halloween is totally almost here, and i don’t think i’ve watched the Nightmare Before Christmas once. i shall change that tonight maybe?

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even more housekeeping. if you’ll notice on the bottom of this post (even for the feeders) there are several links; digg, stumbleupon, facebook, google, etc. so go ahead and click if you feel so inclined. make me famous, that’s all i ask. (well, as famous as a blog can make you).

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as some have noticed from following my tweets, i won second place in the Vote Yes MN Film Contest this past month. it was a hasty venture, but i’m very proud of the overall product. also, Andrew Bird granted me gratis use of a song of his (‘The Water Jet Cilice’ off Fingerlings 3). on that note, big thanks to everyone that helped get those rights and licensing to all of that.

expect a video of it soon.

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i’m not trying to say this as an all encompassing statement, but this might be one of the better sites on the internet: http://www.43folders.com/

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what is music? seriously.

in the recent advent of musical games we’ve seen created then copied then cursed on xbox360, wii, and ps3, it’ve really started to wonder what is drawing so many people towards the simple rhythmic flicking of a plastic tab. why not create actual music on an instrument? wouldn’t it be more fulfilling? well, there’s two sides to that story.

when broken down into simple mechanics, “music” is simply a cause and effect: do an action, hear a tone. pluck a string, hear a tone. purse your lips, hear a tone. press a key, hear a tone. do almost anything, and hear that beautiful tone. put those tones into a sequence that our minds (for some reason) finds pleasing, and suddenly music is made.

over the course of years starting i don’t know when, we’ve made music more complicated (in a sense, but that’s another thought entirely). meaning it’s become somewhat of a daunting thing to learn music to recreate the tones and rhythms we find pleasing AT THAT MOMENT (i wouldn’t pickup a guitar and expect to be covering david bowie in a matter of minutes). music is also enormously complex in a mathematical sense, meaning knowing what notes go well together, and imo WHY those notes go together, is also a deterrent for people seeking to expand musically.

rock band and guitar hero cut these hurdles out altogether; with the simple tap of a pad or flick of a tab, you can create music that you know and find pleasing. it’s a simpler input for a more complicated output.

music is an expression; an expression such as acting is very much fueled by the audience, whereas music doesn’t have tangible expressions to relate to, such as language. music has a physical and emotional attachment. so, illuminate the difficulty of producing such complex and pleasing tones, and you have rock band. it’s essentially doing the same thing as playing a real instrument.

this is in no way saying “screw real music, just play video game music.” it’s exactly the opposite: pursue music. don’t cut out these games as entertainment for apes. all they’re doing is showing people what playing is like, but giving them so much more in return.

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it’s videos like this that make me think cats could beat up an old lady, take her purse, and still be as adorable as ever