Mike

I don't really understand how users can seem to get logged out momentarily for no reason, but I have made a small fix to the shoutbox which allows those that the site perceives as guests to retrieve the list of latest shouts. This should fix the periodic "you are banned" message. Can't really shed any light on everything else. It must be sleep deprivation or schizophrenia. ;) (Not on my part, that is)

The PDF is now accessible here: http://www.youngcomposers.com/Albrechtsberger.pdf Anyone care to wikify it somehow? It seems a rather unwieldy file - my PDF reader is slow to respond when navigating around. But I don't suppose we can do much about that.

That was me testing a theory. Apologies for the interruption. On the basis of what I have observed today, it seems the site-wide error message that presented itself recently was caused not by someone tampering with the server's files, but by erroneous changes made by a trusted administrator to a small snippet of custom code we use. This code is evaluated at runtime, so it is possible for an error to suddenly crop up without any changes first being made to an actual physical file on disk. The site was not hacked, nothing was compromised, no personal data was leaked, etc. It seems human error was to blame, nothing more. Even in the event a malicious individual had managed to gain access credentials to an admin account, they would be unable to log into it and make changes owing to security restrictions we have in place.

I don't really get how it could become part of the wiki - it's in PDF format, unless we use OCR or start copying bits out (both of which could get us in further trouble from a copyright standpoint) but I will let Ticktockfool know he has the go-ahead to post.

The user Ticktockfool wants to upload an e-book in PDF format entitled "Guide to Composition" by a guy called Johann Georg Albrechtsberger. He says each page is brownish-yellow in colour, suggesting the scan was made from an edition which is not in print any more, letalone in wide circulation. He hasn't yet said where he got the PDF file from. Should it be permissible to upload this e-book for the benefit of other users? I'd say yes, it won't really harm anyone...unless the book is rubbish of course. :D

AA is making the argument that man hours expended contributes to or defines value. I personally see that as another guise of the commodification idea: an "hourly wage" for music composition. The more time you put in, the more compensation you should receive. Unless we can agree on certain extra-musical presuppositions, there is nothing to say that a piece which took 12 years to compose is superior to one which took 12 seconds. It may be that we can indeed agree that the former deserves more praise and championing, but for no reason having to do with the music itself. I don't actually think that we need to find some kind of enchanted over-arching rationalization for music in and of itself. For me, music is very much a social, psychological, economic and cultural phenomenon We can do very well looking for an understanding from these angles. We can also look at its bare bones to understand the raw material from which it is derived, an activity which certainly has its place, but at that point the grounding becomes softer and matters more unsettled. This is why I'm not sure music fits so well into the academic world just by itself. You normally have to add other grounding before it makes much sense. There is sort of an exception in that inter-subjectivity arises (a la memes) so people start to agree things because everyone else agrees them...again though, that's sociological, psychological and historical. AA, your own musical story seems to be largely sociological and psychological, much like everyone else's. Nothing to be ashamed of, it's just human nature. I also think you are expecting too much of music academia. If you want to stand up for your own interests, write music which is true to you, collaborate with it, get it heard, see what people think, have fun. The world outside academia is full of rich musical traditions/disciplines which are barely even acknowledged inside institutional walls. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that music has to be paid respect in an academic context for it to have some kind of value.

The impression I garner from the site under discussion is that its author is possessed of fundamental disagreements with the way modern society is structured, and is using music as a form of scapegoat or outlet for expressing these feelings. I would consider myself opposed to the tenets of consumerism, although not opposed to capitalism in general, but I can hardly agree with the author's stances, nor fail to notice the bitterness residing in many of his/her statements. Fundamentally, of all the malaises afflicting society, I can't think of one for which music is primarily to blame. I would think that commercial or "commodified" (thank you Adorno!) music maintains its current standing largely because people in the west, particularly the young, seem to lack affinity to the larger community as compared with say 50 years ago. Personal identity tends to be formed more individualistically - music represents one avenue through which this may be achieved. But I'm sure fashion designers would look upon my clothing as terribly kitsch and unimaginative, interior decorators upon the decor in my house as bland and hollow, and so on. By studying a discipline in depth, you are guaranteed to move beyond a rudimentary appreciation into a critical mode of understanding. Through this, you can also gain wider perspectives, although a lot of people don't seem to. Instead, they can grow blinkers and form some kind of superiority complex. Wider understanding is replaced with what essentially constitutes narrow-minded, zealous fundamentalism. Maybe those words are too strong - the principles does seem to operate along those lines, however, and it really helps no-one. It's late over here, the above might make less sense if I were to read it tomorrow morning...

No point getting Logic 5 now, it will be outdated both in terms of functionality and compatibility. On PC it's essentially a choice between Reaper, Sonar and Cubase for sequencing. And possibly one other one I've forgotten. The best way to evaluate those apps would be to try demos and see which agrees with you the most. Bear in mind there will be quite a large learning curve moving from Finale into a sequencer. Also, the aforementioned packages offer not only MIDI sequencing capability, but their own bundled sounds and effects (Reaper less so). In my opinion, that is worth just as much as if not more than having the extra control a sequencer brings. I think Sonar and Cubase are priced at over $500 though. It all depends on your requirements.

Are they any good, do you know? Or anyone else for that matter. It's only a good deal if they are. ;)

This track certainly has a problem with mastering. It could either be a case of over-zealous compression/limiting or simply turning all the levels up way too high. Both result in the same thing in any case. Attaining that "loud" commercial sound while also preserving audio quality is a difficult (some might say impossible) task. I'm no expert on mastering, but I did once come across a plug-in which does a brilliant job at it right off the cuff, though you have to pay quite a lot for the privilege: Wave Arts | Plugins | FinalPlug 5

I suspected as much. Once you get over the hump and become accustomed to how they work, you'll find the setup is much the same on just about every site you visit. :)

If you don't wish to view the shoutbox, click the double arrow icon in its top right hand corner. It will remain hidden forever unless you clear your cookies, I believe. The same goes for any other forum sections you are not interested in. One might equally argue placing the forum jump at the top of the page would be intrusive, though I do agree it is a bit obscure. Have you used forums before, out of interest? Our community is powered by a popular brand of generic forum software which is also in use on thousands of other websites.

There's also the Forum Jump menu located in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. You can use this to navigate to any forum thread listing from just about anywhere on the board. Or, you can click View New Posts at the top to display a reverse chronological list of all posts you haven't read. I'm confused when you say a thread has to be listed in the most recent thread column in order to be accessible - you can view all threads in a particular forum simply by clicking the name of that forum on the index page, or the name of a subforum when inside another forum (e.g. Other Arts from Off Topic).