All I want is kissing you and music, music, music!

Closer, my dear come closer
The nicest part of any melody
Is when you're dancing close to me

Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon
All I want is loving you and music, music, music!

Words and Music by Stephan Weiss and Bernie Baum
Teresa Brewer #1: March 1950

The magic of music on demand cannot be underestimated. Digital recording has made the listener of music into the maker of music. The development of the mp3 file (mpeg stands for moving picture expert group, and the 3 indicates the 3rd layer of a mpeg file, the audio layer), resulted in the explosion of the Internet and made it a phenomenon of popular culture.

The first recording was made in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Our capacity to capture sound for reproduction has transformed our culture and our way of making and listening to music.

Our nickelodeon is the iPod or mp3 player. iTunes is a music file manager that enables you to develop a master library of recordings,categorize them and organize into playlists, to burn CDs, and transform music into different file types such as aiff, wav, or mp3. It also provides access to video and audio podcasts, Internet Radio, and Apple's Music Store which most individual songs can be purchased for $.99. Of course, there are many other types of music file managers available for download on the Internet.

Whatever your choice, the need for a digital music librarian application that is powerful and responsive to individual needs and tastes is an essential program for computers today.

The Age of the Image

This age might be called The Age of the Image, for we have learned as a species to embed such meaning and emotion into a single image that often a single image can reveal an entire history or a wish or desire, a longing for some indefinable essence that the image has awakened in us. Our response to light and shape is packed with the memory of our species and the genetic evolution in which our ability to respond to and distinguish color is quite remarkable, and the cultural co-evolution that provides personal and communal meaning to color and image is equally astonishing.

Digital images do not contain as much" information" as the equivalent image in film. I am told that the range and depth of color is simply not as great in the digital image. Film has more range, more depth. But that is perhaps offset by the instant distribution and maleability of the digital image itself through digital transformation and communication.

So we are capturing and transforming images with "filters" which actually might be regarded as the eyes of aliens that bring a certain distance and originality to how we see an image, and how an image can be transformed into another form. Some have called it morphing.

The capacity to capture and transform images is now literally at our fingertips, and where this may take us is confined only to the limits of our imagination.

Beginning Anew : Tech Resources for Performing Arts Educators

Here we are at the beginning of an intense three weeks. We have completed the equivalent of three weeks of work. We have a begnning command of html code. We can create and name directories and upload files to directories. We can rename files to make the names shorter and easier to work with. We can create pages from scratch or from templates by changing the text. We can control the color of text and the background. We can make external and internal links.

We have created a Blog and now begin exploring this a medium for expressing ideas and documenting thoughts and works.

We are at the beginning of our empowerment, personally and professionally. Technology has always been an ally of the performing arts, and digital technology now provides an incredible tool for communication, collaboration, and creation.

What a fantastic time we live in!