Category Archives: music

General Music

How To Fly With Your Musical Instrument

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Musicians travelling by air have long struggled with figuring out how/if/when they will be allowed to bring their instrument in the cabin, rather than expose it to the not-so-tender mercies of baggage compartments and handlers. The US government recently passed this law creating uniform rules for allowing instruments into the passenger cabin:

Musical-Instruments-on-Aircraft-US-Law-2012

BUT… as of this date it is not actually in effect, because it set a deadline

Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall issue final regulations to carry out subsection (a).

In the meantime, here are some ideas to help make your instrument-toting travel smoother:

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Mini Friday Faves – 11-09-12

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Since I’m still proceeding at a good clip on my NaNoWriMo novel (16,494 words as of yesterday), here are a couple of new Kickstarter projects I like:

What Time Is It Mr. Fox is a great Boston band with a wide range of sounds, called variously chamber pop, artschool soul, bardcore, acoustic noir, gothic jazz and steampunk cabaret. They have recorded their new album but need $ for mixing, mastering and manufacturing:

 

The Parlour Trick is a ghostly, atmospheric chamber duo whose members are separated by the Pacific Ocean much of the time. I like their sounds, plus thereminist/violinist/singer Meredith Yayanos has backed more Kickstarter Projects than I have! So pay back her support:

Tip/Warning: Long File Names in Bandcamp (and Other Zipped Downloads)

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I recently purchased a new album as a zipped download from the site Bandcamp.com to my Windows PC at work (because the network connection there has a much bigger “pipe” than at home). The zipped file contained eight MP3 files which when extracted should have gone into a folder with the name of the band and the album title.

I clicked to “extract all’ the files, and the program did so… until it reached the eighth and final track. At that point it failed and gave me the error message:

I tried again and got the same error, “Path too long”. After some research I determined what was wrong and how to work around it, plus told the band – they fixed it so that other buyers will not have this problem:

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Friday Faves 10-26-12

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Note: this may be the last Friday Faves until December. I’ve signed on to do NaNoWriMo this year, which means my writing energies will be occupied with laying down a 50.000-word novel between November 1-30! Through the magic of pre-scheduled posting there WILL continue to be a weekly article each Wednesday.

New Music: my friends Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys recently composed and played live a soundtrack to the classic silent film Metropolis. Fortunately it was recorded, and you may now download it for pay-what-you-will on Bandcamp – I’m thinking it will make a great NaNoWriMo soundtrack too!

 

Kickstarter Trends

Besides the ubiquitous band-making-an-album, I’ve noticed a few trends lately in Kickstarter projects:

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