because not enough websites start with the letter “Z”
Posted in life on Nov 12th, 2009
When I was in the 5th grade my class was taken by bus to one of the middle or high schools where we heard the student orchestra play. After the arranged pieces were complete, each instrument was demonstrated in a short solo piece and then explained by the conductor. It was hoped that this demonstration [...]
Posted in elsewhere on Mar 17th, 2009
Posted in nerdliness on May 25th, 2008
After a morning of continued experimentation with, and reading about, Sibelius, Sibylle discovered a posting online that talked about using plugins. Â Also, I received a comment to my earlier Sibelius posting, that specifically called out using the “Simplify Notation” plugin to clean up a score that had been entered using Flexitime. Â
It actually works.
Sibylle was [...]
Posted in nerdliness on May 24th, 2008
Recently Sibylle purchased an electronic keyboard for her studio, and last week the copy of Sibelius 5 that she had ordered arrived. Â Sibelius is one of the top two or three music notation software programs available and includes a note input mechanism called “Flexitime.” Â Flexitime captures the music you play on the keyboard (or other [...]
Posted in life on May 17th, 2008
In the fifth grade my class was taken on a field trip to a neighboring junior high school where we heard the band play. Â After the arranged pieces were done, each instrument was introduced by the conductor, so we would start to know what they were and what they sounded like. Â After that performance we [...]
Posted in diversions on May 9th, 2008
It isn’t often that I add a new artist to my music collection, but thanks to Ted, and a generous birthday gift, I have not only added Loreena McKennitt to my collection, I’ve discovered a new favorite artist. Â Her music is hard to describe except to say that it beautifully combines Celtic origins with poetry [...]
Posted in nerdliness on Apr 29th, 2008
In Random Is As Random Does, I talked about how I configured some smart playlists in iTunes to provide a better random sample of the music I most wanted to hear from my MP3 collection. Â Basically I created smart playlists for the least played tracks, the least recently played tracks, the most played tracks, the [...]
Posted in life on Apr 27th, 2008
In his seminal book, Object-Oriented Technology: A Manager’s Guide, the author, David A. Tayor, describes polymorphism as
Hiding alternative procedures behind a common interface.
The word, polymorphism, is a Greek term meaning “many forms.” Â A common example of this in the programming world is a routine that calculates state sales tax. Â The calling process is unaware of [...]
Posted in diversions on Mar 9th, 2008
Having grown up listening to The Beatles I am hugely pleased by the “McCartney reported inks deal with Apple” headline over at Ars Technica. No time frame yet of when the catalog will appear on iTunes, but I would suspect this will make a great “one more thing” bit at this years WWDC.
Posted in nerdliness on Mar 9th, 2008
For the past three days Sibylle has had the good fortune to attend a piano master class at a nearby university. The presenter, head of the Yale Piano department, spent an hour with each student, listening to their piece and then helping them to mold it, or improve it in some way. Some [...]