4 chords 36 songs

A different kind of remix - something in it for every age group :-)


4 Akkorde - 36 Songs - WEB.DE Video

Thanks to Bo for the alert!

Work hard without being too hard on yourself

Wired Magazine's blog has an entry about a delightful message, delivered by author Elizabeth Gilbert, famous for her bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. Ms. Gilbert suggested Thursday that we kill geniuses by demanding super-human powers from them. While her speech was centered around artists who have produced extraordinary works of art, I would suggest that maybe everyone who's work is creative, can take something from the point she is making.

Loosely summarized, Ms. Gilbert suggests that emotionally returning to the ancient concept of "the muse" sometimes visiting and sometimes not, can be a good technique to channel one's sense of frustration and failure in the creative process.

I imagine that most of us who are trying to do something creative on a reasonably regular basis, whether it be in the arts, in science, or in technology have our own little tool-chest of techniques and tricks to massage our minds and emotions into a state of making creativity easier and to ward off bouts with creativity-killing frustrations. So stop reading this blog entry already, and head over to this short, yet uplifting article! :-)

UPDATE (2009-02-17): Or just watch the video:

RIAA moneygrab helpful for Creative Commons Music ?

According to this interesting article at ars technica, the RIAA seems to be going after what some would consider to be their best marketing arm. From the article:

The "Performance Rights Act" has been introduced in both the House and Senate with the goal of forcing US radio stations to start paying artists whose music is played on the air. Labels are pushing hard for the idea, but radio stations could hardly be more upset.

I sincerely hope that the fee for playing RIAA music will be very high, and the paperwork exceedingly onerous. Because that just might make radio stations take a longer and harder look at alternative suppliers for recorded music. Front and center for non profit radio might very well be Creative Commons (CC) licensed music, even more so than it already is. And for profit radio stations with low profit margins might start taking a hard look at such music next.

If this takes place, low cost and easy to administer music licensing hubs might become even more attractive than they already are for many other commercial users of music. And the CC Attribution license might become more attractive for artists to get their music onto commercial over-the-air radio.

While I have deep admiration for Prof. Lessig and his justified drive for meaningful copyright reform, I also often wonder, what would happen if we all just let the dinosaurs legislate themselves into oblivion.

Maybe a hint of things to come: CBC, the Canadian public broadcaster is frequently (increasingly?) using CC licensed music in their programs (and announce that fact clearly) not only in their web offerings and the progressive CBC 3 channel, but also on their primary CBC 1 radio channel, which has excellent reach across the country (and beyond).

ccMixter : A Memoir

For anyone with an interest in ccMixter, here comes a fascinating look at the first four years as experienced by the person in the middle of it all, Victor Stone a.k.a. fourstones.

A great read "ccMixter: A Memoir" are the reflections of an individual, who's choice of subtitle "How I Learned to Stop Worrying about the RIAA and Love the Unexpected Collaborations of Distributed Creativity During the First Four Years of Running ccMixter" hints at the sense of humor, passion and intellect that drives the man who drives ccMixter.

To find out a little more about Victor's story there's also the interview he graciously granted me last May.

And then there's a few video's floating about of an interview with Victor in the context of the Digital Tipping Point project. Here's the first one: