an open letter to thesixtyone.com
I applaud you for trying to innovate but I think you should really step back from this a bit. Your changes have removed many of the best features of thesixtyone.com and now make music discovery a very tedious task.
The features I miss most are:
- social networking- t61 made it easy and possible for me to find and interact with enthusiastic and adventurous listeners who were interested in my music (independent, DIY, art music)
- genres- your intention of swapping genres with an “adventure meter” with is very subjective. I have no interest in browsing mainstream pop music so wouldn’t that be adventurous for me?
- the UI- the old lists (recently submitted, most active, genre) made it easy to find music that was interesting in a short period of time. When I suggested the site to friends who were initially put-off by all the pop music, I always explained that they needed to search for at least 5 minutes to get the hang of it. Right now your setup is more like Pandora which is like searching through the dirt for a few small gems.
The best thing about T61 is that you had found a very engaging way (maybe inadvertently) to connect artists/bands directly to their listeners which created small communities based on genres/micro-genres. Your kudos system of hearts and quests is a great way to encourage a wide variety of “adventurous” listening experiences and I encourage you to focus new development on that area. What is so amazing about how you had T61 setup is that it could help any artist find their audience. This in effect gave listeners (myself included) a very strong incentive to find value in music again and put my money behind what I was listening to.
I wholeheartedly (and many others on your facebook page) encourage you to rethink the redesign,
Sincerely Yours,
RIP NetNewMusic 2008-2010
it started off with such promise, a real online ‘clubhouse’ for an fiercely independent, eccentric, and highly opinionated art music community on the interwebs. throughout it’s short existence it’s become a cautionary tale for how new music social networks might be organized with some sense of shared vision.
as a founding member (and a very short-lived site admin) it became clear that the “my way or the high way” management style didn’t really mix well with the many unique and idiosyncratic personalities that an art music site attracts. over time NetNewMusic became a ghost town as less people were willing to be a party to the backstage drama and personal attacks by it’s founder jeff harrington.
the bottom line here is that we are all dealing with the limitations of one person running a social network based on their personal eccentricities and narcissistic traits.
these might be useful traits in an artist, but they don’t lend themselves to running a social network.
i think we all owe jeff a lot for the hard work he has put in promoting the new music community online, but his day to day management of NNM has made it impossible for many of us to participate.
Paul Bailey: Music for Controllers VI (2009)
Paul Bailey: Music for Controllers VI (2009)
Music for Controllers VI by paul bailey
this track was based on a field recording i made of my last day of work before my “fall break” at CSUF (a one-week non paid work furlough). a few days later i improvised over the recording of my commute (from highland park to union station) with some materials of an earlier piece i made last spring (not getting fired is the new promotion). when it was finished i felt it was a little too minimal and forgot about it until about a week ago and when i listened to it again i realized it pretty accurately captured my dread of what this financial disaster has become in my life.
interestingly enough on that was the same day on my commute home the conductor on my amtrak route told me that she had lost about 75 daily commuters between san diego and los angeles from a year ago and it was pretty sad how so few of us were left. i know for me there aren’t many part time faculty left in the music department at CSUF and at this point it’s can get pretty depressing whenever i think about all of my friends who are out of work.
probably a little TMI, but yeah… i guess it is a bit dark.
spoken word piece based on twitter RSS feeds on the keywords “fired” and “job”. parts of this piece were originally contained in the piece “not getting fired is the new promotion” (2009)
made using ableton live, novation launchpad, korg kaossilator, iphone (buddha machine, srutibox), text-2-speech, and a field recording (zoom H2) of my morning commute (metro goldline from heritage square to union station; los angeles, ca 10/15/2009 (10 min)
Music for Solo Controller 1
finally getting around to making music with my launchpad and max/msp. getting the software and hardware to play nice with each other is still a challenge (the midi gets bogged down when 4 or more patterns are triggered), but overall i finally ‘get’ what all the hubub about the monome. i think my best description is that it’s bringing modular improvisation (that i’m very much into) very successfully into the a very programmable music machine that is easy for anybody to intuitively music with. (kinda like an very sophisticated orff instrument for adults)
this track was created using my novation launchpad, max/msp, nonome (monome emulator) and the polygome64 (P4/M2) inside of ableton live.
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/pbailey/music-for-solo-controller-1"]
Update: January 3, 2010
i just added a 2nd version that plays a little bit better with MIDI
obsolete in aughts…
in the aughts i stopped:
- wearing a watch and now use my cellphone to keep track of the time
- using a landline and now use my voip/cellphone/text message/facebook/twitter) as my primary form of digital communication
- reading the newspaper and magazines now i skim news aggregators like slate, huffpost, drudge report (it’s useful to know what the right is thinking)
- reading and buying paper books and now i read them on my kindle
- using a thomas guide as a map and now use my nav system or google maps on the iphone
- listening to the radio for traffic reports (again hello google maps)
- listening to music on a stereo and now i listen on my iphone or laptop
- using a thomas guide
- listening to physical CD’s and mostly stopped paying for downloading music (hello lala, thesixtyone, and mog)
- using a desktop computer as my main computer and now i use a netbook/macbookpro/iphone as my main computer
- using windows products and became a mac and linux fanboy
- renting DVD’s at brick and mortar stores (hello netflix streaming)
- paying for cableTV and now we download/stream on the interwebs
- using our analog TV and started watching TV on the wall (using an overhead projector i bought for shows and work)
- stopped blogging on a regular basis and now i mainly tweet (except for long form posts like this)
end of the year housecleaning
i was enjoying a little extra time over the break and was able to upload some recordings from our late summer concerts that we played with the LANME.
here are our performances of Terry Riley’s “In C” and my “Principle of Sufficient Irritation”at our performances at collumbia (recording) college and in san pedro.
enjoy!
Terry Riley: In C (PBE and LANME Live at Columbia College)
Terry Riley: In C (PBE and LANME Live In San Pedro)
Paul Bailey: Principle of Sufficient Irritation (PBE and LANME Live In San Pedro)
LANME:
christina giacona, clarinet
patrick colon, violin
kelly haley-sibler, flute
james miller, voice
audrey snyder, cello
daniel formidoni, sound design
PBE performers included:
paul bailey, trombone
scott mcintosh, clarinet
matt menaged, bass guitar
ryan nunes, vibes
nicholas white, piano
an experiment in narrowcasting and curation
an experiment in narrowcasting and curation of the independent DIY music community
as some of you may know i have been kicking around the idea of creating a new website to feature music from our community (independent DIY art music). my original idea centered around the observations of how various website in the community functioned.
originally there was Sequenza 21 which like a new music magazine functioned as good watercooler to discuss whatever articles and music being promoted. then there was Net New Music; which has been very interesting community fourm/clubhouse (on most days) for the new music community. both of these sites have specific purposes, but neither functions well as a music publishing and aggregation platform. after thinking about this quite a bit and surveying many of the platforms available and as an experiment i decided to try and create a website that focuses on curating and aggregating this music ourselves
“the secret community of marching band”
i was very happy to hear from one of my very first JMHS students who just got into grad school based on “the secret community of marching band”
“The interview was 45 minutes and it went great. Toward the very end though, the interviewer asks, “So, you were in the marching band? What instrument did you [...]
Principle of Sufficient Irritation
some pieces you ‘compose’ and other come out fully formed. “Principle of Sufficient Irritation” (POSI) is one of those pieces that sprang out of me almost fully realized almost exactly 4 years ago. even though i’m just a part-time adjunct teaching monkey, fall has always been very busy for me and not really a good [...]
fireworks “you can trust” sold here
i was very surprised to get a mention in the new yorker online, so if you haven’t visited her before let me please introduce myself:
although i’m a “blogging composer” it’s probably easier to keep up with our bigger conversation with other wide range of very interesting and uniquely individual composers that i follow on twitter:
shane [...]
Soundcloud.com
Soundcloud.com is a new social network for music creators that is conceptually very interesting and worth checking out.
What Soundcloud is and isn’t:
Soundcloud isn’t a site to build a new audience. yeah there might be some bleeding edge enthusiasts who come looking for great undiscovered tracks, but in essence its a place to build a communities [...]
Does CrashPlan have a CrashPlan?
Update: (10/21/09)
after 6 days my service was restored and i recieved the following email from Renee in CrashPlan customer support
1. Is this an isolated incident that is affecting a small number of CrashPlan customers or is this a bigger issue?
The issue is isolated to a small percentage of users on a single server.
2. What [...]
anne midgette promises the moon
update (10/16/09)
A.M. updates her original post and expands her confusing alt-classical umbrella to include most everybody
Alt-Classical Addenda
anne can call it whatever she wants, but the commissioned, academic music they have to play is always going to be toothless and banal.
the big problem about article’s like this is that it promises the moon (yet again), and [...]
the winners are already decided
after reading anne midgette’s washington post article Roll Over Beethoven about her new “alt-classical” genre i have a few bones to pick with with her description and logic.*
besides mixing up the alt.classical genre with the alt.classical transcription bandwagon. (Alarm Will Sound’s Aphex Twin transcriptions and Christopher O’Riley’s Radiohead piano music) she tries then label [...]
colon nancarrow on crack
MUSIC DADA (bara no kodoku) by ALONE TOGETHER
i found this track by the sound collage artist alone + together (yuki ota) on the soundcloud mp3 service/website. it made me think of colon nancarrow and what a time kyle gann would have trying to transcribe this.
i also want to point out that you [...]
Music for Controllers III and IV
still trying to get my head around live improvisation using digital sound sources and controllers. these next two tracks were improvised live using ableton live/ korg/nanokey, buddha machine (iphone), and the korg kaossilator
Music for Controllers III
Music for Controllers IV
Steve Layton also made a nice mashup of my Music for Controllers III and Shane Cadman’s very [...]
Cheap Admiration
I’m really happy to finally release the first track from my upcoming PBE EP “Alt-Classical”
Cheap Admiration (2005), is a simple pop song (loosely based on a harmonic deconstruction) of Johann Pezel’s (1639-1694) Sonata Ciacona.
Around 1670 Pezel was the town stadtpfeifer (band director) in Leipzig and later in his career he applied and was turned [...]
Pardon the Mess
i’ll be updating the site in preparation for releasing the first two alt-classical tracks. please pardon the mess….
UPDATE
2:04am Sept 18th 09
finally getting this site ship shape. i think i can finally make a wordpress template do 80% of what i envision, on the other hand its really late and i might be hallucinating and think [...]
Terry Riley’s “In C” midnight performance
Terry Riley via last.fm
Come out and listen/perform Terry Riley’s modular improvisatory masterpiece “In C”
this Thursday night (august 6th 2009) at Midnight with members of the Paul Bailey
Ensemble and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble.
Everybody is invited!
“In C” is shaping up to become this century’s new Messiah (via steve layton at Sequenza 21) — except wedon’t [...]
TWO SHOWS ADDED
last night’s show was exceptional, inspiring, ecstatic, satisfying (and the reason i do this), so we decided to do it two more times.
PBE and LANME
performing: “in C” terry riley
“principle of sufficient irritation” paul bailey
and music by patrick conlon, dan formidoni, evan ziporyn and marvin lamb.
Sunday, August 2nd 2009 (2pm)
Angels Gate Cultural Center
3601 South Gaffey [...]
Top 10 Reasons
top 10 reasons to see the PBE and LANME this friday night :
1. last minute gig
2. great to collaborate with other groups
3. in tarzana (hooray for our valley friends?!)
4. get to hear terry riley’s “in c”
5. new music concerts usually suck
6. at least you can preview principle of sufficient irritation in advance
7. it’s in tarzana
8. [...]
Koyaanisqatsi 1, Hollywood Bowl 0
since i’m not a real critic i’ll just post my observations about philip glass’s concert at the hollywood bowl from last night. but there are a few qualifications i have to get out of the way first.
the bowl is one of my favorite venues to see a show, but i have always avoided going to [...]
summertime news and notes
for me summertime is the only of the year to time to catch up on some projects and get a little housecleaning done (professionally and personally). after a relaxing camping trip in catalina (hiking around two harbors was great!) i finally started going through my many “summer todo” lists that i made throughout the year. [...]
technical difficulties, please stand by
this year has also been a pretty big change for me personally. last fall (for a variety of reasons) it was in my best interest to put the pbe on indefinite hiatus. the simple answer is that i wasn’t interested in the long rebuilding process after carl stronach (nyc in 2007) and bruce gallego (stockton [...]
