For instance, how about our propensity to do a little busking on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder as of late?  Caught!

The first was taken while we played last night.  It was probably posted before we were done playing!  Very strange to think about.

The second was snapped while we played last week.  Brian’s wife Kaori sat in with us playing their shiny new contrabassoon.  Well, okay, not shiny and not new at all to anyone but them.  This sucker dates from the 1940s.  And it goes UP at the end instead of around!  I’ve never seen a tall contra like that before.  Plays nicely, though.  (And, yes, you’re correct – two bassoonists married!  Wonder how that works when it comes time to audition for a gig…)

(The original links to these photos are here, and here.)

But wait, we also just happen to be on YouTube, as well…

This was from a wedding we played last year, and someone just happened to take video and post it.  Imagine our surprise when we just happened to stumble on it looking for recordings of other quartets.  Remember – these aren’t photos and videos by friends or relatives of the quartet – these are complete strangers taking our pictures and posting them on the internet!  One of our members did a quick search for this stuff, and happened to find them.

I admit feeling a little creeped out, at first.  Where else are we lurking on the internet?  Where else am I?  What if I AM doing something stupid???  Then I realized:  a) We’re in public, it’s not like we’re expecting complete privacy.  b)  As unrealistic as it might seem, we all hope that the quartet could evolve into something even slightly well known around town.  People posting this stuff means other people finding this stuff and saying “Wow, they’d be a hoot at our next corporate training event.” Or something like that.  In other words:  This is totally free advertising!  Creeped out feelings gone!  Long live the internet!

By the way, we’re playing Pearl next Friday at 6:00pm – probably around 14th St.  I’ll try to do something embarrassing if you’ll post our picture on Twitter…

(Shameless link goes here)

• The Problem
• The Solution
• The Disclaimer
• The Steps
• The Applications
• The Conclusion

The Problem

I’ve had an iPhone 3G for a year and a half, now, and have been just amazed – and sometimes a little worried – by how it has completely integrated itself into my daily life.  I’ve been using it since iPhone OS 2.1, and have jumped at every upgrade when they were released, wowing each time at the enhancements.  That is, until iOS 4.  Don’t get me wrong:  There’s a lot to like about iOS 4.  The problems with it mainly concern trying to use it on an iPhone 3G.  These include features of iOS 4 that aren’t usable (such as multitasking and background wallpaper), which is too bad, but not my main beef.  The real problem I’ve discovered with the new OS is how annoyingly slow and unresponsive everything has become on my phone.  It got to the point where listening to music on the cornerstone iPod application became a frustrating lesson in crashes, music stutters, and unusual pauses waiting for things to load.  I honestly wished I had never upgraded.  iPhone OS 3.1.3 was fine for us antiquated 3G users.  I just had no idea whether it was even possible to downgrade, and where to start.

Also, I knew some of the features in iOS 4 that didn’t work on a 3G had worked fine for a while if you were willing to jailbreak – features like multitasking and background wallpaper.  Other iOS 4 features could be mimicked with jailbreak apps.

The Solution

The answer came in stages over about a week. First, during one of CNET TV’s Apple Byte podcasts, the host walked you through the steps involved in downgrading from iOS 4 to iPhone OS 3.1.3.  The steps seemed easy enough to actually try.  Second, the US government declared that it was, in fact, legal to jailbreak your iPhone.  That hadn’t worried me too much before, but it’s nice to know that it is officially not a crime to do so.  Third, I heard about a new website that you open right on your iPhone’s Mobile Safari that jailbreaks your iPhone straight from the website in about 3 minutes flat.

Everything lined up at that point, making the steps of my evil plan take shape:

1. Downgrade my iPhone back to 3.1.3.  This would restore its previous snappy response, and get rid of the general pokeyness iOS 4 inflicted on it.
2. Jailbreak it.  This would allow me to put apps on my phone that Apple – for whatever reason – had not approved.
3. Re-install all of the apps I had on it before.  Yup – this step will definitely be a pain.
4. Install applications that would simulate some of the functionality contained in iOS 4.
5. Cackle wildly and enjoy my new old device.

The Disclaimer

Doing this involves a little risk.  Everything I’m describing here is completely unsupported by Apple. Downgrading and jailbreaking your phone will most likely work without a hitch, but there are always risks of something going wrong, meaning you could brick your phone.  You proceed at your own risk!  Always always always back-up your iPhone before doing something like this.

I would only recommend doing this if you’re the owner of an iPhone 3G, and you’ve experienced issues with it after upgrading to iOS 4.  If one or neither of those apply to you, don’t worry about doing this.  3GS users seem to have no issues, and iPhone 4 users are dancing in the streets with delight.  (I know I know…except for the antenna thing.  Moving on…)

(Last minute addition:  I downgraded from iOS 4.0.1 to 3.1.3.  If you’ve applied the iOS 4.0.2 update, rumor has it that you won’t be able to use the jailbreak method I’ve described.)

With all this out of the way, let’s proceed:

The Steps

Downgrade Your iPhone

I could rewrite all the steps involved in doing this, but the guy on CNET does a much better job, so start by watching that video.

Still here?  Got all that?  Phone now fast and efficiently running 3.1.3?  Let’s continue.

Jailbreak Your iPhone

This part used to be much more involved, but thanks to a new website, it’s actually the easiest and fastest step in this whole process.

1. On your iPhone, open Safari, and go to:  jailbreakme.com
2. Slide the “Slide to jailbreak” slider on the bottom of the web page.
3. Wait anywhere from 2-5 minutes while the jailbreak runs on your iPhone.  It will show you a progress bar to keep you updated.

That’s it.  Your phone’s jailbroken.  If you have any issues, refer to the FAQs on the website.  That being said, odds are it will run without incident.  My phone was jailbroken in two minutes flat.

The Applications

Below are apps I installed that allow your iPhone to use a great deal of the functionality presented by iOS 4.  Most are free, but some do have a cost.  To install these, go to the Cydia app, which was installed on your iPhone when you jailbroke it.  This is a lot like Apple’s own app store, but it contains apps that Apple would never approve.

Apps that Mimc iOS4 Features

Backgrounder (Multitasking.  Free.)

This app lets your iPhone multitask – something that Apple insists your old 3G is not capable of.  Granted, Apple’s method is more efficient, and preserves battery life, but then again, you couldn’t do it on your 3G.  Now, you can with Backgrounder.  Just be mindful that running apps at the same time decreases performance of the phone, and drains your batteries faster.

That being said, now you can do things like run Pandora in the background while you read email, or check your ToDo list.  Nifty.

Categories (Application folder organization.  Basic version free.  Enhanced version $0.99.)

This lets you organize your applications into folders.  To do this, you have to open the management app, where you create the folders, and select which apps go where.  Once you’re done, Springboard (the UI that contains all your apps) is restarted, and your apps are now in folders.  Nope, this isn’t as cool as Apple’s implementation that simply involved dragging apps onto each other to create a folder, but it works just fine, nevertheless.

The free version loads folders like an app, so, each time you open your “Games” folder, for instance, it has to load for a few seconds, which is actually kind of a bummer.  The paid $0.99 upgrade fixes this and opens very quickly.  I recommend the cheap upgrade.

Winterboard (iPhone UI themes, including user wallpapaer.  Free)

For some reason, Apple in its infinite wisdom decided a 3G couldn’t handle displaying a background picture, so that feature is not available.  Luckily, there’s Winterboard, which goes way beyond background pictures.  With this app, you can restyle your iPhone’s UI by installing any of hundreds of available themes.

Amazon Kindle or Stanza (Book reading.  Free to download.  Some books are free, most are paid.)

iOS 4 has iBooks, which is admittedly a well executed and very nice looking book reader app.  It is also laughably, painfully slow on a 3G.  Both Amazon Kindle and Stanza have been available on the Apple App Store for quite some time, now, and work great on a 3G.  Either of these are a much better solution than iBooks for our antique device.  Kindle has a great new book selection, which of course you have to pay for, and sync features that keep your place across all devices.  Stanza gives you access to multiple different book stores, some, like Project Guttenberg, containing a ton of free books.

Apps that Improve Your iPhone Regardless of OS

The apps below go beyond re-implementing some of the iOS 4 features.  These apps actually improve the iPhone in ways Apple has yet to approve.

SBSettings (Quick access phone settings.  Free.)

This gives you access to many of the iPhone settings in a quick dropdown heads-up display that makes things like turning Wi-Fi on and off, adjusting brightness, going into airplane mode, etc. a swipe-tap affair.  You don’t have to open the Settings app, and go tapping through layers of submenus.  Highly recommended.

Music Controls (Popup iPod style play controls for all music apps.  $4.99)

The iPhone has always supported quick popup music controls for the iPod app.  Double click the home key from anywhere, and you get a nice abbreviated control setup that allows you to play/pause, skip tracks, and adjust the volume.

This handy app extends that functionality to every other music app on the iPhone, like Pandora, Last.fm, and Apple’s own Remote.  Works great – as long as Backgrounder is already installed.

Wi-Fi Sync (Sync your iPhone wirelessly with iTunes.  $9.99)

With this app, your iPhone can be anywhere in your house, and you can sync it with iTunes as if it was plugged into your computer.  Some may find this more useful than others.

It’s a bit pricey, but it works as advertised.  We’ll see if this improves my back-up habits.

Insomnia (Keep Wi-Fi active when phone is locked.  Free.)

This is an odd little app that may or may not be a good fit for you.  All it does is keep wi-fi active all the time, overriding the default behavior of turning off wi-fi when the phone is locked.  This was the perfect addition for me, because I use the Remote app to control our iTunes library all the time.  Every time you lock the phone, you lose your connection to the Remote, forcing you to sit and wait while the phone reconnects, relocates your iTunes, and then lets you work with it.  The combination of Insomnia and Music Controls has made using Remote absolutely seamless.  Be sure to install this using the Insomnia SBSettings package, which gives you a handy toggle button to turn this app on and off.

The Conclusion

As usual, what I thought was going to be a short post got a little more wordy.  Oh well.  If you’re wondering how all this stuff works in practice, I can tell you so far that my iPhone is working great.  Now, I am stepping outside of Apple’s designed experience, so I notice things like I have to be more careful of battery usage, and occasionally – occasionally – my iPhone has actually crashed.  So far, these have been well worth the trade-off.  As the weeks go by, I’ll let you know whether I continue to think of this as a good idea, or not.

Hopefully this was helpful.  Happy tweaking.  I can’t stress enough that you should read the disclaimer before trying this stuff.  I take no responsibility for bricking your phone!

In the meantime, my congratulations to you for making it all the way to the end.

Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration.  It’s really just a place that links to a couple of posts I’ve done that I think would be helpful to be able to easily find.  Reed stuff.  A couple recordings.  Even a bibliography.

It’s rough.  It’s ugly.  But it’s there.  Enjoy.  Check it out:  Click here, or click above.

By the way, just so you’re aware of the context of this post, other titles I considered were “Slowly and Painfully”, “Why Don’t These Damn Things Work”, and “I Want to Be a Jazz Drummer, Instead”.

Up To Now

The great thing about improving my success rate with reed making is that I begin breaking in most of my reeds at a somewhat consistent starting point, and I’m more confident about the direction I need to go as I break them in.  As time goes on, though, I get more and more frustrated on why I can’t reproduce the same results every time.  Since I’ve started measuring my reeds, I’ve scraped too many of them with exactly the same profile that turn out completely different.  Granted, there are other things that can be different about a reed besides the profile, such as the tightness and roundness of the wires, the uniform (or not) roundness of the barrel, etc., but I’ve been concentrating more and more on getting those little details more or less the same, as well.  So, what’s the difference, here?  Why don’t all my reeds that begin the same and get the same profile end up playing and sounding beautifully?

Cane and Snowflakes

The unfortunate thing I’ve been coming to grips with lately is this:  like snowflakes, no two pieces of cane are ever exactly the same.  You can make two reeds exactly the same, scrape them the same, and they will end up completely different, because the cane they were made from was different.  They’re bamboo plants growing somewhere and aged before you’ll ever get the dried out hollow tubes.  Bamboo plants are all different.  The cane you get, and therefore the reeds you make will all be different.  Unfortunately, until we start using some synthetically manufactured materials for reeds, this will always be a problem.

Fortunately, there are things I’m finding that make responding to this problem easier to deal with.

The 95% Scrape

Not to be too much of a nerdy Trekkie, but remember when Spock’s protege questioned his thinking in Start Trek VI?  She confronted him with the phrase, “It’s not logical.”  He responds with this gem:  ”Logic, logic…Logic is the beginning of wisdom.”  We can discuss the merits of using kitchy science fiction to talk about reeds elsewhere.  For now, there is another parallel to draw here:  Having the exact reed measurements to use, relying on the sage advice of the dial indicator to get the reed to its exact correct scrape is logical, yes, but as I’ve found, it’s only the beginning.  (And you thought I couldn’t I draw a comparison…)  Let me explain.

When I scrape the reed to the exact measurements before I ever start breaking it in, I’m assuming the cane is the correct hardness, and built exactly the same as the reed from where I derived those measurements.  If it’s not, the reed won’t work as expected, even if the profile is scraped perfectly.  Period.

With my latest batch of reeds, I’ve been purposely scraping them down to almost the desired measurement – but not quite.  So, if a certain part of the reed is supposed to be 30mm thick, I’ll scrape it down to about 34-35.  The whole reed ends up scraped to roughly the same proportion as my ideal profile, just a tad thicker:  the 95% scrape.  What I’ve found is that this gives me the flexibility to respond to the different types of cane I deal with.  A good deal of the cane is hard enough that I do end up eventually scraping it down.  However, quite a few of the reeds require adjustments to the ideal profile, which could include leaving it thicker in places I wouldn’t originally intend.  That fact is why it’s important not to corner yourself by scraping the reed to the exact measurement at first.

So, how do you tell which reeds need adjustments, and which don’t?  Well, that leads to the next tidbit of double-reed infused information.

Let Them Guide You – Slowly

Remember when Picard throws a tantrum in the “First Contact” movie?  He ends up smashing all the starship models in his rage, then growls through clenched teeth, “The line must be drawn here.”  That has absolutely nothing to do with reeds, but it’s a cool line.  Anyway…

One of the things that’s been especially hard for my I-want-it-to-work-right-now mentality is that reeds’ behavior changes as you play on them.  This means that a new reed that may have sounded great the other day when you played on it may now sound stuffy and be really hard to get a sound out of.  This is for the same reason that no two pieces of cane are alike – they come from dried out, aged, organic material that changes over time.  As you soak the reeds, the water causes the fibers to expand, making them thicker over time.  As you play on them, the vibration causes the fibers to break down, causing the reed to soften over time.  Eventually, the reed will stop changing so much, and reach a stable point that you can rely on (until you need it for that big solo at the concert, of course).  The kicker is, this just doesn’t happen immediately.  You have to play on them first.  And that is probably the most important point in this whole post:

Breaking them in properly before finishing or fixing them is EXTREMELY important.

The more I play on a new reed before adjusting it, in general the better reed I get that behaves more like I expect it to.  The more I hack away at it before giving it a chance to adjust on its own, the more I tend to get a reed that may sound good at first, but end up being too bright, too flat, and too mushy within a week.  This leads to another somewhat important point:

Your new reeds will not immediately make you sound like you deserve to play with the Chicago Symphony.  This is okay.

I tend to be very impatient with my reeds, and want them to work immediately.  Learning the art of waiting has been frustrating but rewarding.  My reeds have continued to improve because of this.  I get a better idea of what the reeds need after breaking them in, and I discover which reeds aren’t worth working on at all (a time saver in its own right).

Just the Basic Points

So, what have we learned today?

• Every piece of cane you work on will be different.
• Scrape the reed to 95% of your ideal measurements to give yourself room to adjust as your reeds break in.
• Give your reeds time to break in.
• Not only am I a double reed nerd, but I also know too many lines from Star Trek.

There you have it.  The absolute latest in my ongoing quest to make the perfect reed, then make another one.  I’ll post again as I find out more about this exciting, intense, amazing and fulfilling art.  As always, I’m not claiming to be an expert here, just sharing my own experiences with you in hopes that it will help someone save a little time.  If you have any thoughts on the process, please let me know!

(Oh, come on!  The Star Trek comparison was awesome!  Come back!  Please read my blog again.)

I’m glad to discover I’m not the only one dealing with this.  My wife pointed out a book in progress she had discovered addressing this exact issue, called the Focus Manifesto.  I haven’t read it, yet, but plan to very soon (once I finish my news feeds, checking eBay, the NBA scores, and go through my email).

Ironically (maybe), it’s an eBook, and can be read here.

What were the results, you ask?  At first, not quite as good as I had hoped.  The first thing I tried was setting the iPhone in the dock vertically, and was disappointed to find out it didn’t support the weight of the iPhone.  I guess I didn’t use a thick enough card stock.  It did support the weight of the iPhone in a horizontal position, though.

Not wanting to give up quite yet, I cut another panel of card stock, and glued it onto the back of the dock, let it dry a bit, then tried setting the iPhone vertically in the dock again.  Presto!  The combination of dried glue and an extra card stock layer did the trick!

So, there you have it.  Not the strongest piece of equipment in the world, but it works as advertised (with thicker cardstock, or some glue), it’s quick to put together, and the price is certainly right.

Eh, go figure.

At work, I tend to use the iPhone as a secondary device, for things like IM chats, and music.  Unfortunately, it’s a little awkward to try and stand up with the cord plugged into it, so it usually just sits flat on the desk.  Not ideal.

Apple’s Universal Dock is kinda neat, but it does stuff I don’t need it do, and it’s pretty pricey – $60 – just so I can sit my stupid iPhone at a nice angle during the day.  No thanks!

Enter this handy do-it-yourself dock, which you can cut, fold and use without the $60 investment.  Cool! Check out this post with the video and the link to download the template.

I think I’ll try this sometime this week.  I’ll let you know if it works, or not.  If you decide to try it first, let me know how it works for you.

The information available at our fingertips is staggering, unprecedented and omnipresent. This realization hit me when, one recent morning, after I had already checked email on my iPhone while I was biking to work, I sat down at my desk, opened my browser, and began reading news feeds of everything from politics to technology to humor. Within five minutes, I found myself reading an article about the movie “Back to the Future” on Wikipedia, and I don’t even know how I got there.

Don’t worry. I got off the bike to check my email.

I used to proudly tell my friends when they came in to our house and ask where the TV was, that my wife and I didn’t own one. The unsaid portion was, “We don’t need one of those things entertaining us and telling us what to think. We can find other ways to occupy our time.” I seriously used to believe that. I don’t now.

I have a hard drive full of movies and TV shows that I bought over the internet. YouTube could keep me busy watching endless videos day and night. Facebook is there, my news feeds are always waiting, and Hulu’s come along as of late to let me catch up on the episodes of “30 Rock” I might have missed – then check out Family Guy, the Tonight Show, The Office… The reality is, we still have “TV” – it just sits on our desk, and has a keyboard instead of a channel selector. In many ways, this new TV is far worse than the old one – it’s far more pervasive than the original TV ever was.

So, thus far, my point is: we have lots of information. And everybody reading this said, “Wow, good call. We didn’t realize that as we sat reading this via the internet.” Fair enough. But really, that’s not my entire point. My second point is, sometime this week, I realized that simply standing in front of this fire hose of information and consuming it can’t continue. I’m not sure how it’s affected us as a whole, but I can certainly tell you how it’s affected me, and how much more I’ve been affected than I ever would have anticipated.

I don’t do the “creative” things that gave me so much satisfaction nearly as much as I used to, from writing to composing to blogging. Those activities require way too much mental effort to get the same reward as simply browsing email, FailBlog, or Facebook. I don’t “think” about what I do as much anymore, either. It’s just a habit now that, when I get home, I go to the computer, or whip out my iPhone, and “check in”. There was a time when I’d get home and practice an instrument, or sit and talk with my wife, or even read a physical book that I had to hold and manually turn pages. I’m not as productive as I used to be. It’s harder for me to think in terms of “long form” activities, like creating an entire website that takes weeks or months; or editing an entire blog post which requires an introduction, a set of points, and a closing which ties it all together; or even composing a simple piece of music. The mental energy and the time commitment for these projects is too great for me, these days. Maybe I had these attention issues before, but only now with this constant “information saturation”, are they really being exposed. At this point, it doesn’t really matter. I’m tired of this drain on my time, my energy, and my attention.

What do we do about this? Do we accept this as just the way things are, now, and that so much of our lives is just meant to be spent virtually, and online? Do we exchange all of our technology for books, a pen and some paper?

I’ll be honest with you. I talked with my wife about going cold turkey – disconnecting our internet service, getting rid of all of our movies and TV shows, and keeping just one of our laptops around. If we wanted to check email or catch up on anything that required the internet, we could go to a coffee shop, or something. Part of me thinks that we would find ourselves surrounded with tons of forgotten time and opportunity, and that we may not miss all that technological stuff all that much.

Now, I’ll be honest with myself. Cold turkey may be great for a while, but it probably wouldn’t last all that long. It wouldn’t be too long before I was wishing I could watch just this one show, or if I just had an internet connection to do just this one thing, and before you know it, I’d be back to the gadget filled, internet and information drenched lifestyle I’d sworn off so recently. I think, in the end, it’s okay to say that the internet is, indeed, an amazing technology, and we are lucky to be have access to such an unparalleled amount of information, but here’s the kicker:

We aren’t obligated to use it all the time.

Does that sound stupid? Obvious? It does to me, too…now. It was a surprising revelation to me, though. Just because I had email available to me didn’t mean I always had to know exactly what was my Inbox, or reply to somebody immediately. Just because my iPhone let me know there were new feeds to read didn’t mean I had to switch over post haste and enlighten myself with it. A random “what if” thought didn’t immediately have to be Googled, Wikipedia-ed, or otherwise tracked down on the web.

In short, we don’t have to stand in front of the fire hose and consume. Yes, it’s amazing how much comes out, but we’ll end up just getting soaked, and uncomfortable, and our shoes will get really squishy. We have the option of (carefully) standing next to the hose and sipping, or bringing little cups to the hose to drink in small portions later, or – get this – to step away from the fire hose altogether from time to time.

The “small portions” is the part that’s going to take me some time to learn as far as disciplining myself. Saying that I’m going to only partake sometimes and doing it are two different things. Having the internet on all the time has become such a habit for me that I’m going to have to practice purposefully limiting it or stepping away from it, as methodically and carefully as I sit down to practice tough passages on my bassoon. I think a good place to start is to have a few ideas in mind at the beginning of each day:

1. Only check email two to three times a day.
2. Only check my news feeds two to three times a day.
3. Avoid the “Back to the Future Syndrome”. Have a specific reason to open up a browser. If I’m going to pay bills, fine. If I’m going to research reed tools, or dolphin eating habits, great. But I’m not going to get on with the idea that I’ll just mindlessly browse, and find something.
4. Establish times throughout the day where the internet is considered “turned off”, maybe for a half hour to an hour to start. I’m betting that, at least after the withdrawal, I’ll be amazed at the time I have back and my ability to concentrate on more “long form” ideas.

Those are my ideas. I can’t guarantee any of those will work, or that I’ll stick to any of them, but I’ll try. Maybe I’ll check back in once in a while to let you know how it’s going.

How about you guys? Does anybody else have this problem? What do you do to keep from being overwhelmed? Let me know!

The piece we performed was “Odes to the Americas”, by Marjan Mozetich, commissioned by the Caliban Bassoon Quartet.  The three movement piece is written for three bassoons and a contrabassoon, and is a lot of fun to play and to listen to.  Enjoy!

Odes to the Americas, by Marjan Mozetich

I. Good Times

II. Blue Souls

III. With You I Dance

Check out the following websites for more information:

Boulder Bassoons

Marjan Mozetich

Caliban Bassoon Quartet

The Caliban Quartet made the definitive recording of the piece, which can be found on their website, or places like Amazon.