Ethan Winer: A Cello Rondo, Tele Vision -- AMAZING

Time for an old favorite. I originally discovered Ethan Winer a year a go when I was considering doing more episodes for my show. I keep telling myself maybe someday, but it's very time consuming... so for now, on with the blog entries.

Ethan is a genius. He's a sound engineer by profession. You can see quite a few videos on his YouTube channel where he describes the acoustic properties of rooms and various audio absorbers, diffusers, etc. But then he's also an amazing musician! And he's just and all around nice guy. I had the opportunity to correspond with him via e-mail about show posibilities, and enjoyed it. He also has a fun sense of humor.

So, put that technical knowledge together with musical talent and a bit of cheesy humor and what do you get?

A Cello Rondo!

Ethan composed the music, Played and filmed all 27 cello parts himself, and did all the video compositing. Wow.

And if that isn't enough, check this one out:

A light-hearted 12-minute instrumental ecclectic prog rock epic. It's got multiple electric guitar, steel and nylon acoustic guitar, country style playing, bass, a classical string ensemble, piano and electric keyboard, men's do-whop choir, harmonica, banjo, and even slide whistles -- ALL PLAYED BY ETHAN. The only thing Ethan doesn't play is the drum kit and a couple of the guitar parts. he says on his site it took him over a year to make it. He goes all out for this one, wearing fun costumes for the various roles. he even has a bit of morse code in there...spelling "Jeff Beck" (no, I didn't figure that out for myself-it's in the youtube comments).

Pure genius, in a down-to-earth, entertaining way.

New Favorites 1/3: Circus Maximus

I'm not a huge fan of metal, so I'm always excited when a new prog metal band comes along that I really like! And Circus Maximus has done more than just impress me; they've made my #1 spot of new favorite bands. Every track on their two albums is delicious. They're working on their third now. But rather than going on and on about them, I'll let their music speak for them.

And I just found some great live videos! I've looked before but not found these until today, so I'm very happy to share them with you. First, one of my favorite tracks, "The Prophesy," with extended solos from each band member worked in to the end of it.



And then two more:

New Favorites 2/3: Kaipa

Ok, well, they're not exactly new. Kaipa is where the Flower Kings' Roine Stolt got his start way back in the 70s. However, the band has been reborn with its keyboardist being the only original player, so I'm comfortable listing them in my "New" favorites. Their 2010 Album In the Wake of Evolution completely astounded me. It's surprisingly joyful music! A real must-have album. Here is the 11-minute opening track.

New Favorites 3/3: Presto Ballet

I've decided to write posts about three of my favorite new bands, as sort of a countdown. In the number 3 slot is Presto Ballet. They've released 3 great albums in the last 6 years. Founded by guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof in order to explore his progressive leanings, he remains the only constant throughout the band's career to date. Recordings use all vintage analog gear, for a warm "old fashioned" sound. I'm hoping for a lot more from Presto Ballet!

Since I've not been able to find any good live videos, here are some album tracks instead:

Some Music by Paul Erdman

I enjoy writing and arranging music. My approach is different from many musicians in that I prefer to work in notation software; this is probably mostly due to the fact that I'm not terribly proficient at any musical instruments! I also enjoy music theory, and so it's important to me to be able to see the notes and make sure all my harmonies and melodic lines work well together.

I recently took some time to create video slideshows for three of my pieces and upload them to YouTube. The recordings are all of MIDI playback from Finale notation software through a Roland Sound Canvas—so it sounds halfway decent. Maybe someday I'll have live recordings of them, but for now, use your imagination!

Dream Theater's New Drummer

Dream Theater has found a new drummer. They also found an entertaining way to tell the world and play the suspense for all it was worth, and I have to admit I enjoyed it. They held auditions for 7 of the worlds greatest rock drummers, and they videotaped it. Then by way of announcement they released the video in 3 installment throughout the past week. I've been watching each video as it comes out, but decided to wait until the final installment and official announcement before posting this.

Unfortunately embedding has been disabled for two of the 3 videos, but I made a playlist of them which you can watch via this link:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A01EF1AD56716586

After watching the videos, it was clear to me that DT made the best choice for them. Technical abilities aside (as all the drummers were pretty amazing) it was clear that Mike Mangini definitely gelled with the band. Looking forward to what they come up with together! As I watched Mangini play the DT audition I was reminded of Christian Vander of Magma--which of course is a big compliment. Mike has played in Extreme, Steve Vai, and on several of James Labrie's solo albums. He is a friend of Mike Portnoy's. He also teaches at the Berkeley School of Music, where Dream Theater had its beginnings over 25 years ago. What a perfect fit for the band.

I just found a really fun video of Mike playing on Discovery Channel's "Time Warp" program. It features some interview, some great solos, and some entertaining slow-motion footage. Enjoy!

MusicRacer: Another Unique way to Experience Music

I've recently spent some time looking for music visualizers; this is my second post on the topic, and I've found another software project that holds real promise.

Music Racer is a FREE simple shooter game with a musical twist, in which you move a spaceship back and forth on a track to pick up bonus points and avoid negative points. What makes it fascinating is that the placement of the point items and even the design of the track on which you race is based on music of your choice. You select any song on your computer (supports MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV; AAC and WMA not supported due to DRM issues) using the built in media browser, and the program analyzes the audio data and generates a track. I contacted the developers on their Facebook page for more detail on how the track is created, and here is their response:

The track generation is deterministic. Curves are generated from the stereo offset, slope from the average number of beats. So the track and beats will always be the same for a particular song.

The game offers 3 play modes that effect the placement of bonus point items. "Catch All" offers only positive point markers and you try to catch them all. "Points" has positive markers that you collect and negative red markers that you avoid. My favorite is "Hold Speed" mode, which offers only positive point markers, but if you miss several in a row the whole track, including the music, slows down! You'll hear your favorite music go more and more flat and slow as you miss markers, if you're not careful--but all is not lost, as picking up markers raises the speed and pitch back up to regular levels.

The bonus point items that you collect coincide with beats in the song--or for music without much of a beat, with the peaks in the audio signal. The color of the bonus items is determined as follows (again from the developers):

That's a combination of beat intensity and angle of the curve. It isn't very obvious, but we didn't want to use any random numbers so the track will always be the same. 

Other options include mouse sensitivity, separate music and sound effect controls, difficulty control, and display settings. Some of these settings are only accessible during gameplay by pressing the ESC key.

It's a fun concept, and as it's a free game it's well worth your time to check it out. You've never PLAYED (literally) your music like this before!

Available for both Mac & Windows.