Musical Holocron

This is why we can't have nice things. All four major record labels are now suing Grooveshark.

# posted by James A. Arconati : 12:43  0 comments links to this post

I'm not sure that it will be available beyond today, but Google is honoring Les Paul on his birthday today by having an interactive Google log that allows you to play and record an electric guitar. Here's my first solo: Google Doodle: Les Paul Guitar. Have fun with it before it goes away.

Labels: history, instrument, music, music/artists/les-paul, music/guitar, ♫

# posted by James A. Arconati : 08:05  0 comments links to this post

Did you ever get the feeling that you were talented, but you'd never reach moments of pure greatness?

SHOCKED!FACE is SHOCKED.

Labels: funny, music, music/artists, music/piano, via:youtube.com, video

# posted by James A. Arconati : 18:39  0 comments links to this post

The piano doesn't get enough credit. I've found a treasure trove of piano players covering random rock songs that I never would have thought would make sense on the keyboard. There are many videos available on YouTube. If you wanted to learn to play the songs yourself, it's not a bad place to start. But here's just a small taste of my favorites.

DragonForce - Through the Fire and Flames - Piano 4 Hands Cover

I'd guess these guys names are Max and Leo? Everyone who's played Guitar Hero has likely heard this song. I think the piano version here is very loyal to the original.

And everyone who plays music loves free sheet music.

System Of A Down - Toxicity - Piano Cover

Vika Yermolyeva does a number of metal and classic rock song covers. Because they are all copyrighted works, they are available for free download on her site.

Labels: music, music/artists, music/artists/dragonforce, music/artists/system-of-a-down, music/notation, music/piano, video, video-games, ♫

# posted by James A. Arconati : 23:12  0 comments links to this post

I wrote a decent post yesterday about Steven Tyler as a judge on American Idol. I know I write from a hipster point of view more often than not and when I first heard that the (former?) lead singer of Aerosmith was going to be a new judge on the show, I was not immediately thrilled with the idea.

Labels: business, funny, music, music/artists, music/artists/aerosmith, television, television/american-idol

# posted by James A. Arconati : 23:59  0 comments links to this post

The Nine Inch Nails penultimate classic --some would say manifesto-- that is Pretty Hate Machine has been remastered and re-released in a new glorious edition. It came out today, and it is available on CD, vinyl or digital download.

Get it today at nine inch nails: pretty hate machine.

Found via Reddit.

Labels: download, genre/alternative, music, music/artists, music/artists/nine-inch-nails, via:reddit.com, video

# posted by James A. Arconati : 00:21  0 comments links to this post

Just a quick note for those with a Netflix account. On a whim, I decided to check if they had any concert videos that I could get on DVD. I was looking for live recordings of any concert that I might like. There were a lot, but for the first few pages, they were mostly classical performances and other artists that I've never heard of. I like classical and I added one or two, but my eyes lit up when I noticed the Pink Floyd stuff. Of course, I had to do a specific search on Pink Floyd to see what else they had. The Wall made it into the queue first, but there were a lot of other discs I added. One that caught my eye was not of the band, but an instructional DVD on how to play their music style on guitar.

Interesting. Does Netflix have a lot more pages of music lessons on DVD? Yes, they do. For the more specific, they have a subcategory specifically for guitar and banjo lessons. Great!

Something else I learned about Netflix? Their DVD queue has a limit of 500 discs. That means that as a subscriber, the maximum number of movies or shows you can put into your waiting list is capped at 500. Yeah, they don't advertise that. More embarrassingly, my queue is now full. Not great, but not too bad anyhow.

Labels: music, music/artists, music/artists/pink-floyd, music/guitar, Netflix, television

# posted by James A. Arconati : 00:33  2 comments links to this post

I've posted before regarding copyright, but if it wasn't clear I'm not in favor of DRM. In brief; it's complicated and restricts the rights of honest users and it can be easily circumnavigated by determined pirates. Honest users who get aggravated end up seeking out "pirate" methods anyhow, just so they can use the content they paid for legally.

That's why the following story made me smile. Judge rules that circumventing DRM is not illegal. This sets the precedent that any method available for enjoying your music or movies can be used as long as your goal is not piracy. It reinforces the fair use laws and rules that are already in place.

In essence, this ruling means that you're free to break DRM on media that you own. No longer is it illegal to rip your own DVDs or crippled audio CDs onto your hard disk.

Keep on hackin'!

Thanks to Mike for posting this to his twitter.

Labels: copyright, DMCA, legal

# posted by James A. Arconati : 12:57  0 comments links to this post