musical collaboration in my favorite key: Bb
This thing ROCKS.
Go to this page where you’ll find myriad videos to play at your leisure, all at once, starting them as you feel like or listening individually.
Here’s some more information on how the idea for this awesome project got formed:
Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.
The videos can be played simultaneously — the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders.
In Bb 2.0 FAQ
Q. How did you come up with the idea for In Bb?
A. I was making a site with embedded YouTube videos (as a complement to this blog post) when I realized that YouTube doesn’t stop the user from running more than one video at a time. I was curious to see if there was a musical way to explore that concept, so I recorded some instrumental videos and eventually came up with In Bb v1.
Q. Are you playing any of the instruments?
A. I played the instruments in v1 – glass marimba, electric guitar, Kaoss Pad/synth, Rhodes electric piano, and the electric bass. Those are videos 1,2,3,4, and 6, counting from the top left, in the current site.
Q. How did you get the rest of the videos?
A. I sent out emails, and I put up an open call on the website for submissions, with these instructions:
-Sing or play an instrument, in Bb major. Simple, floating textures work best, with no tempo or groove. Leave lots of silence between phrases.
-Record in a quiet environment, with as little background noise as possible.
-Wait about 5-10 seconds to start playing.
-Total length should be between 1-2 minutes.
-Thick chords or low instruments don’t work very well.
-Record at a low volume to match the other videos.
-You can listen to this mix on headphones while you record.
-After you upload to YouTube, play your video along with the other videos on this page to make sure the volume matches.
VERY cool.
–demilo
a wave of minor
one of the myriad random jams that resulted from our time at the cabin saturday:
performing in oakland tonight!
our friend, aj kirsch (who’s also a professional wrestler… that thar is a link to his facebook fan page), will be kicking ass tonight in oakland for a national karaoke contest semi-final round!
after winning 1st place in san francisco’s regional rock division karaoke contest, he’s singing “the way you make me feel” by michael jackson tonight for a battle to the LAS VEGAS finals.
stakes are high. he invited me along to do some back up dancing and acting. remember the girl from the video?
i’ve packed a short black dress and heels, and i’m ready to rock.
in other performance news, i have an audition on sunday for which i’m regularly rehearsing. it’s an exciting week!
xo
–aimes
PS stay tuned for a variety of videos and audio files from our jams with VEX over the weekend! we did quite a few funny rando tunes…
new logo from mats
our friend and illustrating genius mattias mackler made us another logo — this one in vector form.
what can we say but YAY! and wahoo?!
thanks, mats.
xo
while we’re on the topic of sounds i love…
check out this guy, david ryan norgren.
his music is all kinds of inspiring to me. he’s got the jason mraz verb with the word and rhythm to the beat with some funked up tunes and groovy acoustic instrumentation. if i could choose a sound to make, this would be it.
mostly, “weight on your shoulders,” “spent” and DEFINITELY “gabriella” are on my to-do list of songs to write.
LOVE LOVE LOVE.
love,
.demilo.
lady danville love
our friends at lady danville have a new blog and a sweet new myspace design!
check them out!
i love the drive thru post and the song monet (embedded in the blog)…
go bruins!
xoxo
–aimes
my home has no door
since her album “le fil” dropped in 2005, i’ve been a huge camille fan. she uses drones, capitalizes on a cappella arrangements and chooses killer beats.
check out this song “home is where it hurts,” from her new album.
this is pretty weird
a video of vocal chords during singing.
i’m trying to focus on singing with more breath control (ie less breath escaping) while singing, and this fascinates me (altho it’s a little gross)
MUSIC!
LET THERE BE (live and unedited) MUSIC!
listen to some first tracks from a set we played at calvin & natsuko’s wedding at our myspace.
i recently rediscovered my roland edirol, so i brought it along to hear what happens to the recordings outdoors. (as a journalist, i had only ever used the thing at very close range inside.) turns out there’s a reason this thing costs what it does! it was surprisingly good.
of course, there’s the ambient “guests arriving” noise (but i rather like that).
if you listen closely, you can hear the difference between the organic capture of my voice right above the device and the capture that came through our little mic amp. crazy.
also, some kids run by arguing and shaking rice, which adds extra flavor. :)
challenge! because the edirol was sitting at my feet a good two meters from the back of the speakers, the resulting amplitude was very small (the audio track was reading below -38 in playback scope). but after duplicating and tracking the original about 20 times, i got enough power out of it to achieve the current (acceptable? too low? you-tell-me!) volume.
we would be interested to hear what anyone thinks.
your criticism helps us grow.
–demilo
preparing for a chorale audition
and considering these songs!
what do you guys think?
and, last but not least, joan baez!
for composing and kicks…
i’ve been playing around with this virtual piano a lot — good fun and helpful for practicing scales and transposing.
let me know what you think!
–aimes
