There is, of course, the iGuitar or the Pocket Guitar, each allowing you to play any song a physical guitar will allow you to play, but fitting into your pocket much easier. But what if you took two or four smart phones and set each of them up to do a different musical task, and played them all together? Rick Wakeman used to need 400 cubic feet of stage space and a dozen hours per show to assemble a fraction of this audio power, and that only after a crew of teamsters moved, mounted, and bolted together the gear for him. Today it can be done by a single girl with four smart phones, one for voice processing and the others to do the band instrument parts. The Futures so bright, I gotta wear shades!
Music is evolving right along with everything else as we rush faster and faster towards the singularity. These days, you can use your cell phone or tablet to enjoy any kind of media they support, but with the correct apps you can so much more; you can create the music yourself, limited only by your imagination and skill set. Using the same devices and the proper social media software, you can be in touch with other like-minded friends and creators from all over the world around the clock, to brainstorm, write, and jam, until you get a grasp of exactly what you want to bring to life. Finally, again with the smarter versions of the same devices, you can actually play the music and display the video together, in real time, from anywhere on the planet, for everyone to experience. Here are a few examples, starting with the Korean Pop Star Yoari and her iPhone playing band covering a Beyonce song, and then the MoPho Ocarina Band (with instrument details) looking into the concepts behind using smartphones with social media interfaces as musical instruments. As a music addict from long ago, I find this topic one of the more exciting aspects of living in today’s modern world of the future, and will be returning to it again.
What could be more silly than a Ukulele Orchestra doing rock? Perhaps a Kazoo Band, but not much else to my mind. So here are a few silly Ukulele songs to hold us until I can gather together a few of the other tunes.
One of my favorite J-Rock groups is Scandal, who started out as four actresses in training. Each was advised to learn a musical instrument to round out their skill set; so they chose 4 different ones and formed a kick-ass band. You mostly only hear them in North America on Anime DVDs, when they come through on tour, or periodically on a J-Melo broadcast. And while over here they are best known for their contributions to K-ON and other anime, they have a ton of top quality non-anime music as well, and more fans than you might suspect (some of whom can sing their entire catalog in Japanese). Did I mention the have won some awards, including the Viewers Choice Awards on J-Melo?
Like they did with Terminator Salvation, the WB Insider is having a Harry Potter Event online on Saturday, December 12th (3PM EST). You drop the Blu-ray DVD you bought into your internet connected BD enhanced player, and log into BD-Live; that will allow you to hear them respond to questions, kind of like a real-time Comments On function. You will also need a computer logged into their web site if you want to ask questions of your own to Daniel Radcliffe and the director while watching the latest movie.
Starting tomorrow, Sunday December 6th, BBC7 will be running Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the book by Grant Naylor (who is actually Rob Grant & Doug Naylor) that tells the story about how Dave Lister ended up as part of the crew of the Red Dwarf. If that wasn’t enough, the story is read by Arnold Rimmer himself – Chris Barrie. The segments are 30 minutes long, so it will take six of them to read the whole book. There are three more Red Dwarf books and I for one am sincerely hoping they decide to present them all.
There are only 3 David Tennant Doctor Who specials left, and BBC America will be playing The Water of Mars on Saturday December 19th. Yes, it is the Beginning of the End; and Children in Need had a taste to share…