Time travelling Trans-humanist band seeks experienced musicians

Made a few adjustments to our ad. Why only look for a guitarist when there are so many varied and interesting instruments out there? If this ad applies to you, please send us an email. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

And now, the ad:

Are The Residents, King Crimson, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Queen, The Boredoms, Van Morrison, John Zorn, and Rush on your recreational aural stimulator?

Are you on a waiting list list for sweet bionic enhancements?

Are you a skilled musician and composer (no drummers or vocalists, thanks, we're set on those)?

Then we've got the band for you!

H+ is the world's first trans-humanist band. We're eating the boundaries that limit modern music and regurgitating the future of rock.

We're looking for someone who's equally at home playing atonal alternative to the poppiest punk.

We want to meet twice a week and are about as serious as you can be about totally rocking the future.

Bonus points if you're a ninja.

Transhumanism and Romanticism

I think that transhumanism, when it is considered at all, is seen as the ultimate scientific rationalization of nature and thus anti-romantic.

In one sense this is true, transhumanism is very much a rational philosophy. I would argue, however, that man's struggle to break through the limitations of his mortal coil is essentially romantic.

Transhumanism does not seek to remove emotion from the human experience. I believe expanding our perception and knowledge can only lead to new emotions heretofore unknown to the human condition.

Some fear that to change our current condition would be to cease being essentially human. I argue that the only essentially human trait is the progress towards greater life and understanding. This is man's enduring quest and what makes him romantic.

With H+ I hope to capture and express the joy and heartbreak of humanity not only as we know him today, but as we might know him tomorrow.

-Andy

Time travelling Trans-Humanist band seeks experienced guitarist

We posted this on Craig's List, and might as well post it here, as well:

Are The Residents, King Crimson, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Queen, The Boredoms, John Zorn, and Rush on your recreational aural stimulator?

Are you on a waiting list list for sweet bionic enhancements?

Are you a skilled guitarist and composer?

Then we've got the band for you!

H+ is the world's first trans-humanist band. We're eating the boundaries that limit modern music and regurgitating the future of rock.

We're looking for someone who's equally at home playing atonal alternative to the poppiest punk.

We want to meet twice a week and are about as serious as you can be about totally rocking the future.

Bonus points if you're a ninja.

You're doing it all wrong

As we search further for more instruments and technologies of note, we have come across some blunders. The first, seen in the following video, is really just a lame way of reinventing the wheel. Or, in this case, the synthesizer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Beamz:



I actually do have a larger objection to Beamz beyond its terrible promotional video, and I will get back to that shortly.

I've also come across something that really pisses me off. This isn't just a bad video (although what you're about to see is almost unwatchable, and is NOT a parody), but it's the entire principle behind it. Take a look for yourself;



Part of what we're trying to do with H+ is make music creation more accessible and intuitive. But we still want the creative process to be solely in the hands of the people with ideas. This program, Microsoft Songsmith, teaches young people that the best way to make music is to let other people do it for you. And that, to me, is a problem. There have been great artists who never wrote a single line of their own material, such as Frank Sinatra. But he always had talented songwriters working on music, most of it tailored directly to him. Now we have a revolving door of singers who don't stay in the limelight unless they do something outrageous and embarrassing (see: Britney Spears). This program is pretty much the dumbed-down version of what happens at a Britney Spears session. The person with no talent (in this case, it literally could be you!) is molly-coddled and led to think they're actually contributing. Meanwhile, their voice is manipulated and placed against generic backing tracks. Throw in some annoying lyrics and you've got a hit single.

Now, let me jump back to Beamz for a minute. If you watch the video, the people "playing" the beams aren't really hitting notes. They're simply breaking the beams for either short or long amounts of time. The instrument plays back a pre-recorded loop that is independent of the person. This is different from a synthesizer. where the player at least has to understand basic notes and scales.

What's the connection? Neither Beamz nor Microsoft Songsmith actually require any knowledge of music. Worse, they don't promote an understanding of music. Instead, they offer an easy, albeit awful sounding, way out of the problem of having no musical talent. Instead of becoming skilled, you simply let machines do the work for you. That's not what H+ is about. We want music creation to be accessible to more people, but at some point you have to meet traditional music methods halfway, just so you can know what you're doing. I can promise you that someone using Beamz and Songsmith could never come up with anything as catchy as "Wild Thing," let alone anything as groundbreaking as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Daydream Nation. It's hard to imagine, but someone using these tools may not even be able to come up with something as good as the latest disposable Britney Spears single. And that's truly scary.

P.S. I actually do want to get a Beamz and replace all the pre-recorded sounds with found sounds of glass breaking, babies crying, tires screeching, etc. It may be no better than loading those sounds into a synth, but I feel like the comedic effect of playing them on "Beamz" may be worth it.

P.P.S. Someone quickly pounced on Songsmith's claims by taking David Lee Roth's vocal track from the Van Halen classic of "Running With The Devil" and putting it through the program. The result, dubbed "Running With The Songsmith," can be heard here: http://music.metafilter.com/2943/Runnin-With-The-Songsmith It's actually worse than I would have thought.

Thummer Update

I just received an email from Jim Plamondon, CEO of Thumtronics. Apparently the recession scared off all potential investors in the Thummer, so the product will not come to market. A shame, really, as I was quite interested in trying one out. Maybe one day Jim will let me play with a prototype.

Mr. Plamondon did mention that he has started a new company, iGetIt! Music, and he plans to develop an application for the iPhone that simulates many of the Thummer functions. More updates on that as they become available.

Until then, I've been looking into the Opal Midi, a unique midi controller from the UK. Each instrument is hand made, and quite interesting. The website for that one is: http://www.theshapeofmusic.com.
Pretty nifty. Also not cheap. But it's on my wish list.

-Daniel

You may rock but does this guitar?

OK, let's ignore how godawful and cheesy this following video is and just focus on the product it's selling:


This actually seems like a good idea, yes? Forget playing it with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, because it doesn't look like much fun (and doesn't appear to have a whammy bar?!), but what about the idea of using touch sensitive technologies for fret boards? It would save you from tuning your guitar, although there would need to be a way to set alternate tunings. No broken strings during a show, no steel digging into your fingers. I don't know how it would be for finger picking, but for some straight-ahead power chord rock, it could be useful. The You Rock Guitar has a standard guitar input for plugging directly into an amp, as well as a USB input for plugging into a MIDI sequencer or computer, and works with many existing music programs, such as Garage Band. I'd like to see something that's closer to a fully functional guitar, you know, with knobs and a whammy bar and such, but this could be the first step towards a truly digital guitar. And at $150, it's a pricey video game controller, but a great little toy to fiddle with on the music end.


On the other side of the spectrum, it looks like Gibson is also trying to incorporate digital-age technology into their guitars, with the HD.6X, or the HD Les Paul.It uses a Cat5 cable for plugging directly into digital sources. This baby does a ton, including sending out individual data for each of the six strings. It's all very pro-level and the guitar itself is very nice. You can always switch it to analog for some good old fashioned shredding, should you choose. Of course, quality like this doesn't come cheap, so be prepared to spend $4000 or more. While I like the plethora of recording and output options the HD.6X gives you, it isn't any more intuitive to learn or play than a regular guitar, and has all the normal drawbacks of a regular axe. Not that I'm suggesting that a $150 "You Rock" guitar could ever match a Les Paul, just that at least it's incorporating new technologies to add to the music experience.

Now, I wonder what would happen if we took either of those guitars and circuit bent them...hmm...

-Daniel

What's in a lyric?

I've been a writer for most of my life. I'd like to think I'm good at it. But one thing I never focused on was lyrical writing. I've written poems, most short, and most without a rhyming scheme. I did write one epic poem in high school. Maybe it's still sitting on a hard drive somewhere. However, none of this has really prepared me for the task of writing words that will be set to music. I find myself turning back to those artists whose lyrics I really admire--Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Nick Cave, Morrissey, Steely Dan--in an attempt to discern what it is that makes a great line. In addition, I've turned to other popular artists for the art of turning a phrase. Of saying more with less, if you like. All this analysis and dissection has driven me to the point of outright mimicry at times. I'm struggling to find my own voice, which is strange after so many years of knowing what moves me as an artist.

My hope is that when the music begins to take shape, the right lyrics will pop out. That's not going to stop me from working and trying now, but I have a feeling the music itself will have a big influence on what words eventually make the cut.

-Daniel