So, are you in the mood for a little samba? No? Too bad, here’s one for you anyway.

I wrote about the old 78 records I got from my granddad a couple of days ago. I’ve transferred some of them to mp3, and all my fears were justified. The quality is poor - both what audio quality and musical quality is concerned.

It’s pretty much like that car they dug up in Tulsa - the buried 1957 Plymouth Belvedere - it’s a disappointment, a giant heap of rust… 

But here’s a little piano-rolling gem from virtuoso Ben Light with accompaniment.

It’s called “I Want My Mama,” and as I mentioned, it’s a samba. A quick search on the internet reveals that mr. Light also recorded a song called “Give It To Me Daddy” - there may be some kind of perverse fixation here that I won’t dig any further into.

He also recorded a tune called “I’m Going to Get Me a Robot Man” in the 1940s. And “The Full-Her Brushman!” Some great titles, there.

I assume it’s been out of print for a hundred years - but if I’m offending anyone by streaming this track, please let me know, and I’ll take it down immediately.

You know, I’m an amateur musician, and I’ve been composing music for about 15 years. I’ve also tried for 15 years to write a song lyric, but I’m awful at it - I’ve never completed a lyric. Until yesterday.

It sucks, I’m quite sure. But I’m so proud of the fact that I finally completed one, that I simply must share it with everyone I encounter. So, my dear readers, the turn has come to you. Be amused. Be impressed. Bear in mind though that my concept of rhyming is limited to finishing each sentence with words ending with “-tion.” And remember that English is not my native language. Ok, enough excuses already.

I basically tried to write some serious cock rock with a set of really wimpy lyrics. I guess it ended up as a mix of that, powerpop and prog - I don’t know, really. Listen to it right here and judge for yourselves:

I’ve never sung those high notes before either. If you really like it, and as a very special sign of how much I appreciate you for spending time listening to it, you can download it here.

Now, I promise never to post my music on this blog again.

An interesting discussion has taken place over at one of my favorite music blogs in the last week or so. Jeff at jefitoblog feared that the host took down his account last weekend due to extensive downloading of a few music files he put up there. It turns out that this may not have been the case, but it has nevertheless given spark to a fruitful debate concerning the state of the music business and the way they’re dealing with the digital music revolution.

The subject is very interesting and, being an avid music buyer sitting in another corner of the world, I feel that it has as much relevance for me as it does for music lovers in the U.S. The American entertainment industry is pretty much a world-wide enterprise, and it must surely be one of that country’s main export articles.

As a consequence, a very strong and persuasive U.S. lobby has been established, and they’re fighting hard to impose rigid American copyright laws upon the rest of the world. You can read more about that in this article on BBC.

I’ve attempted to address this subject a lot of times, but I have to admit that I often end up contradicting myself whenever I attempt to draw up arguments for and against DRM , licensing and pricing.

So instead, let’s try for a moment to forget who’s right and who’s wrong here, let’s ignore what’s possible and what’s not. Let’s pretend that the following rules were agreed upon by all parties as a sound and sensible policy for digital music files:

• Making available one or two music files is not and will never under any circumstance be considered as copyright infringement – a blogger making a track available for download to present a sample of the music he’s reviewing is an obvious case of fair use.

• An entire music album on the other hand, is copyright protected and sharing entire albums is strictly prohibited. The same goes for websites or aggregators linking to files on other websites, thus making available entire albums for download.
• Forget about DRM. All copy protection is removed from digital music files
• Free use of purchased music files. Manipulate, duplicate and store in any which way you may desire.

So, given these premises, will people still want to pay for their music?

Well, let’s start by taking a look at yours truly. One single digital music file – an mp3-file – has very little value to me these days, much like singles had very little value to me back in the 80’s – I always bought the full album.

And if I were to pay a visit to dogpile.com today and make an audio search for, say, R.E.M. AND Losing My Religion, and then actually download the file in 128 kbps mp3-format, that wouldn’t make me feel like a criminal – at all.

I do feel that it would be wrong to download an entire album from a site, though. I imagine that it would make me feel a little bit like a criminal. I would never download a rar- or zip-file containing the full ”Out of Time”-album, and I would certainly not share it with anyone else in a bittorrent environment.

I have to admit that I have done this in the past, but I stopped doing it because it simply didn’t feel like the right thing to do. I felt a bit shady.

I’ve downloaded a few single tracks at iTunes, but it actually makes me feel kinda silly to pay $0.99 for a single music file in 128 kbps quality. I’ve been wondering a bit as to why I feel that way. I never feel silly buying a chocolate bar at the exact same price, and then digesting it in 10 seconds.

I think it has something to do with this: I don’t consider one single music track to be a complete chocolate bar. It consider it more like one bite off that bar. Over at eMusic I get the full bar for $1.99 – that feels about right.

I realise that it is more time-consuming and requires a lot more thought and money to record and produce one song than it does to produce one bar of chocolate – of course I do. But I have a large record collection, and a single music file has very little value to me. It must be a pretty terrific song, and the rest of the album has to suck pretty bad for me to be willing to pay $0.99 for a song.

But here’s a twist: I’m more than willing to pay $9.99 for a 10-track album. Why is that, you ask? The answer is pretty simple.

When I’m buying an album I get a service in addition to the music itself: I get (in some cases) a complete product where someone (be it the artist or the label) has thought through a combination of songs that constitute a unity, and is something I may play up to several times a week without getting bored. I pay for the time and the thought it’s taken them, and I’m OK with that – it’s worth it.

If I download a lot of single files on the other hand, I have to make these playlists myself. Usually I don’t, I just play the music on random. I very rarely put together playlists with artistic wholeness or something like that in mind. And I sometimes miss that aspect.

If I really like an album I can listen to it constantly, for hours, days, weeks to end. I never play a single song on repeat for 40 minutes. And I never make a playlist of my last 10 single downloads and play it for hours to end.

Anyway, this is me: There’s an important distinction between single files and albums.

Now, let’s return to my earlier suggested premises – what would actually happen if they turned into reality?

Absolutely nothing, I’m afraid – it would be status quo.

It probably doesn’t matter what kind of admittances the music industry give, or what kind of restrictions they impose. It won’t change the fact that the customers’ inflated music collections have forever changed people’s view of how much music is worth.

For my part, I have a moral and economic standpoint that regards it reasonable to pay for what I consider to be a complete music product: the album. But I’m 35 years old, and I grew up with vinyl records and CDs.

The next generations probably don’t think like that at all. 19-year-olds today, with their 24/7 internet connection and torrent clients have music collections counting 10-20.000 songs, and they never even bought a CD. How do they value a single music file? Pretty much like air, I imagine.

What can persuade all these teenagers with virtual record stores on their computers to ever pay for music?

I believe that the music business need to consider some of the aspects that ultimately convince me to buy music: They need to offer them some kind of service in addition to music itself – for instance, take a look at jefitoblog – people are willing to cover Jeff’s expenses for him to be able to continue blogging about the music that they like. If the music business could ever establish that kind of trust with their customers, they may actually make some money off it – by giving good advice, maybe? People still pay for concerts, music magazines, they pay their fan club membership fee and donate to their struggling favorite indie-bands – but they’re simply not willing to pay for the music itself anymore…

Surely this sends out a message loud and clear to the music business: that maybe their strategy at this point is a little…misled?

I think it’s next to impossible to ever get the music industry to admit to something like that, though.

Consider music as information for a moment. We’re living in a time where information is considered to be one of our most important resources. Unfortunately, I believe that just as the church once tried to gain control of wisdom, just as politicians tried to gain control of knowledge – commercial industries today will continue to try and gain control of information. And that could turn out to be a very long battle.

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST.” Frank Zappa

Great news! EMI announced today that they’re launching new premium downloads for retail, offering their entire catalog on DRM-free 256 Kbps mp3-files on iTunes for $1.29/song. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

I’m not sure how much it will affect my buying habits, though. I only buy DRM-free files, but maybe my musical taste is so off-beat that EMI really doesn’t have that much to offer? On the other hand, they do have a large jazz and classical section, I think. So it’ll probably benefit me in some ways, too. Besides, I’m not that off-beat.

Well done, EMI.

Music plays a significant role in my life. I’m obsessed with it, more or less. Often I can’t think of work because I have this song on my mind or because I’m planning my next album purchase. My wife and kids suffer because of it - I may spend some time with them, and then suddenly I get this blank stare in my eyes, and my attention is lost to some minor detail over a lyric or a riff I heard earlier on the day.

Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass to constantly be in this state, but mostly it’s just a pure joy. And it’s a good thing that my family is into music as well. Any other arrangement would have been doomed from the start. My wife understands me, if not perfectly, but most of the time she accepts my addiction.

There’s been one big, black cloud, though. I’ve been longing for the opportunity to download DRM-free MP3s badly for a long time now. I’ve been sitting right here waiting, credit card in hand, but the music business just haven’t been willing to oblige.

I’d heard about eMusic, and I read a little bit about it here and there. But my impression judging from the comments I came across somehow led me to believe it was some second-rate mp3-site loaded with pretentious amateur musicians submitting their demos hoping to cash in a few bucks.

I don’t know how that misinterpretation came about, and why I haven’t bothered to check out their catalog until now. I spend most of my waking hours in front of a computer, and I’m always on the lookout for good music. I can’t comprehend how it’s been possible that I didn’t come to visit their site until this week. And the things I’ve missed!

Real artists. Real music. And so cheap! It’s a brilliant site. I instantly found dozens of albums I’d gladly pay full price for. Great jazz with John Coltrane, Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles Davis, plenty of 70s soft rock, a virtual library of cool alternative rock. It’s all I need. And what a liberating experience to avoid the standard celeb gloss style on entering a music site - no Christinas, Britneys or Shakiras to be seen anywhere!

I immediately signed up for the $19.99/month deal for 75 downloads. No cons, really - the simplest choice I’ve ever made. I’m a happy man. If you’re a hopelessly silly music freak like I am, and still haven’t discovered the pleasures of eMusic, go there, NOW! I genuinely and warmly recommend this excellent site for all music lovers.

And yes, I know I’m late for the party. That happens to me sometimes.

I’ve been composing and playing music for as long as I can remember. I started using computer software and synths around 1994, and over the years I’ve assembled endless snippets of 30-second music themes that I never followed up on.

Recently I listened to some of the very first themes that I wrote on my computer in 1994. In the beginning I didn’t have a MIDI keyboard, so I was forced to put down every last note on sheet music, in a very simple sequencer program called Session, and I played it out on a laughable FM synthesis soundcard. It was an impossibly time-consuming way to make music.

I remember I had Windows 3.0 installed on my brand new computer. When I bought it it came with early editions of Encarta and Cinemania. My friends and I were amazed to see those 20-second 240×180 movie showcases that was included on Cinemania - not to speak of the 8-bit sound clips from literally dozens of movies. The notion of real sound and video on a personal computer! Unbelievable! The internet was still to reach our shores. The world was young.

Anyway, I was listening to these themes. At that time I was utterly heartbroken. I was going through my first major break-up, and I was completely devastated for a very long time. Reading my diary entries is scary - I was going through some heavy shit, and the stuff I wrote was pretty depressing.

Among the music I created, I discovered a theme that’s very sorrowful and melancholy - and I think it’s actually very pretty. Inspired by Ennio Morricone’s Cinema Paradiso, I’m guessing, it’s almost certainly related to my lost love. I don’t know why I left it unfinished, exactly, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I start on a song, write a few bars, then it doesn’t really head anywhere and I leave it behind when another idea springs to mind. Anyway.

I don’t know if this is a good or bad idea but here’s what I had in mind:

I’ll present you to this “lost” theme today, and in the following weeks or months, I’ll try to develop it into a suite of some kind; a quasi-classical suite for flute or piano or something, not sure yet.

And as the work progresses I will update you with new musical samples so that you can follow the process and listen to where the piece is heading - and then maybe leave some of your own views and/or advice in the comments section. It will be an interactive composition exercise. If it’s successful, it could be an interesting experiment for me - I’ve never written music by popular demand before… I’m not a musical genius or anything, far from it, and I have no degree or diploma in composition. This is just for fun. And, if you’re intrigued by the idea, follow me along the way, why don’t you?

Here’s the theme in a simple orchestral arrangement:
Flute theme (mp3-file, c. 0:40)

Disclaimer: If, on the other hand, popular demand should prove to be more or less absent, which may very well be the case, this project could also die a silent death in the course of the next few weeks - and that would be fine, too. I’m kind of hoping for that, actually…