Red light cameras coming to a halt?

A judge in San Diego, CA issued a ruling today essentially making certain contracts for red-light ticket systems illegal. Not ALL contracts...just certain ones.

Specifically, contracts where operators (read: greedy corporations) were paid based on the number of tickets generated through the system were found to violate some tiny line of California Vehicle Code.

A couple of years ago, the adjoining city (Roseville) installed red light cameras at a major intersection a couple blocks away. Although technically in another municipality, the red-light cameras (and adjusted yellow/red times) have resulting in traffic backing up into neighboring Citrus Heights. It's made the intersection in question (Cirby and Sunrise Blvd) all but unnavigable during most daylight hours. Bad weather makes the situation worse.

Yet municipalities persist. Highly focused sales teams overwhelm hapless, uncreative city managers into deals that profit corporate entities at whatever cost they can socialize (congested streets, lost time and productivity for all citizens), and we're all the poorer for it.

Did Coldplay steal a song?

On the heels of the band Coldplay's recent 7 Grammy nominations comes news that Joe Satriani is suing the band for infringement, saying they copied "substantial portions" of his song "If I Could Fly" from his album Is There Love In Space.

Earlier this year, a similar claim was made by another band, Creaky Boards.


Joe Satriani is not suing Creaky Boards.

Just for comparison, here's another song that uses the same chord progression.

A music teacher on YouTube has made a quick theory analysis of the two songs.


It's pretty clear the VI VII III I progression has great appeal to writers, as it can accomodate more interesting melodies (IMHO), so the question really becomes about the melody.

The fact that many of these songs share a near identical tempo is interesting....perhaps the combination of tempo and chords/keys lend themselves to certain melody possibilities. And the pentameter of the melodies is very strong, Coldplay's in particular seeming to pulse in a brilliant way (Brian Eno produced the Coldplay album. Eno is a master at his craft.)

My limited legal understanding of Satriani's position is he does not have to prove intent to infringe, meaning he doesn't have to demonstrate that Coldplay *knew* of his music before they wrote "Viva la Vida", only that the music is similar enough to constitute infringement.

I think many people confuse the issue: Satriani's not claiming Coldplay "stole" his music, only that they published a composition that technically wasn't original. He may agree they came up with the chords/melody independently, but that's not the issue: he published it first, therefore, it's his.

As producers, one of our challenges is to create something original, new, and fresh while still familiar and accessible. Sooner or later, chords, melodies and arrangments will collide - it's simply mathematical chance.

I hope this is a case of amazing synchronicity, rather than a case where Coldplay (and by association, Brian Eno) simply pilfered someone else's work.

iPhone Ocarina

SMule: Ocarina [Zeldarian] from SonicMule, Inc. on Vimeo.

Some company has come up with an 'instrument' for the iPhone, but with a twist: it lets you hear what other people are creating with the instrument.

It's only a matter of time before something like Splice ports to the iPhone in a broad-appeal sort of way.

Takin' yer salmon!

Found in my Flickr stream....a hornet/wasp/yellowjacket is flying away with a piece of....salmon.

How awesome is that?

Five things Comcast can do NOW to improve their service.

In no order of importance....

1. The only thing the electronic answering system should really need to know is what language you speak. After that, someone should be forwarded to a service agent that is trained/equipped to deal with *all* aspects of Comcast product support. (along these same lines, increase the pay of frontline support agents, as they REALLY are your brand experience.)
   
2. Drop the happy-smiley sales pitches and pleas for customers to look at your website, Comcast.net. We're calling because we want a human being. If there was something on your site I wanted (assuming my service is operating), I'd already be there looking. The very fact I'm on the phone means....I don't want your website.
3. Allow agents to individually (or by small group) track tickets and manage them through report/resolution, rather then letting the call queue randomly assign customers to support reps.
4. Require field crews to report location and service ETA's as often as possible, and update customers periodically with new information. Yes, this is *supposed* to be expensive..what other way can someone punish a company for poor service?!?
5. Be faster to offer services and/or refunds for service interruptions. The internet is a mature technology now, and it's importance is greater in many situations than working television feeds. Frustration could be eased with as little as a couple free months of HBO or something.

That is all.

Behind the Leap

I finally know what 21 million other people already figured out.

iTunes is awesome.

First and foremost, the ability to encode high-quality, DRM-free mp3's is such a basic function in 2008, I still cannot fathom why it isn't built into OS's. Either way, it's made my music production workflow far more economic (converting high-bitrate wav files quickly....nice.) And the encoder sounds just fine.

Well played, Apple.

Jon Anderson: Making Music

John Anderson of Yes talks about writing.

What is a professional artist?

Some ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while - I think it's time to let some other brains join the thought pool....

Every now and again, I'll find myself re-evaluating the word and idea of being a professional.

• The modern terms "professional" and "artist" seem mutually exclusive.
• "Musician" is synonymous with "non-productive non-worker"

There are many reasons for this... professional musicians lead insular lives due to the commercial music environment (high turnover in management, volatile commercial landscape). Generally speaking, only people inside the professional entertainment vocations associate with professional musicians. Outside, most people know someone who's attempting a commercial career, or has abandoned a previous attempt.

• We have an existential identity crisis as artists, specifically as musical artists.
• Styles of dress once symbolic of societal fringes has been mainstreamed, as has the concept of being "creative."

But not the concept of being "poor" or living in an extremely frugal manner. Pop culture absorbed all visible identifiers of "creativity" (and all it's implicit suggestions: sensitivity, "outside the box" thinking, implied validity, etc) without also imposing an environment that demanded those actual skills. (Pop "Idol" competitions, etc..)

• Many of our musical genres and forms are being replicated by software/hardware (Yamaha "styles")

These factors create a lack of cultural space for creatives to identify each other. (this is what accounts for, IMHO, the high flameout rate on Craigslist, the lowest common denominator of impulsive stabs at creative community.)

• Our commercial world ebbs confusingly in a non-intuitive oversupply problem that defeats most rational economic thinking.
• Ubiquity of music production tools has enabled everyone to participate in the creation of unique aural memories.
• Many standard back-office operations have been moved to web-based services
• "Traditional" music companies thrived by monopolizing "the new".
• Enter technological evolution (Alesis ADAT), scale logarithmically, then exponentially, creates an oversupply of "new".
• Songwriting/performance is the new circus freak. ("Everyone's ugly, but he's REALLY ugly!") The most eccentric novelty wins (2girls, one cup).

I will take some time to flesh out some more thorough thinking. In the meantime, reactions, thoughts, etc, are welcome in the comments.

Google Maps Mashup: Genius Idea Number Trillion

We've all heard of Google Maps.

Wouldn't it be cool if there was something like Google Historical Maps? Imagine if the Maps project could present layers of historical visual data like roads, town layouts, archived aerial photos, etc...

Just a thought. Now back to your regularly scheduled day.