New monitor, bun card

Sceptre 43" Class 4K (2160P) LED TV (U435CV-U)

Out of the box, as a computer monitor, the text is rough - even turning Sharpness down in the menu only helped a bit. The key is getting into the factory menu - Press "Menu" then the numbers 7343 while at the main menu - and changing the Sharpness curve to 0 across the board.

My monitor is dying a horrible death. So I had to order a new one from WalMart. I know.  Anyway, those instructions above are from a review on the WalMart site. Monitor is $189 plus tax.

I like Postable for sending fun cards for birthdays. I made my own design for this year. Will probably draw another animal for next year.

MonoPrice 15W

The Monoprice tube guitar amp sounds disturbingly good for less than $200. Or maybe less than $600. Or maybe infinity if it's workin' for ya. (H/T my big brother Big Bells.)

One from the other

MIDI Machine Control.
Loopbe is a virtual MIDI port which I've been using to sync two instances of Samplitude together so I can write music while editing audio.
Bills Recording services and repairs Oktava microphones.
Libsyn is seemingly the CDBaby of podcasting.

The Shell World War III

Here's a Japanese review of Carbon Copy. In Japanese it's called something like "The Shell The Shell 3rd World War." Which might be a fairly accurate title, I don't know. I don't know how or if Japanese language handles definite articles.

Sundries

Slow Dolphin is one of those Amazon companies. They sell cheap lighting and grip stuff. Joe Lambert Mastering is a mastering facility right here in Jersey City. Camvate makes wooden camera handles and suchwise. Tim Johnson of Thinkspace has an orchestral mixing service.

Marc Mozart has a "Master Feedback Service" which seems pretty interesting. Dreamcatcher is a VFX house in Sofia.

Demented 6th Chords

I think this is right: If you find yourself on a IV chord, Option one: put it in the 1st inversion (b) and play it. In C the IV chord would be F major, in first inversion the bottom of the triad is A, the middle note is C, and the top note is F. Then you get to make an augmented sixth! Just lower the bottom note of that triad (this would be an A going to A-flat) and raise the top note (F to F#.) Now you have a triad that's Ab, C, and F#. This is the Italian augmented sixth. It resolves (by step) to a I or a IV chord. Alternatively, do all the above steps and add a flat seven to the chord (this would be an Eb.) That is the German augmented sixth. It normally resolves to a I because it's hard to avoid parallel fifths resolving to a V (because that Eb makes it hard.) Option two: there's the French aug 6. That's on a ii chord. The ii chord (say, Dm) is put in the 2nd inversion (c) such that the triad is A, D, and F. Lower the bottom (A becomes Ab), raise the top (F becomes F#) and add in a flat 7 (this is a C because we're flatting the seven of the ii chord) and resolve to the I or V.

7 9 11 13

As a general rule, whenever you have a chord that goes above a seventh, you would include the note it goes up to and the seventh, missing out the other notes. This would meant that in C11, you would include the F, which the chord goes up to in order to make it C11 and the seventh of the chord, B, but you wouldn’t need the ninth, the D. If you went further, say C13, you would miss out the ninth and eleventh of the chord, but include the seventh and thirteenth and so on. The most common note to be omitted from the chord would be the fifth as the root as the third gives us the strongest feel of a major or minor chord, as the case may be. So in order to create a C9 chord in 4-part harmony, you would have C – E – B – D. If you wanted C13, it would be C – E – B – A, with A the thirteenth of the chord.

Pivot

Pivot chords are chords that are the same in two different keys. They're used to modulate from one key to another. Since V I establishes your key more than anything, you probably want to avoid them as pivot chords. Pivot chords really only works within two keys on the circle of fifths.

Dunes I

Sand dunes.

The Sound of the Moon

I wrote a book of poetry. It's a parody of Lang Leav. It amuses me.

Harmony

NotePerformer is a set of alternate sounds for Sibelius.

Accented passing notes mean notes which land on a new chord but are passing notes between the new chord and the chord previous. Un-accented passing notes mean you go from a chord and then make a passing note before you hit the next chord.
I'd never actually understood what "suspended" chords are. I mean, I play guitar so the term is all there, I'd just never gotten it. But you can suspend any note of one chord when you hit the next chord. An anticipation is the opposite of a suspension. You bring a note in early. (And frequently they're in a dotted form.)

• Passing notes
• Auxiliary notes
• Suspensions
• Anticipations

Reflecting motifs and counterpoint.

- High and low pedals.

- Alberti bass and broken chords.

- Bringing parts in and out.

Someone Else's Dream

See, you were living in a house with a bunch of other people. And in the basement was where you had a whole mechanical platform built for shooting. And we were sitting on the floor and a bug came crawling by and I said it's a silverfish, I'll smash it, give me a shoe. And you said no, get up, get out of the way. That's a liquid mouse. And I looked and it was more like a translucent shrimp undersea type creature but it was hinged in the middle. And you said that one of the teenagers you knew had created it and we should get out of the way. And sure enough, when it walked into the light it dissolved down into a tiny crystal. And then right away it sort of melted into this epoxy type glue and spread out and got all over everything. And I did get some on my fingers but I never found out what happened cuz the dream changed into something else at that point I think. Anyway: You know a teenager who created the liquid mouse.

32

So, apparently I'm putting notes on classes over here. Instead of Tyrannosaurus Mouse blog. Nobody knows why.

Fantasy is the last bastion of the fast moving run - those 32nd note patterns that John Williams uses at the start of ‘Hedwig’s Theme’ in Harry Potter for example. It’s not only strings, but also woodwind and harp as well. These aren’t as difficult to write as they sound if you are really certain of your harmonic orientation, but easy to get wrong if you are not. They are however difficult to do with samples and it remains a major challenge even with specialist libraries like Orchestral String Runs at your disposal. If you don’t have a specialist library, try layering tremolando samples with a spiccato. That works pretty well for strings.

New review

Ooh, lookit! A new review of Millennium Crisis.
https://rivetsontheposter.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/millennium-crisis-2007/
Neeto!