Evolution of the Ifritah

New piece of music I released this week (Creative Commons By-SA). It's titled Evolution of the Ifritah.  The heavy 14-beat pulse that pervades the entire piece is based on a Persian Sufi rhythm called Garyan. The music is also played in a Persian dhagsta called homayun (like a major scale, except with a flatted 6th and a flatted 7th). I picked this mode because it doesn't require microtones and can be played on a guitar easily.

Ubuntu Studio 12.04

Ubuntu Studio 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) was released this week. I decided to upgrade my graphics workstation, even though I'd only been on 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) a short time. I am keeping my audio workstation on 11.04 for the time being, too many music projects going and don't want to take the chance of an upgrade going awry.

One of the big things available with Pangolin is Gnome 3.4. I gave it a quick try and thought it was HORRIBLE. Never again! I've been using xfce4 for a while now, and it's lean and lightweight and not trying to be flashy and glitzy. I like the minimalist desktop xfce4 provides:

Cintiq

Not too long ago, I acquired this beautiful piece of equipment:

Composing with Linux -- Part 2: Developing the Idea

A few people have asked me about my workflow for composing so I thought I would collect some of my technical notes and share them.  Having spent 2 years taking classes with Berklee Music Online, I was able to get a workflow fairly streamlined for my purposes. I am breaking this up into multiple articles else it would be way too long....

This is part 2 -- Developing an Idea.

Composing with Linux -- Part 1: Software and Hardware

A few people have asked me about my workflow for composing so I thought I would collect some of my technical notes and share them.  Having spent 2 years taking classes with Berklee Music Online, I was able to get a workflow fairly streamlined for my purposes. I am breaking this up into multiple articles else it would be way too long....

This is part 1 -- Software and Hardware.

Ubuntu Studio Upgrade "Oneiric Ocelet"

So... new release of Ubuntu (and related Linux distros like Ubuntu Studio and Kubuntu) came out October 13 (2011). Since I mainly use Ubuntu Studio, I'll talk about the upgrade I did on my graphics & animation workstation.

Where is the original content?

I am not alone in noticing the severe lack of original content coming out of Hollywood these days... remakes, reboots, re-imaginings and endless sequels. So there is no need to rehash that here.