Ringtones
I don’t like the alarm metaphor used on mobile phones. That sound was useful when people had only one hard-wired telephone in their house and needed to be alerted to a call coming in. They might have had to hurry to the room the phone was in, in order not to miss the call. Then came the answering machine, which meant one could miss a call and deal with the caller at a later time, but the alarm sound remained.
Now many of us carry a mobile phone on our person most of the time. The phone no longer needs to sound a terrible alarm every single time a call comes in. A gentle announcement would suffice, I think. In fact, it would make quite a difference for a caller to be gently announced, rather than hearing a full alarm sounded. One can always check who called, unlike with the early telephones, and there is the built-in answering machine, too.
With that in mind I created a few ringtones you may download. Try them out, see whether the idea works for you.
and if you need something a little stronger, try one of these, from Nouveaumatic:
Personally, I use the solo trumpet beginning of “Nature Boy” by Jon Hassell. You can find piece that on iTunes.
2012 Reading List
My 2012 reading list, in no particular order. Could not put “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” down and finished it yesterday, a little after midnight.
√ – simply means that I read the book. The unread titles are at the ready, mostly in the form of hardcovers and paperbacks, some bought used but most bought at Collected Works, which is a fantastic bookstore in Santa Fe – incidentally in the same location where I quit my last day-job in Spring of 1990.
I read three books in German. “Momo” and “Das Stille Mädchen” I ordered from amazon.de, and the Borges book I think I bought in a bookstore in Munich, when I played there in March. The discovery of the year, for me, was Nick Harkaway, whose two books I enjoyed very much. I read “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” because Harkaway was raving about it on Twitter.
If you want to recommend a book to me, please leave your suggestion in a comment. Thanks.
Spiegel und Maske (1970-1983) – Jorge Luis Borges √
Momo – Michael Ende √
The Offensive Traveler – V. S. Pritchett √
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco √
Angelmaker – Nick Harkaway √
The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway √
Peter Høeg – Das Stille Mädchen √
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway √
Alif the Unseen – G. Willow Wilson √
The Secret Race – Tyler Hamilton √
Gods Without Men – Hari Kunzru √
1Q84 – Haruki Murakami √
Buddha in Blue Jeans -Tai Sheridan √
Distrust that Particular Flavor – William Gibson √
Lying – Sam Harris √
Years of Red Dust – Qui Xiaolong √
Ratking – Michael Dibdin √
Vendetta – Michael Dibdin √
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell √
Tribal Peoples – Stephen Corry √
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan √
Le Freak – Nile Rodgers √
How Music Works – David Byrne
Cabal – Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon – Michael Dibdin
Cosi Fan Tutti – Michael Dibdin
Some Remarks – Neal Stephenson
The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng
Ninja – 1,000 Years of the Shadow Warriors – John Man
The Quantum Universe – Brian Cox
True
Read this short piece. It’s funny and true and a great insight and story. The Beatles example is spot on and I love this line: Song writers have “the skin of a rhinoceros, the soul of a dove”.
Breaking News!! Band Embraces New Technology and Business model.
Letter to Emily
Very well written letter. I encourage you to read the whole thing.
Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. | The Trichordist
Artists can make money on the road (or its variant “Artists are rich”). The average income of a musician that files taxes is something like 35k a year w/o benefits. The vast majority of artists do not make significant money on the road. Until recently, most touring activity was a money losing operation. The idea was the artists would make up the loss through recorded music sales. This has been reversed by the financial logic of file-sharing and streaming. You now tour to support making albums if you are very, very lucky. Otherwise, you pay for making albums out of your own pocket. Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road. (For now.)Over the last 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse.
Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.
Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!
The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.
Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.
