Free stuff music  

The coolest thing to me since sliced bread. Free orchestration lessons online at www.northernsounds.com

I found this site when I was looking for more info on orchestration. I have been a "synth" composer since I was in 6th grade when I got my first music program, Cakewalk 3 probably (I'm not sure what number it was, but it was one of the earliest). My uncle gave it to us and I loved it. It is how I learned to read music. And how I learned about rhythm. I had already been teaching myself piano by ear, but the program really helped me understand so much more. Then I started writing for piano, then piano and flute, then more and more instruments.

Now I have Finale 2007 with Garritan Personal Orchestra. My computer is running great and everything is sounding so much better. I wasn't able to take orchestration at BJU, although I took other music classes as a music minor. I don't know why I didn't put in the effort to study orchestration on my own until now, but I really need it, I see. And I'm really enjoying it.

The only problem I have now, and I admit it isn't a huge one, is I have an old keyboard. It doesn't have 88 keys which is hardly the most frustrating thing. It can't record velocity! Velocity for those who don't know is basically how hard you strike the key. So I have to rely on filters and the human playback function to add realism to my music currently. Not the best solution. It would be nice to have a mod-wheel/pitch bend too. Garritan uses the piano pedal, a mod-wheel and velocity MIDI data in a "revolutionary" way to switch samples to make every instrument sound its best. I can add that data later, but once again, not as convenient. I'm saving up for a new keyboard.

Help choosing a piano book. Have you played/heard these?  

Has anyone bought this and played from it? I used to like Rebecca Bonam music when it first came out. I'm talking about her first two books. Since then, I've gotten some more and only been disappointed by the style and construction. Since SoundForth doesn't have LOOK THROUGH IT on this book, I need some advice.
Keyboard Meditations can be used for offertories or communion service music.

Song Titles

1. Meditations on the Word of God

• Break Thou the Bread of Life
• Holy Bible, Book Divine
• How Firm a Foundation
• Wonderful Words of Life

2. Meditations on the Cross

• Beneath the Cross of Jesus
• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
• The Old Rugged Cross
• Near the Cross

3. Meditations on the Love of God

• Love Divine, All Love Excelling
• My Savior's Love
• Jesus Loves Even Me
• Love Lifted Me

4. Meditations on Devotion to Christ

• Something for Thee
• I Gave My life for Thee
• More Love to Thee
• My Faith Looks Up to Thee

5. Meditations on the Nearness of God

• Near to the Heart of God
• Draw Me Nearer
• Nearer, My God to Thee
• Nearer, Still Nearer

6. Meditations on Prayer

• Did You Think to Pray?
• Tell it to Jesus
• I Must Tell Jesus
• Sweet Hour of Prayer

7. Meditations on Heaven

• The Home Over There
• Beulah Land
• In the Sweet By and By
• How Beautiful Heaven Must Be

musings discussion , in the news , rants  

I've always found it annoyingly unethical for reporters to say something like this, "I've got a source who says this, he's breaking a judge's order to give you this information." There's something wrong with that. I'm not the only one that thinks that, right? I guess it's more common these days to have sources like that. I guess most people would say, the djinni's out of the bottle so I have to report this no matter where it comes from.

"...attorneys intend to appeal Thursday's decision to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said the source, who requested anonymity because of the gag order imposed by the judge."

By the way, are you a Scribe?  

If you haven't gotten the ScribeFire extension (download here) for Firefox, you are really missing out on an easy way to blog to Bensfriends.com. It used to be called Performance, but I believe that was quite a while ago. If you need help setting up your bensfriends account with ScribeFire I should be able to walk you through it. Ben helped me the first time I set it up. Just leave me a message here. (It's been so long, I might have to refresh my memory on how to do it. hehe)

The beauty of ScribeFire is that when you feel inspired to blog, you click the little pad  on the Firefox toolbar at the bottom of the screen and compose away. You can drag pictures from the site you are on and size them in the editing window and if you need to correct the html or css you can do that too. It allows you to preview your final result, add tags, save as a draft or note. And you can write and post for multiple blogs if you are prolific. There are convenient editing tools right there in the window for you. I remember I used to have to type the html tags out and I rejoiced when I saw this extension.

Naseated and awake rants , update  

I'm still awake...It's 5:12 am EST. I even took an Ambien. Yikes. I feel so nauseated. I can't move without getting waves and waves of it. I'm trying to be very still. I hope I'm not coming down with a virus or something. Yuck. Ugh, thinking about it is making me feel worse.

Well, this hasn't been a very uplifting post.

Have a great day at school, work or where ever you are.

this is my question  

I burned many, many data Dvds today in an effort to free my limited hard drive space. However, what I was wondering about:

Is there a way to index each Data DVD and leave that index on the desktop computer so that when you want to search for something out of 50 different dvds the computer can just check all those indices so I don't have to literally put each disc in one after the other to find what I'm looking for. Does that make any sense?

I already took my medicine so I'm a little floaty here. Time to be, I said, in bed.