Category — Music News

Check out these awesome videos of the Music Animation Machine that display musical scores as a series of colored bars representing the various notes.

Music moves, and can be understood just by listening. But a conventional musical score stands still, and can be understood only after years of training. The Music Animation Machine bridges this gap, with a score that moves — and can be understood just by watching.

These bars scroll across the screen as the music plays. Their position on the screen tells you their pitch and their timing in relation to each other. Different colors denote different instruments or voices, thematic material, or tonality. And each note lights up at the exact moment it sounds, so you can’t lose your place.

The movie Two Turntables And A Microphone: The Life and Death of Jam Master Jay premiered last week at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. The documentary chronicles Jay’s career and influence on hip-hop culture, and features appearances by several hip-hop heavyweights such as Russell Simmons, Rev. Run, Jay-Z, LL Cool J, 50 Cent, Swizz Beatz, and others. Should definitely be worth a watch!

According to recent reports, everyone’s favorite robots are back in the recording studio working on new material. The news came straight from Pedro Winter, aka Busy P, owner of the Ed Banger record label & Daft Punks manager, who dropped the news to InTheMix while speaking about his labels new compilation Ed Rec Vol III. “The boys are in a studio in Paris at the moment…And I can’t wait to listen to their new stuff! The good thing is that they are making music at the moment”. Obviously I’m thrilled, but lets just hope nobody tells Kanye about it.

In addition, Busy P also stated that he would be stepping down as Dafts manager so that he could focus on running the label, and expanding his own musical career.

via URB Magazine

When considering all of the changes happening in the music biz, especially how music is being discovered and distributed, I have found the role of video games particularly interesting as of late. Partnerships between record labels and game developers are a fairly new concept as far as I know, but are sure to become more common since games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have proved to be a great platform for launching new bands, and reviving the popularity of some old ones. Aside from potentially increasing record sales, these games are also giving bands a new source of royalties.

While Guitar Hero and Rock Band are obvious picks for examples of video games that are affecting the record industry, there are other games which are perhaps not as relevant, but still capable of making a serious impact. Grand Theft Auto 4 was recently released and sold over 6 million copies in the first week alone. Like its predecessors, GTA 4 has a feature that allows the gamer to choose from various radio stations that basically have set play-lists. Imagine the benefits of being featured on one of those! One of those stations will actually feature a mixtape from the legendary DJ Green Lantern, and it was announced last week that music from the station would be released digitally through Amazon.

I’m excited to see how this relationship between music and gaming will evolve, as I think video games represent a very viable new revenue stream and promotional venue for bands.