Category Archives: Music

Training in Quarantine – Day 192

7 Nov 2020 By in COVID-19, Fitness & Health, Music, Technology, TED Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A busy Saturday with several house viewings. One of which got cancelled due to a resident having to self-isolate due to covid.

One of the viewings today was originally written off by my folks as a “no-hope” but once they viewed inside, their tone dramatically changed.

A literal case of not judging a book by its cover.

In other news, I saw a tweet from https://twitter.com/VictoriaBID:

Now I work on top of Victoria Station, so I walk past the memorial plaque dedicated to the Unknown Soldier every day I commute to the office. Obviously not so much this year due to covid.

The Military Wives Choir did the song for Abide With Me using the now-common feature of a virtual choir:

The virtual choir idea has been used a lot this year due to social distancing, but let’s not forget, the idea dates back way further, even as far back as 2009 with Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir project (https://www.youtube.com/user/EricWhitacresVrtlChr) which also made it into several TED talks

From 2010:

2011:

And 2013:

Not A One-Trick Pony….

6 Dec 2018 By in Movies, Music, YouTube Tags: , , ,

Who knew that Gwyneth Paltrow could sing?

And damn well, too.

She’s one of a select few Hollywood actors who can do a pretty fine job of singing too. Some other notables include

Kate Winslet

Hugh Jackman — who spent time in Broadway, so he’s probably got a bit of an unfair advantage to those who started in acting initially, but still, he definitely knows how to belt out a song

Not to forget also, Joaquin Phoenix

Here’s a WatchMojo list I found while rummaging for videos. Who knew?

Be careful if you fall asleep during a classical concert

28 Nov 2017 By in Music, YouTube Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Composers have a tendency to make you jump.

Stravinsky’s Firebird has a slow, peaceful opening, then a really sudden BOOM. Evidently, a woman dozed off during this bit and got a fright.

Disney also took this piece and added it their Fantasia 2000 sequence, and it looked brilliant. (L’oiseau de feu literally means “The Bird of Fire”)

Spotify just got a lot more creepy….

21 Aug 2015 By in Music, Technology Tags: , , , ,

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/cant-squat-spotifys-eerie-new-privacy-policy/

SPOTIFY RELEASED A new privacy policy that is now in effect, and it turns out that the company wants to learn a lot more about you and there’s not much you can do about it.

We encourage everyone to read the whole privacy policy before downloading the update or checking off the “Accept” box, but in case you have better things to do, here are some highlights from it.

…

“With your permission, we may collect information stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files. Local law may require that you seek the consent of your contacts to provide their personal information to Spotify, which may use that information for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.” – Spotify

Like a jealous ex, Spotify wants to see (and collect) your photos and see who you’re talking to. What kind of media files Spotify will collect from you is vague, and why the company needs it is unclear, but it’s doing it regardless. Also, the fact that Spotify expects you to go through your contact list and ask everyone for their consent in sharing their data with Spotify is–what’s the word? Oh yes: it’s ridiculous.

…

“You may integrate your Spotify account with Third Party Applications. If you do, we may receive similar information related to your interactions with the Service on the Third Party Application, as well as information about your publicly available activity on the Third Party Application. This includes, for example, your “Like”s and posts on Facebook.” – Spotify

It shouldn’t surprise you that if you connect your Spotify account to Facebook, Spotify will be able to see the information you post there. If this bothers you, we suggest that you log into your Spotify preferences and disconnect Spotify from your Facebook account (more information on how to do this can be found here). After all, Facebook isn’t all that necessary to use Spotify (unless, of course, you want your friends to know you’re listening to Owl City).

…

“If you don’t agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, then please don’t use the Service.” – Spotify

…
I value my privacy, so I’ll stop using Spotify. Bye Spotify, I won’t miss you.

Related articles

Classic FM Hall of Fame

14 Jan 2015 By in Music Tags: , , , , ,
Posted my votes on the Hall of Fame at http://halloffame.classicfm.com/2015/vote/

Nobuo Uematsu

Nobuo Uematsu (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Russell Brower after performance at Video Game...

Russell Brower after performance at Video Games Live in Glasgow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First Love (Yiruma album)

First Love (Yiruma album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Google Music

13 Jan 2015 By in Music, Technology Tags: , , , , , , ,

A while ago, I posted of my frustration with Google Music when it refused to download my tracks. Well, I did some digging around and found that someone had written an API to expose the Google Music backend. The link is at

https://github.com/simon-weber/Unofficial-Google-Music-API

and has spawned several other tools including

https://github.com/thebigmunch/gmusicapi-scripts/

Which is a set of scripts designed to sync, upload and/or download from the Google Music collection.

I wrote my own Python script using the Gmusic API to bulk delete albums from my Gmusic account (it’s easy to bulk upload using Google’s MusicManager, but not to bulk delete), and the gmusicapi-scripts enables me to download most of my tracks.

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