From frost on rooftops out our windows (San Francisco – frost?) to the vivid red maple blooming in front of our home, we continue to appreciate life and beauty!

Kathryn: I am still leading the Feldenkrais program for adults with severe neuro-motor challenges at Bay Area Ability Now and also co-leading a weekly meditation practice group for Tergar International on Sunday mornings, with my colleague Cristian Lotito—something I’ve done weekly since April 2020, and monthly in person before that. The photo shows me with Cristian and Mingyur Rinpoche, Tergar’s Founding Teacher.

I was drawn to the work of Roshi Joan Halifax (photo left) several years ago, and I am delighted to be able to study with her “in person” on zoom. (You can see my small face on the zoom insert above her head.)

Jim/Sky: It’s been mostly-sunny days this week on the ski slopes near Lake Tahoe, and we’re happy that we’re both skiing — at least on the fair-weather days. (Temp 36°F day and 18°F night)

Despite a ski injury last January, Kathryn has continued skiing and loves it — as she has for many years. These photos of us were taken yesterday!

 

Jim/Sky: Kathryn also got to visit with her sister Susan Amber Gordon on the East Coast, despite our lessened eagerness to travel since the start of the pandemic.

 

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Play It Again

Jim/Sky: In 2022 I started producing my feature-length film Play It Again about “Coming home to music.” I’m personally an extreme example of this. For me the coming back started in 2014, then accelerated to full tilt in 2015-2016 at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I completed a full-time post-graduate year in Technology and Applied Composition. At that time, I had already been thinking about making a film about the experience, but there just wasn’t time to complete the coursework and do a film at the same time. So in February, 2022 I finally started filming. An intermediate full-length cut of the film is completed now (December, 2022) and with the filming of one more scene in January, we will have it all “in the can.”

When I went back to music in 2015 I said that “software had caught up with us” and was finally enabling a new breed of composer and compositional process — with sampled instruments it had become possible to compose and play back in real time at good quality — a new cyclical compositional process much like software development. Well by 2022 it was obvious that iPhone hardware and software were advanced enough that “filming” could be similarly streamlined and available to far more would-be producers. So I became one of those. The film is almost entirely shot on iPhone with wireless sound recording right into the camera as well. Sign up for more film info!

Play It Again — Coming home to music and how it changed my life; filmed in 2022, and scheduled for release in February, 2023. New audio albums are in the works for Q1:2023 augmenting the existing albums. Amateur Music Network; I’m on the board of directors of this org that promotes “the love of music” including upcoming workshops and a library of video of many past workshops. Joined the board of the Ross McKee Foundation, which promotes piano performance. We had a private showing and panel discussion of The Third Harmony, a film I scored in 2020. CDs of my albums are available now via special order. Just ask me.

My film will be available in February, 2023, and if you visit the Play It Again web site, you can sign up there for email notification.

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My first two films were Indulgence (Leo Maselli) and The Third Harmony (Michael Nagler).

For those of you not familiar with how a composer creates music for a film, I thought I’d go thru how Kip and I collaborated to put music to this story.

Scoring the Film — How we Started

Kip and I had a chat about music for her film months before anything was shot. Late in 2020, the shots were all “in the can“ (with COVID protocols on the set) and Kip gave me an early rough cut of the then 24-minute film. The editor, Charles Anderson, had done an excellent job cutting and assembling the scenes, and honestly there was very little that changed in terms of scene lengths between then and the final version. At this early stage the final colors weren’t set — the film looked somewhat grayish — and the dialog was basically unedited, requiring selection from among multiple microphones, and sometimes a bit of sonic cleaning up. But the sequence of shots was close to final in this case, and the story line was clear. (Not every filmmaker works this way.)

At any given time I have dozens of songs or musical ideas just waiting to be used in films. So I pointed Kip at my online music bin and said “Listen to everything — at least the first 20 seconds of each — and then let me know what pieces of music you feel might work in the film. Based on her suggestions, I then refined (and added) what I thought might work, but mostly we worked from her selections.

Interestingly, a large percentage of what she liked had already been used in films. This is actually no problem, because it helps me understand what she was reacting to.

I then took a set of about eight of these and positioned them within the rough-cut film, so we could review the film with dialog and with my suggested music.

Making the Music Fit the Film

My digital audio workstation [DAW] is the Logic Pro X app (from Apple), which allows me to view the film second by second, and directly position the music against each cue in the film.

In the screen shot above, the film runs left to right on the timeline, and below it are the various pieces of music looking like a colorful waterfall. Each is positioned where it’s going to go time wise in the film. The goldenrod colored bars are the sound effects and the dialog of the film, which run its entire length.

Wherever music needed to be stretched, I just wrote more music — basically I had all of the instruments available to me there in real time and I just write and tailored the music to each scene. A couple of pieces of music I adapted to be shorter. As composer, of course, I have complete flexibility to do anything I want to the music, and I do not have to worry about whether Beethoven or Mozart would complain. I just make whatever changes I wish to make.

The 25-minute film ended up having 10 music cues by the time we finished. Very little silence, and honestly almost wall-to-wall music. In some films I add “designed sound” to scenes, but in this one we remained melodic and instrumental instead.

The “Alexa” Segments

Most of the music in the film is “movie music” — the kind you’re used to from many films. But, also for this film we needed three very short (10-second) pieces of diegetic music. Diegetic means it’s part of the action in the scene. In this case our heroine asks Alexa to play some music. We needed 80’s pop, classical, and jazz. Rather than license from someone, I wrote the jazz, asked another SFCM composer (David Tippie) to write an 80’s pop soundalike, and paraphrased Erik Satie for the classical (out of copyright) segments.

So What’s New?

This is the first time any of this music has appeared in any film or album.

Only one piece of music was written specifically for this film. Everything else was waiting for the right time and the right film. All of them were written in the last 3 years.

Once the entire arc of the music for the film was completed, and after a small number of revision rounds, we were set to go. For this film, I provided the sound mixer with three “stems.” These are audio files that run the entire length of the film; in parallel; and the volume of each can be adjusted based on what’s needed at any instant. In this case, I provided a finished “mix” with all of the instruments at the volumes I felt were best at every second in the film; but I also provided a full-length file consisting of the music without any drums; and finally a full-length file with only the drums. It’s the job of the film’s sound mixer to use these along with dialog and sound effects to make the finished audio for the film. I get to listen to it and comment, but I don’t play a direct role in its construction once I’ve turned over the stems.

The Trailer

The one original “song” was the most emotive and wrought-up of the group, and it fit the mood of the trailer perfectly. (Charles Anderson, the film’s editor, did a terrific job piecing together that trailer) The music was actually significantly longer than the trailer, so much as I did for the film, I placed the trailer visual in my DAW and then stripped and recomposed to get the effect I wanted for the trailer. I could literally work down to the precise frame in the video. The drummer in the trailer actually is a different drummer than was used in the film…for emphasis…I love those huge taiko drums and so that’s what I wanted at the end of the trailer. In the film itself there’s some quasi-taiko drumming, but not quite that much.

The Album

After the film was fully locked and music was mixed, I took the music itself, which spanned the 25 minutes of the film, and created a new project in my DAW just for the audio. The film had scenes with no music, so I expanded the music to be end-to-end 25 minutes, by adding and extending some of the selections. I also created a broader sonic spectrum and changed some of the instruments. Music sounds different when standing on its own (that is, when “supporting” action and dialog). This somewhat richer version of the soundtrack then becomes the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album. This goes into the queue at CDBaby for distribution to all of the streaming services. Once it’s distributed, it can be played or downloaded online. SkyHi Digital has a page with links to the album on the various streams.

The interaction with the film’s producer, and the film and sound editors, was very good. Feedback usually makes huge improvements. It’s good to have many ears listening to the music when it’s being refined. Collaboration works wonders.

The post I’m Fine appeared first on Sky's Blog.

We (the team here) have been struggling with the color on Logitech C920 and C922 webcams recently. We’re preparing for a big international conference in November when the cameras will be in around-the-clock use. Initially each camera had a nice color balance, but after a couple of weeks each of them acquired an “underwater” blueish cast, and things that should have appeared white in the picture turned a spooky underwater blue!

Some of the blueness is due to where we have located our webcams — they’re in rooms with good outdoor light, but no direct sunlight, so the ambient lighting is saturated with blue skylight. But, beyond that, the cameras over-emphasized the blue. They were trying to auto-correct, but slewed way too far blue. Instead of compensating for our blue light, they were over-emphasizing it. Today we solved the problem!

The Camera Settings App

Logitech provides a Camera Settings app (for Mac OS in our case) that you can install to modify the way the camera sees things. (Download from > logitech.com/support/C930c ) Download it and install it on the computer, then connect your camera and fix its settings.

The app exposes five settings under its Advanced tab (see screenshot). The adjustment we needed was to Auto white balance. Turning it off (the little toggle switch), and then adjusting the color temperature (the xxxxK value) fixed our cameras so they produce a pleasing color output under various light conditions. That’s pretty much it.

In our case, I had to turn it all the way to 6500K to get a pleasing effect in daytime lighting conditions. At night, with incandescent (or LED adjusted to incandescent color temperatures) we have to modify it, but honestly it’s so easy to use the Camera Settings app that we can set it once for each online session and let it run.

The other adjustments do what you’d expect, and we have not needed to fiddle with them, as our problem was just the blueish cast — which is now gone!

C920 users

This worked for both our Logitech C920 and our C930 cameras, even though the C920 support page doesn’t give you a path to download this software, and even though Logitech does not list the C920 as a supported camera for this app. So if you’re using a C920, be sure to go to the support page for the C930 to download this software. It won’t let you pan or zoom (features of the C930), but you can fix the color.)

Logitech Brio

Postscript (Dec 7, 2020): We eventually ended up with a Logitech Brio webcam that has maintained its (proper) color balance for weeks. It can also be configured by the Camera Settings app, but it’s a far better camera in the first place.

The post Got the Logitech C920/C922 blues? appeared first on Sky's Blog.

When you’re preparing for an online interview (Zoom, Skype), there are a few things you can do to really help it be a truly professional shoot. These tips are for both the interviewer and the interviewee. And they are the tips I suggest to interviewees on the Exploring Leadership podcast.

°    Pick a quiet room. Any conversations around you, open windows with conversations, or traffic noise, will be distracting. (Traffic particularly tends to create “rumble” while you’re recording.)

°   Use earbuds or a headset that contains a microphone, if possible. This brings the mic closer to your mouth and yields better sound than using your computer’s microphone. Earbuds or earphones also reduce the possibility of echo or feedback.

°   If you must use the computer mic, then remember not to type or fiddle on the keyboard during the shoot, and try not to rustle papers or tap the table, as the microphone will pick up these sounds.

°    Avoid echos and reverberation by picking a room with very little echo. Carpets reduce echos. Drapes or window blinds reduce echos. Partitions reduce echos.

°    Find a comfortable chair (without a high back) and position yourself against a flat, light colored, solid wall, facing the computer straight on. You should be about 5 feet (just under 2 meters) from the camera. Looking at the zoom video preview, center yourself and make your head take up about ½ the vertical space in the picture. Eliminate sharp lined objects that might be behind you — they can be distracting — things like kitchen clutter, bookshelves, or windows looking out on passersby.

°    If possible, have light coming at your face from the front. A table lamp works. A window opposite you works. A window behind you is likely to be terrible. Basically you want the background and your face to have the same amount of light, so you may have to experiment.

°    Adjust the camera angle so it is looking “straight” at you. i.e. Not like it’s on your desk and you’re peering down into a well. If necessary, put your laptop computer up on a few books to raise it. It should be approximately at the level of your mouth or eyes, not looking up like a bug on the rug.

°    If you’re “filming” with a phone or tablet, it’s even more important to set the device up on a pile of books, or propped against something, to hold it steady. Do not attempt to shoot hand-held unless you wish to induce nausea!

Ready to go!

The post Tips for Recording Online Interviews and Conversations appeared first on Sky's Blog.

It has taken all those years for me to get around to not only making video but setting things to my own music. And here are the results.

(To play all four videos, use this playlist. Otherwise play individual videos below.)

For the May 2019 TAC concert I had developed a four-part suite entitled Magic into a piece for piano, violin, oboe, clarinet and cello. Then I remembered my good friend Jeff Goldsmith had a few years ago been creating nature video loops — video of forest, water, fields, flowers, that just kind of plays peacefully on the screen. Like a virtual fireplace or virtual fishbowl. And thought “Why not repurpose some of those as backgrounds for this music?” So I did.

The post Music Video appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Turns out that “The Orchard Music” which is owned by Sony, claims that the very last note and the applause from our performance is stolen from a recording they represent. And it’s not even the same note. Mine ends on an F and theirs ends on an A-flat. Ah, but they are both notes on a piano. Just joking.

Well obviously this is a match made by some kind of automated process, but it’s grossly weird 1. that applause would even match; and 2. that it depends on The Orchard Music now to release their claim. Meanwhile it is assumed that they do in fact own that section of my recording, and they can monetize (put ads on) my original recording.

You know what’s even funnier. I just listened to their recording on YouTube. And now it shows that in its entire history it has had one single play. Meaning that I am the only person who has ever played their YouTube segment. In the full year that it’s been on YouTube.

(Outcome: “The Orchard Music” released their claim on July 18th, just over two weeks after it was made.)

Here’s the performance I’m talking about, In case you want to hear my entire recording…

The post Copyright Dispute Humor appeared first on Sky's Blog.

I just completed a one-semester course in Max/MSP and our final project challenged us to build a Max/MSP program (called a patcher) that implements an interesting musical performance.

The “music” in the performance is composed from a set of audio recordings — you might even call them samples — and because any kind of audio sample could be dropped in, there are billions of ways this music might be made and might sound. Because it can all be controlled from the stage in real time, we could also put together a performance using not only the Max/MSP components but live performers.

Video clips for you to play:

The post Max/MSP project appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Philadelphia Orchestra in China (also see at WQXR)

Bucharest Symphony Orchestra at the airport

This one by my favorite group Improv Anywhere

And then if you follow suggested YouTube links, you see a lot more of this type of stuff
British Army

The post Music flashmobs appeared first on Sky's Blog.

There is no due process and no way someone who is wrongfully blocked can get themselves quickly unblocked.

And were this legislation to pass in the US, it would signal strong support for other countries similarly blocking internationally-hosted content based on their own national laws. (Many do it already, but let’s not set an example.)

Join me in opposing these bills. Notify your US Senators and Representatives.

This site will be participating in the Strike on January 18th, 2012.

The post Stop SOPA/PIPA appeared first on Sky's Blog.

I have thought recently about writing an online book (downloadable) or even a printable book about the “plumbing” that allows bloggers to integrate lots of sources into their blogs—because most bloggers are not really technologists and it’s hard to make some of these software tools work correctly. My thought was to connect the dots and come up with a Give your blog a shot of steroids “book” that would be really useful to non-tech-savvy bloggers. When am I going to do that?

Howard’s major message right now is about 21st Century Literacies which you can view online—he and I were in London during July 2009, where he delivered that particular talk.

The post Making your own information radars appeared first on Sky's Blog.

You can download and use Google Latitude in the US, but you can’t download Google Latitude in the UK because it is “voluntarily” blocked by BT for privacy reasons (it discloses your location to others).

I just can’t say enough about how much use I get out of the little Flip MinoHD and UltraHD video cameras. I use them for all of my interviews now, and for shooting “trailers” to serve as proposals for projects.

My favorite part of the interview is when I wax poetic about the fact that the technology actually worked while we were on the road. I was really expecting much of it to fail. We really have a wired and wireless world today!

The post Tech recap from Traveling Geeks appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Rosemary Rawcliffe

In 2005 or 2006 we ran into each other again at the Tibetan settlement in Dharamsala, India, and we were soon talking about ways we might help students learn to use video and film to preserve the stories of the older Tibetan refugees and, for that matter, their own stories!

Now, of course, Rosemary was the pro, and I knew little about film and video. (I had taught beginning video production at one point, using 2-inch Ampex video tape editing and huge video cameras, but that was ancient history, and it certainly wasn’t my profession.)

She has now completed two of the films… and the second film, Women of Tibet: A Quiet Revolution was just awarded a 2009 Emmy^® in the category Historic/Cultural – Program/Special at the 38th annual 2008-2009 Northern California Area Emmy Awards. You can read her story (and see photos) about the awards ceremony at the Women of Tibet web site.

Rosemary had built a career in film and television in Britain, but in 1989 she sold her business and took a break from the profession. As she said “you wake up one morning and you have 35 people working for you…” and your ability to choose which creative tasks you want to take on is greatly reduced.

But because of the breadth of trades she had plied while in the business, she knew everything from audio to video, and knew how to finance and build a team, and ten years later she was so moved by the plight of, and the courage of, Tibetan refugee women, that she began filming to tell their story. Two films later (with one more to go), she now has an Emmy, which is both a recognition of her own efforts and a statement of respect for the stories and the lives of the women she is chronicling. And she is thrilled to be recognized in this way by her peers. You’ll recognize what this means to her when you listen to the interview.

Audio player:

The post Women of Tibet- is an Emmy-Winner appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Nice to see even 49 videos submitted! At Project Happiness we’ve shot a lot of our own videos as well, which you can see in our Moments of Happiness video project. Our initial thought was that lots of people would produce video segments, but we’ve found over time that this is a tough sell. Peace Support Network is offering a $1,000 cash prize for the winning video, and maybe that makes the difference. What do you think? What would motivate you enough to make your own video about peace, or happiness, or whatever…?

The post Peace Support Network Video Contest appeared first on Sky's Blog.

The FCC regulates the airwaves in the US and next year they’re taking back the portions of the RF spectrum that have been devoted to analog television (broadly-separated frequency bands for VHF in the 1950s with a UHF band of frequencies added to that later on), and the broadcast digital television that’s been “under construction” since 1998 will be what’s left. The new technology can carry more channels and information, and much of that in high-definition, but old television receivers will be unable to decode it.

I’d guess that many people simply won’t convert. Cable and satellite TV users won’t be affected and their old TV sets will work, but millions of old analog sets around the US – those who depends on rooftop antennas and rabbit ears – will receive nothing but “snow.”

And where will Mom and Pop Public go?

Well I’m on satellite, using a TiVo box (a DVR), and I long ago time-shifted almost all of my viewing. I no longer know exactly when my favorite shows are broadcast because the TiVo records them and I watch them when I have a spare evening. Like most time-shifted viewers, I mostly shift “scripted shows” (Lost and Battlestar Galactica, for example) as opposed to news and shows with real-time content.

Well, here’s where I think the viewing will migrate, based on Doc Searls’ and my own experience.

• Some will switch to cable or satellite; and will increasingly move to time-shifted viewing [notes: networks want to take time-shifted viewing into account when setting advertising rates; Nielsen ratings did not take time-shifted viewing into account until 2006 – now it seems everything is tracked.] Cable and satellite are not affected by the 2009 FCC-mandated migration.
• A large number will get their video from online sources, though it will be painful because broadband is slow in the US and has been getting more congested (at least here in San Francisco – I can barely play video without stuttering even when on my 1.5mbit cable connection);
• Over time the “online” users will download more and more shows to devices like iPods which, of course, is totally time-shifted;
• The “rental” model of viewing downloaded video will have to change because the current rental time-period is too short – longer-term rental will have to be made available (perhaps lasting for years);

I’ve always suspected that TiVo was tracking my viewing of time-shifted shows, including looking at whether I skipped the commercials, which I always do. Clearly they do, and I’ll investigate that more. Perhaps you already know more about that and would share your knowledge?

The post The end of analog TV will accelerate a paradigm shift appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Most particularly, the data show that Wikipedia rose from zero to “Daily Traffic Rank” of about “10” in about four years, and YouTube rose to “10” in about a year and a half. (Making them among the top sites on the web.)

You’d have to attribute this to the fact that these sites are created by, or at least “formed” in some way by, their users. That belies the suspicion that people are couch potatoes and won’t lift a finger to create their own media entertainment, other than to channel-surf. Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of channel-surfing going on at YouTube, but there’s also lots of participation, even if 90% of it is deadheaded talking-head responses. And Wikipedia is certainly a creation of its readers (even though there’s a core group that does a huge percentage of the heavy lifting).

So, I want to know if this phenomenon only gives “voice” to those with broad Internet connections, or whether it can be used by those with only occasional access to the net. Can conversation take place offline and then be put online in the form of blog postings, or wikipedia entries or online video?

The proof so far – and I’d say it’s working – is that it may actually work. Our friends – teen-age Tibetan refugees living in India – have now made a dozen video segments and posted them online – and my gosh all we had to do was provide them with a digital video camera and some online time. They do their video work offline, produce a great little movie, and upload it for all of us to see. In Nigeria, our friends have far less Internet connectivity, and yet they have made movies to share with us, and have made more which are being burned to CD to be physically shipped to us!

I’m making a trip, next month, with a group of bloggers, to the Middle East. My formal role is to “blog the bloggers” – there will be a dozen or so prominent bloggers going on that trip – and I will mostly be attending to the process they use and how their perceptions and interactions develop over time. But – we are going to visit with a number of people who are using technology for social good – and I will track and write about all of that so you can share in the information. You will have a chance to feed me (and the group) some questions you’d like to ask – and I will soon give you the info on how you can ask your own questions.

I think this phenomenon of using digital media to spark two-way conversations is really going to take off. Everywhere! This is more than just a YouTube thing. It’s true two-way storytelling and conversation. And 2008 is the year when it will really bloom.

The post On “The Power of the Personal – Voice?” appeared first on Sky's Blog.