Herbie Hancock / The Bio
b. 12 April 1940, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Growing up in a musical household, Hancock studied piano from the age of seven and gave his first public performance just two years later.
Although he played classical music at his debut Hancock's interest lay mostly in jazz.
During high school and college he played in semi-professional bands and on occasion accompanied visiting jazzmen, including Byrd, Donald.
It was with Byrd that Hancock first played in New York, in 1961, recording with him and as leader of his own small group.
Among the tunes on this later album was 'Watermelon Man', a Hancock original that appealed to more than the usual jazz audience. A version of the song, by Mongo Santamaría, reached the US Top 10. Check Out The Whole Bio at http://www.herbie-hancock.com/
Directions In Music: Live At Massey Hall is Herbie Hancock NEW RELEASE
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Copy protection lawsuit targets record companies
A new class action lawsuit filed by Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach targets record companies who use new copy-protection schemes on their audio discs.
Filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, the suit targets the five major publishers of music in the United states: Bertelsmann, EMI, Universal Music Group, Warner Music and Sony Music Entertainment. The suit names two plaintiffs, though as a class action it has broader ramifications.
Apple is careful to note that such discs are technically not audio CDs since they do not conform to the standards employed for audio CD manufacturing -- a fact not lost on audio CD creator Philips, which has criticized the copy protection scheme.
The class-action suit alleges that the copy-protected discs are "defective" and aren't being distinguished effectively enough from their regular audio CD counterparts. Go To Full Article
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Brain Region Important for Musical Ability
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A part of the brain involved in processing sounds is larger and more active in professional musicians than in non-musicians, researchers in Germany report.
Dr. Peter Schneider of the University of Heidelberg and colleagues measured the brain activity of 12 professional musicians, 13 amateur musicians and 12 non-musicians as they listened to simple tones. Amateur musicians had more gray matter than non-musicians in just one section of the Heschl's gyrus, the researchers report in the June 17 advance online publication of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
According to Schneider, the work supports the notion that genetic influences or exposure to music during early childhood may have a larger impact on a person's musical abilities than music education later in childhood. He explained that previous research has shown that a child's aptitude for music stops developing after about age 9. So if a child's musical abilities are in place by age 9, later music education "might only help to reach the potential (with) which one is born or has been developed in childhood," Schneider said. Go To Full Article
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Apple articles look at Steinberg and Emagic
The articles, written by Manfred Ruerup, CEO of Steinberg and Sven Junge, CEO, Emagic, discuss the benefits of the Mac and their plans for Mac OS X ( news - web sites).
Ruerup said that Apple's newest line of Power Mac G4s is perfectly suited to running high-end, native audio solutions. "With both Cubase SX and Nuendo soon to be running on Mac OS X, music and media production has never been easier or faster."
Cubase SX is fully optimized for the dual processor Power Mac G4 and will be available soon for Mac OS X. Nuendo, also coming to Mac OS X in the near future,! Sven Junge noted musicians such as Chemical Brothers, Depeche Mode ( news - web sites), Madonna ( news - web sites), Michael Jackson, BT, Jamiroquai, Puff Daddy ( news - web sites) and Björk have used Emagic and a Power Mac G4 in the production of their hits.
"Our new music production suite for Mac OS X will support many new Mac OS X features, such as memory protection for increased system reliability, the new graphics engine with transparency and flicker-free performance, real-time window sliding, and improved memory management," says Dr. Gerhard Lengeling, Emagic founder and chief developer. Go To Full Article
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A short guide to group improvisation
Sincerely wanting to share
Jim Slansky/Passenger
1. We all know how to play our instruments...although it is a never ending
progression toward fluency
2. In order to have the best results we start our improvisation by playing
themes inspired by the initial composition ...patiently building those
themes often starting with big simple shapes...moving toward smaller more
involved complex shapes and back again...expanding and contracting
3. This patient building of themes will enable everyone's voice to find
their place in context with each other...letting the group proceed calmly
into the great unknown
4. Different situations demand that each participant to play with different
degrees of emphasis on themselves in relation to the whole ...sometimes we
are featured in the mix...sometimes we are all equal in the mix ...and
sometimes we are subservient to the other instruments in the mix...and all
points in between... mixing ourselves with this range in mind will increases
our vocabulary as a group and let the music breathe and change with less
restriction
5. When each player uses enough repetition so that the group has a good idea
as to where each other is going, trust levels within the group
increase...when done consistently a type of "telepathy" occurs naturally ...
In order for these repeated, gradually evolved ideas to flow from one to the
other we must accept each idea that we present to the group as valid and not
discard it abruptly...if each idea is utilized in some way by the presenter,
the people in the group can respond knowing full well that it will be
included to some degree...one can say that no idea that is presented is
faulty...each idea presented can/must be used in a positive way...with this
approach established...the potential for trust and increased telepathic
communication will occur
6. If this condition is established it creates an increasingly relaxed
social environment from which an ever widening range of conventional and
less conventional harmonic/melodic statements can be used
7. Cohesiveness occurs when we are all paying attention to the whole...not
too much to ourselves or just certain parts of the group...but to the "whole
sound" ...if we consistently pay attention to the whole and how we are
fitting into it we will maximize cohesiveness
8. Venturing into the unknown does not always require an imitative response
to the others in the group ...we can evolve from imitative responses to
complimentary responses or visa versa...we can move from call and response
to simultaneous conversation and from conventional parallel harmonies to
less conventional incidental harmonies...etc...
9. A productive leadership role can be one that enables a situation where
there is no need for the same person always leading ...we can eventually
establish a situation where things just happen and leadership roles change
within the group as the piece evolves...as this scenario is increasingly
implemented, disciplined players will support each other's ideas with
greater and geater sensitivity creating an increasingly relaxed creative
atmosphere in which everybody's ideas can eventually be included throughout
the performance of each piece
10. Whatever dissonances/oddities that may occur can become points of
interest and should never be deemed mistakes... we should be prepared for
the inevitability of these occurrences and use them to our creative
advantage...repeating them, evolving them, including them even inviting them
A calm intense focus brought on by a confident understanding and a practiced
ability to participate in the group improvisation process will give the most
desired results...this could be said for any activity...any assessments that
are made during the activity will diminish that focus and are detrimental to
the balance that is being so painstakingly established...assessment is a
post-creative activity
Jim Slansky
Passenger .......Getting There
94 James Street West
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
N1G 1E6
519-824-5683
email: curveball@sympatico.ca
website: www.curveballrecords.com
Please Note: to listen to mp3s of Passenger's music go to my IUMA
website...just hit the link below...cheers!
http://artists2.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Passenger_Getting_There/index-1.html
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