A few weeks ago, I reviewed the new Lala Music Service. At the time, my first impressions were that it was an interesting concept that was done well enough to continue with a more thorough test drive. As I’ve continued to use it, I’ve formed a few more opinions about it, which I will be only too thrilled to talk about now.
What Were Those Features, Again?
To quickly recap the standout features of Lala:
A free online “music locker” with an iTunes-like interface to store your entire your music library online, giving you unlimited access to your library anywhere there’s an internet connection.
If you want to add to your library, there are 6 million music tracks are available, any of which you can listen to once for free before buying it.
Buy “web songs” for 10 cents each, which basically means buying the rights to listen to a track online unlimited times. Or, download DRM free MP3 files for 79 to 99 cents each.
Social networking features to allow you to follow other users, and vice versa, letting you see their playlists, music they’ve listened to recently, etc.
News on the old bassoon front is in short supply, these days. Auditions? Nope. Performances? Not Really. Reeds? Yeah, I got ‘em. They work, though I’d rather not spend a whole post on them, right now.
So, now I’m confronted by the blogger’s worst nightmare: Nothing much to write about, and yet, facing the need to write something. So, here’s three quick blurbs to pass the time.
There’s a lot of fantastic bassoon music out there, these days. Admittedly, some of it is interesting more for bassoonists themselves. However, you may be surprised to find that quite a bit of it may interest a much wider audience than just us double reed nerds.
For instance, there’s the new jazz album, “Frolic in the Land of Plenty”, by jazz bassoonist Paul Hanson, released earlier this year. Yeah - jazz bassoonist.
Let me be clear what we’re talking about, here. This isn’t some novelty where a well meaning player attempts a few blues scales, but ends up sounding like a bassoonist “just trying” to do jazz. This guy absolutely rocks. I mean he’s good. He’s got jazz chops that would embarrass some decent sax players. For that matter, he’s got bassoon chops that make a lot of bassoonists go weak in the knees. He does stuff on the bassoon that you might have previously said was impossible, like playing complicated licks in the high register like it’s easy. Furthermore, when you hear him play, it quickly becomes apparent that Hanson is actually a gifted jazz player who just happens to play the bassoon - not the other way around.
Some of the tracks actually take “Frolic” beyond even jazz bassoon. For this album, he amplifies, processes, loops, and layers the bassoon, achieving results that are fairly astounding. Tracks like this include the title track, “Frolic in the Land of Plenty”, a real moody sounding groove, and the arabic sounding “Subtle Deamons”, which, besides flat out kicking, features some downright nasty amplified bassoon effects. At points in both of these tracks, you can hear the bassoon filling in the background, interjecting some counterpoint and echoes, as well as providing the melody, although if you don’t listen close, you may not recognize the sound of the heavily processed bassoons, at all. Hanson outdoes himself with these two tracks, which are my personal favorites on the album.
The rest of the album spans the gamut from some pretty driving tracks like “Emerald Mile”, to the late night sounding “Sacred Love”, to the very different but fun “Flight of the Fly”. Throughout the album, two things are always noticeable: First, the band backing Hanson is top notch, and really tight, including the venerable drummer Dennis Chambers, who provided the drums on some of the tracks. Second, this is just great jazz music, period. The fact that the lead instrument is a bassoon quickly becomes unimportant, due to Hanson’s talents as a jazz player.
“Frolic in the Land of Plenty” is a great album. Anyone who enjoys good driving jazz should definitely check it out. I’ve provided a few links below to let you sample the album for yourselves. Or, you can click on the album cover to go to Amazon’s MP3 page. Let me know what you think!
(The Lala service requires you to sign up first, but it’s completely free to do so and very quick. Once you sign up, you can listen to any track in its entirety once for free. In my opinion, being able to listen to the entire track is much cooler than a 30 second sample, so I’ll probably continue to provide links like this whenever possible.)
I found out about a new service called Lala this week. This is a service that seems to have two major purposes: First, to provide a way for you to access your entire music library anywhere with an internet connection, without having your iPod, or your computer, or your massive external hard drive with all of those MP3’s. Second, like Rhapsody type services, to provide a way for you to discover and buy new music through a few social networking features. There is no monthly service fee to use Lala, and using it only to store and access your existing music library is free. I’m guessing they hope to make their money when you start poking around their catalog, and buying tracks.
The service sounded interesting to me, so I gave it a shot and signed up. From just a little use, including getting my music all setup online, using its interface, and exploring some of its catalog, I can say that I like the idea a lot. Here’s a few words about what I’ve found so far.
If you’ve ever read the book “Ender’s Game”, you’ll already recognize the name Orson Scott Card. If you’re like me, you’ll think he’s a very talented author who writes some of the best speculative fiction around. What you may not know is that Card also has a mind for politics, and explaining his views carefully, shrewdly, and bluntly. His thoughts on the situation in the Middle East have been particularly enlightening.
Recently he’s posted a couple more items, both of which I think are well written and worth reading:
Upholding the Constitution - His thoughts on how the Constitution and our democracy have already been been illegally usurped, and what we can do about it.
Welcome back to this thrilling and daring series regarding that one subject that people just can’t get enough of - bassoon reeds.
Anybody? Hello?
In the first part of this short series on reed making, I talked about how helpful it was to seriously measure the scrape of your reeds so that, first of all, you know what measurement you’re going for, and, second, you know how far off you are from that as you scrape each reed. (Among other things.)
Now what? Using a dial indicator certainly helps, but that’s not the entire story on getting a “reed factory” going, right? Well, if it was, I wouldn’t be writing another post on the subject.
Every now and then, I’ll scrape a reed that turns out to be truly amazing. Game changing, even. So good, in fact, that it turns bassoon playing into an act of sheer musical ecstasy. When this happens, I invariably think to myself, “Ah, good. You’ve finally figured out the secret to making a great reed. Good thing you won’t have to learn that again.”
Then I’ll make 20 more reeds that suck.
Does this happen to any other reed making bassoonist, or is it just me? Does this frustrate the living @$#@!$# out of anyone else, or do I stand alone, here? I decided that, for my next few batches of reeds, I was going to shake things up a bit, and see if I could increase my consistency at all in churning out a decent reed. Although I certainly cannot claim to have solved this long standing problem of consistent reeds, I saw enough of an improvement that I thought any fellow bassoon geek might be interested in finding out possible methods that you, too, can use to improve your reed making consistency, and therefore, your bassoon playing satisfaction.
No, none of the methods involve spells, curses, or ancient dances. Especially curses aimed at trombone players.
Well, metaphors are no longer necessary, because now you, too, can see that very performance on YouTube. The sound is mostly synced. I’m third from the left. I’m also the first player you hear.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the new Lala Music Service. At the time, my first impressions were that it was an interesting concept that was done well enough to continue with a more thorough test drive. As I’ve continued to use it, I’ve formed a few more opinions about it, which I will be only too thrilled to talk about now.
Welcome back to this thrilling and daring series regarding that one subject that people just can’t get enough of - bassoon reeds.
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