Learning or not

On the East West piano patches the "DYN" patches allegedly have a more concave dynamics curve. That's the difference. So the Internet says.

99 Dollar Orchestra.

Frequencies of notes based on A=440.

Flute making.

Python script for calculating dimensions in flute making.

Opinion in academic writing.

Netflix has new delivery specs. What's nice is they publish them.
79dB SPL at -20db FS at the mix position. Well, or 82dB SPL.
Folding down 5.1's? Bring the center channel down -3dB.
But the big deal is -27dB LUFS on gated dialog for the entire program.

We're not the best people in the world

The Citation Machine makes citations. I think JSTOR does too.
University of Oxford online library system.

Okay. So I have two weeks to do the first assignment. But these first three assignments each are from a pool of 6 possible choices. So I kinda need to figure out which of these six in the pool I'm doing for each formative and for the summative assignment.
Interestingly the assignments are different from the chapters in the module. And the chapters in this module are actually in a course I took over the summer in order to do a better job on the portfolio I submitted.

Required Viewing

I've seen all these movies but one. The Social Network.

Obviously, I'll be watching them all again, I just thought that was interesting.

Required Viewing (for both Film Music in Practice Modules)

American Beauty. (1999). [film] USA: DreamWorks SKG: Sam Mendes.

Batman. (1989). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Tim Burton.

Casablanca. (1942). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Michael Curtiz.

From Russia With Love. (1963). [film] GB: Eon Productions: Terence Young.

Gladiator. (2000). [film] USA: DreamWorks SKG: Ridley Scott.

Gravity. (2013). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Alfonso Cuarón.

King Kong. (1933). [film] USA: RKO Radio Pictures: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack.

King Kong. (2005). [film] USA: Universal Pictures: Peter Jackson.

Lawrence of Arabia. (1962). [film] GB: Horizon Pictures: David Lean.

North by Northwest. (1959). [film] USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM): Alfred Hitchcock.

Psycho. (1960). [film] USA: Shamley Productions: Alfred Hitchcock.

Skyfall. (2012). [film] GB: Eon Productions: Sam Mendes.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. (1980). [film] USA: Lucasfilm: Irvin Kershner.

The Adventures of Robin Hood. (1938). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Michael Curtiz.

The City Lights. (1931). [film] USA: Charles Chaplin Productions: Charles Chaplin.

The Dark Knight. (2008). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Christopher Nolan.

The Godfather. (1972). [film] USA: Paramount Pictures: Francis Ford Coppola.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. (1966). [film] IT: Produzioni Europee Associati: Sergio Leone.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (2001). [film] USA: New Line Cinema: Peter Jackson.

The Mission. (1986). [film] US: Warner Bros: Roland Joffé.

The Pink Panther. (1963). [film] USA: Mirisch G-E Productions: Blake Edwards.

The Social Network. (2010). [film] USA: Columbia Pictures: David Fincher.

There Will Be Blood. (2007). [DVD] USA: Paramount Vantage: Paul Thomas Anderson.

Stuf and such.

Cakewalk is back.

Unfilter tries to un-EQ stuff.

BBC's 50 Modern Classics podcast. About modern classical music.

An audio jobs blog.

Netflix loudness delivery spec.

Adagio For Strings chord progression.

I don't know if I posted this before. These be the books I must of read.

INDICATIVE READING

Required

Cooke M (2008) A history of film music (1st edition). New York: Cambridge University Press

Hill J and Gibson P (1998) The Oxford guide to film studies (1st edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press

Karlin, F. and Wright, R. (1990). On the track. 1st ed. New York: Schirmer Books.

Rona, J. (2000). The reel world. 1st ed. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books.

Recommended

Adler, S. (2002). The study of orchestration. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Jones C and Jolliffe G (2000) The guerilla film makers handbook (1st edition). New York: Continuum

Monaco J (2009) How to read a film (1st edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press

Jacob, G. (1940). Orchestral technique. 1st ed. London: Oxford University Press, G. Cumberlege.

Mancini, H. (1977). Sounds and scores. 1st ed. Greenwich: Northridge Music Inc.

Piston, W. and Piston, W. (1955). Orchestration. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Read, G. (1979). Music notation. 1st ed. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co.

Rimsky-Korsakov, N., Shteinberg, M. and Agate, E. (1912). Principles of orchestration. 1st ed. Berlin: Edition Russe de Musique.

This list of required and recommended materials applies to the whole course. Where additional specific recommendations are made, they will appear in the module handbooks. For the latest complete recommended resources, please visit our website: www.thinkspaceonline.com

Day one

I can confirm that Andrew does have an unconditional place on the following course:

COURSE: MA Profession Media Composition

START DATE: September 17th 2018

END DATE: September 17th 2019

MODE OF STUDY: FT1 (Full Time - 1 year)

COST: $12,950

Today was the first day of induction.

Mad Pulp

Dig Bill Cunningham's new project. Killer Comics.

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.