Inner Light Spectrum

Abraham de Moivre

Food for Thought !

A cool story I thought was interesting.

Abraham de Moivre , a French mathematician, predicted the precise date of his own death.

He noted that he was sleeping 15 minutes longer each day and surmised that he would die on the day he slept for 24 hours. That date, he calculated, would be Nov. 27, 1754.

He was right.

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Bob Moog

Dr Moog (1934-2005)

If you've ever listened to Techno, Dance, Electronica, Prog Rock, Fusion, Jazz, Metal, Rock, Pop, basically almost any style of music ever written. Then you've heard a Moog Synthesizer.

Invented by Dr Robert Moog (rhymes with rogue) . The 1st synthesizer ever made, all analog, and after 50 years it's still being made, all analog, with some digital help (storing the presets, modern PC boards etc). He designed and built them for over half a century. 1st popularized by Wendy Carlos in 1968's Switched on Bach


From meager beginnings to legend, a self admitted non businessman, nor musician. A tool maker he likens himself. He understands that there is more going on than just someone playing a keyboard. He often speaks of a connection, that the musician connects with the instrument in way we can't describe.

I recently took the time to sit down and watch the documentary by Hans Fjellestad, on his life, and I must say I was impressed how humble this man was. So in touch with nature, and the universe. He doesn't even take credit for creating the instrument that literally revolutionized the face of modern music. ¨I opened my mind up, and the idea came through me¨he says. Check out the website here.

Great film, simple, inspiring, enlightening. Check out a trailer here.

I unfortunately can't afford a real one, one day I hope , but I just wanted to share and thank Dr Bob Moog for giving us the fattest basses, and arpegiated sounds, for creating an instrument, a way of life basically, and all the excellent music made possible by his genius, simpleness, openness.


Moog that belonged to Wendy Carlos.


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Christian Scott - Anthem

This was a funny happening. A simple moment, where you take a chance, and it works out pretty well. I used to do it often with my cd purchasing in the past. Go in a section at the record store, new or used, and take a chance on a cd after a preview listening at the listening post. It's been a long time since I've done that due to lack of time, and I hate most record stores well (HMV) but that's for another blog.

I took a chance with Christian Scott, never even heard of the guy. I previewed it, and thought it was cool. So i picked it up. Check out His Myspace for a taste.

A week or 2 later, I caught myself always wanting to play it in the background in I tunes at work,or on th subway on the way home. Then one day I decided to look him up on the net and was surprised to find quite a bit of info on him.

Touted as one of the brightest new stars in Jazz , being only 22 years old.
I don't like trumpet that much, either in classical, or jazz, even most pop. Don't get me wrong I love Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong and company, but I don't like wailing and annoying, harsh trumpets.

This is a nice soft trumpet, with great warm tone, wrapped around some nice soft jazz, with a great blend of hip hop, and a little fusion. Matt Stevens' guitar tone reminds me at times of Alan Holdsworth and some Metheny. Simple but poignant.

There are 2 versions of the track Anthem on instrumental and the other track with Brother J of X clan. whose lyrics are wicked, for lack of a better word. They will make you sit up and listen. very appropriate.

Any way I hope to see him in Montreal, for the Jazz fest on July 4th.

and I'm glad I took a chance on Christian Scott that day.


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Amon Tobin

Amon Tobin, A Brazilian born, UK raised, Montreal dwelling Mastermind. I've always liked some of his stuff, but it took me a while to really get into all of his stuff. But the last 2 or 3 years or so, I've just can't get enough. What this guy does with samples, and sonic manipulation is always amazing, always fresh. He's not doing it to be cool, or because everyone else is doing it. It's what he does, it's always cool, dark, and groovy, and intense.

I'd recommend any of his records really, hard to choose just one.

Open your minds and you just might like what it picks up.
peace


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Meditation

Well, I've heard about it pretty much all my life. Always wanted to do it, never found the right moment to do so. Ironic I know, but it's a lesson learned, that we have to take the time to do it, or to get anything done these days.

Just before Christmas 2007, I picked up a book by the Dalai Lama How to see yourself as you really are . It's a very comprehensive guide to Buddhist meditation practices.

Well I finally tried it, early one morning before leaving for work. As always in my non traditional ways, no special technique, no sitting with my legs crossed, no new age music with pan flutes etc I just sat on the couch, and closed my eyes... boy was I in for a surprise, I got my ass (mind) kicked, about a billion thoughts raced through my mind at that moment. I felt overwhelmed. So I decided to just focus on an object etc, and for no particular reason I decided to focus on a blue light. Well after about 10 min, I was able to clear my mind, and just focus on that one blue light. I was astounded, I had done it, I had stemmed the flow thoughts for at least a few minutes. I felt really good the rest of the day.

It proved to me that if I can truly focus on one thing, and accomplish that one thing I'd feel accomplished, and lighter. I'm not looking to transcend any barriers here, what so ever. I'm just looking for some focus, and that feeling of peace I had when I was a kid.

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Andie's Music Server

I've been wanting one Location to place all my Music, Mp3's etc. So that I can listen to them anywhere in the house or outside of the house. And with the birth of my Daughter Andie Laurana, I wanted to give her the experience of music anytime, all the time.

Hardware
I've found a simple and relatively cheap way to do it. If you have a spare pc with Windows Xp, as most of us probably do. Well then you can put it to use as a music server. Mine is a PentiumIII 500mhz. with 256megs Ram. It's a noisy old pc, so you may want to store the computer in a remote location as to not hear the constant noise. Mine is in my garage.

So all you need is a decently large hard drive. I'd say anything over 40 gigs, is cool. Although today a 500 gigabite hard disk is stupid cheep. Just get something reliable , like Seagate or Western Digital. I leave mine on always.

Software
I tunes is free (I love Free), and perfect for this sort of thing. Download it. It can extract your music in many file formats and bit rates etc etc, keeps your music nice and neat, and lets you make nice play lists and stream through a network(this is cool). There are other programs that do this as well. but I had I Tunes and ran with it. Did you download it yet?

Setup your Music server so that it's available on your network (you'll need a router for this). I won't go into details here, but tell your self this, If I can do it , it's easy.

So now comes the long and boring part of extracting all your Audio cd's to the database, or importing your mp3 files.

I created a play list of Classical, Soft Jazz, some pop stuff, and a bunch of children songs, and I play that play list through the sound card out, across my garage and into the baby room, plugged into and old Home stereo. Voila! instant music round the clock for the baby. Not to loud either.

But the cool trick is that any other computer in the house using I tunes can have access to the music server and stream whatever they want locally though the network, or wireless network. It all depends on your network speed of course. but if the kids listen to rock, hip hop, on the computers in their room, you can listen to a podcast, or even stream a radio broadcast, in yours. All with on centralized location for your files.

Hope this was helpful

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