media

This is my own song, uploaded for the purposes of testing out the SoundCloud music player features newly integrated into WordPress.com blogs. Please do have a listen while reading some general descriptions of the SoundCloud platform following to see those features in action. I wrote the song, but it was beautifully sung by Lis Soderberg, with background parts, recording and mixing all done by the very talented Allister Bradley in the summer of 2008 at Humber College. I just strummed on a guitar. Lyrics are at the bottom. 🙂

Please click here for the guitar and ukulele tabs PDF containing lyrics, chords and notes for The Comparison Song

Up till Aug 2009, there wasn’t a music player, and not one with social media features, on WordPress.com blogs. If you wanted to share audio files with such features, your best bet was probably to make a “static video”. You know, those “videos” with just one image and sound? Either that or get a space upgrade to be able to upload MP3 files, but there wasn’t a real music player with it

Well, I’m so happy to see WordPress.com finally has a system to integrate sound media files into its blogs the way video was been integrated for a while! They chose SoundCloud.com as their platform, the way they had chosen VodPod for videos.

“[SoundCloud is] …a really useful service that is part Flickr for music, part professional music collaboration hub. Artists such as Beck, Moby and Sonic Youth now use the service to distribute tracks through their blogs and connect with their fans.”
— WordPress.com blog, Aug 13 2009

More than just another free music player, though, SoundCloud has some quite awesome features.

You can leave comments at specific points in the track so you don’t have to go find the time, or try to describe it awkwardly, etc.
You can just click a share button to share it on Facebook and various other social media or social bookmarking sites! That’s very nice!
The sharing of music otherwise among members is similar to the combination of notification on Facebook, and Inbox notifications, on your account via SoundCloud’s side. You can “follow” people like on Twitter to get the info via newsfeed, or get notice similar to a tag or email sent to you and/or your email off the site.
There is even code provided for people to embed it into their blogs and websites, with the player included! That’s really cool!
Their music player is like “fab five” man! You can also control lots of privacy features, and you get your own URL for your account on their site that the public may also visit like how MySpace works.
A free account can be had with 10 tracks for sharing, an Inbox, detailed statistics, viewing, privacy and other features of popular music and video sites at least as good as most of those other sites.

The WordPress folks really picked a fantastic platform in SoundCloud! Well done!

Of course, you should not be uploading copyrighted material that isn’t yours to SoundCloud. That was to be expected. But how nice, was it then, that I just happened to have a song I had written and recorded in the past to use? I don’t devote enough time to my singing/songwriting, and I don’t exactly go pimping my music a lot, even to many of my friends. So here’s hoping there’s something new here for some of them, and you, to enjoy, aside from the tech review.

I will be further checking out SoundCloud’s features in the upcoming weeks and months. It’s given me a whole new set of motivation to write more songs and record more. In the meanwhile, if you want to know more, you can take the tour on their site.

I would highly recommend it!

LYRICS

I could compare you to a summer’s day,
Or, if you prefer, a winter’s night.
I could compare you to the moon unphased,
Or the sun at dawn, noon or in twilight.
All lovely things I can compare you to,
But there’s not one that can compare to you.

I could compare you to the sweetest tune,
Or, if you prefer, the sweetest kiss.
I could compare you to a sacred rune,
Or the lores, that tell of eternal bliss.
All lovely things I can compare you to,
But there’s not one that can compare to you.

Choose any flower that blooms in the spring,
Or any leaf that turns in the fall.
Choose stars, or rainbows, angels, songs birds sing,
Or the sky, or sea – any thing at all!
All lovely things I can compare you to,
But there’s not one that can compare to you.

No, there’s not one that can compare to you.

07.?.2003 – 07.31.04

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett

Life is unfair, but death can be, too.

After a life time of achievements, a long public battle with anal cancer, and a “love” story that was never allowed to be completed, Farrah Fawcett died today (June 25 2009).

However, before Farrah’s body even became cold, news broke of the death of larger than life pop star icon Michael Jackson. Jackson collapsed in his home in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles at about noon Pacific Standard Time. He died of what is known as sudden cardiac arrest. That’s when the heart stops beating and quivers because an artery is blocked, which could be caused by substance abuse. “Substance” includes prescription drugs, with which Michael was suspected of having trouble. An autopsy is scheduled for June 26, which should be telling. He is survived by three children and two ex-wives. [ CNN story, CNN Larry King Live interview, CBC, June 25 2009]

Now, everything from Twitter to all the news network to Facebook and such is flooded with nothing, and I mean nothing, but the life and death of Michael Jackson. Nobody gives a damn about Farrah Fawcett any more, it seems. Just like that. Forgotten within hours with one piece of news.

Such a shame. Death can be just as unfair as life.

On a different note, though. Despite Michael Jackson’s death being a big shock to the world, the scenes I’m seeing on TV is of people dancing in joy, smiling and laughing to MJ’s music. They’re not crying like the memory I have of John Lennon‘s death, having been in Canada just months when it happened and having no idea who he was at the time because children were so deprived of information in Viet Nam. Lennon’s death was a completely mysterious phenomenon to me trying to figure out what was going on, seeing repeated pictures of all those people crying and pictures of this gentle looking man with those round spectacles.

There are many reasons why people would mourn the deaths of John Lennon and Michael Jackson differently, but I’ll leave that to you. It’s definitely interesting to analyze. I just didn’t expect what I am seeing of people “mourning” Michael’s death, though I am glad to see they are celebrating his life more than mourning his death. Below is a video of Billie Jean, my favourite Michael Jackson song to dance to, and I’m going to go do that like those other people.

In the meanwhile, though, give Farrah Fawcett a thought or two, eh?

And don’t forget all those protesters in Iran, who are dying without mention but whose cause is also now lost on the media for a while. It is about the worst thing that could have happened to them and their cause, to have a pop star steal the media from them. Michael Jackson is still impacting the world like nobody can!

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 8.2

Digital Citizen

Just another blog now

The Tragedy of Having Your Death Trumped, Farrah Fawcett by Michael Jackson