Archive for May, 2009
A Jean Michel Jarre concert compressed into 2 minutes
An unconventional video got my attention on musicradar.com, a concert of Jean Michel Jarre compressed in just about 2 minutes. It’s an interesting video, as you can see the beginning of the gig with the crowd filling in the concert hall, the entire concert with the movement on the stage, the lights and the final with the crowd living and the gear being gathered from the stage.
Although an interesting approach for a video, the drawback is that there’s no sound, well you can’t compress that in 2 minutes too, or you can but you wouldn’t understand anything.
Anyway everyone knows that Jean Michel Jarre’s performances are great expressions of visual arts to, not only music. Well you can see the video down the page, but if you have the chance I suggest you go for the real thing and go at a concert, if Jarre is performing near you. You can check his tourdates and buy tickets here.
The timelapse video, from Malmo:
Designing The Future - The Venus Project
People always tried to imagine how the future will look like, and how our lives will be, from cartoons like The Jetsons, to movies like Aeon Flux, we have seen diferent variations of posible designes for cities in the future. Future city designes are a thing of the present, there are many projects now and one of them is The Venus Project, a futuristic project about how will our lives will be if we make some changes.
Among a great design for a future city, The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture, as you can read on the projects web site. You can find more information on www.thevenusproject.com
You can watch a small documentary abou The Venus Project in the following video:
The place for music makers
From the category of online resources, the site of the week would be musicradar.com, a good resource for those who make music and not only. Or by the slogan from the site, the place for music makers. The website contains updated information about equipment, software, reviews, many tutorials and video guitar lessons or music news.
Those who use software for production or audio recording, can find a list of plugins and free utilities grouped by categories. I also found all kinds of interesting articles from how to promote music online to how to make your guitar sound similar to that of Jimi Hendrix and so on.
The portal also contains a forum for those interested to exchange information with other users, and the community is quite numerous.
So check it out: www.musicradar.com
The Classics - Frank Sinatra & Friends
Frank Sinatra was undoubtedly one of the greatest singers in the world and his influence was and is very high among the musicians of today.
I viewed some clips with him on youtube.com and I remembered what great voice Frank Sinatra had.
I guess we’re lucky that we can view this rare videos with him of some classic songs and also some rare footage with Frank Sinatra’s friends, Dean Martin & Luis Armstrong, two other great singers from Sinatra’s time.
Bellow some of the great music clips that got my attention:
The Girl From Ipanema a classic song, this version by Frank Sinatra will be very interesting for jazz and bossa nova lovers. Frank Sinatra, one of the most influencial jazz singers performs this song with Antonio Carlos Jobim, one of the most influential popular composers of the 20th century, who was primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style.
And two other legends, Drean Martin & Louis Armstrong performing duets with Frank Sinatra.
This is an interesting performance of Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin:
A blues song of Sinatra & Armstrong:
Frank Sinatra had many collaborations, let’s not forget his performances with Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Liza Minelli and even Elvis Presley. You can view these great jazz duets with Frank Sinatra by clicking on each name link as the list is to great to post all the clips here, but never the less it’s worth the efort of watching them 
Enjoy!
Workshoplive.com a resource of free courses, guitar, bass, piano and drums
Among the many sites that offer online courses for all sorts of music instruments I found one that stands out for its complete content completely. Workshoplive.com offers both guitar lessons as well as bass, piano or drums, something for every band member :).
The lessons presented are in video format and can be seen directly online and the video lessons are accompanied by scores and tabs.
Besides the lessons presented by teachers, there are many lessons presented by famous artists such as Joe Satriani … though this is a special section, which is paid for separately.
Sure the website has a down side, to have access to all lessons you must become a member, and that costs, but price may be worth to someone who will use the full resources of the site.
Anyway, here comes the good part:), now the site provides free access for one week at the following address www.workshoplive.com/playfree, everything you need is an email address.
Enjoy!
Organic Logo Competition
The European Union launched a contest to create a logo for organic products that are to be labeled in all EU Member States. The logo will be implemented in the entire European Union from July 2010, so consumers from all EU Member States will know when they buy a product if they see that “organic logo” , that the product is environmentally friendly and meets certain quality standards . The new logo would be both original and intelligent and will be mandatory for all organic products.
12,000 euro is the prize established by the European Commission to appoint the best creations, the awards are as follows:
* First Prize: 6,000 euro
* Second Prize: 3,500 euro
* Third prize: 2,500 euro
The first three winners will also be invited to attend the official ceremony of the award in Brussels in the summer of 2010.
To participate in the contest you must be an art or design student from the European Union and over 18 years old (on 01.04.2009).
If you meet the rules above and wish to participate visit the following link:
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/logo/index_en.htm
Those who believe they can create an original and unique logo can send one until June 25, 2009, who knows… we may see your logo in stores, on organic products next year.
Online application form for the new EU Organic Logo is located here:
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/logo/registration/registration_en.htm
Good Luck!
European Film Treasures
For more than a century cinematography made many movies, but a lot of those made in the first 50 years were lost forever. Most old films have been preserved in archives and are now publicly available through the emergence of online archive at www.europafilmtreasures.eu.
Europa Film Treasures is a vast collection of old films from the european begining of cinema, films that can only be viewed online. Those who like rare old movies will certainly appreciate the initiative.