R.I.P. - Les Paul

Saw the news today that guitar's legendary Les Paul passed away today.

My first half way decent guitar was a Les Paul knock-off which sounded great and played well, but weighed as much as my car (okay, almost as much). Which reminds me, I think I'll have to get a new Les Paul guitar, been meaning to add one to my collection. And I wonder how many other people are thinking the exact same thing.

This short clip is just one of the so many examples of how amazing and influential he was as a guitarist, not to mention the innovations he came up with for the electric guitar. Do yourself a favour and look up some more of his clips on YouTube.

Home invasion - with a beat

This apparently came out a few years ago, but just came across it courtesy of an old Project Studio Network podcast (been catching up on old ones.)

uPlaya - do you have a hit?

Apparently one of my favourite songs that I wrote (Luna), is not bad, but not quite a world wide hit - 5.8 on their scale, which they term Honorable Mention. Apparently if you have a "better song" you get an award (for what its worth.)

[edit: another song I wrote (Ain't half empty got a Silver Auddy - at 6.6 out of, I assume, 10, which means it could almost be a hit. LOL. I guess there are songs out there that get the lowest "don't quit your day job" rating, hmmm. /edit]

The technology has been mentioned in quite a few places, including the TV show Numb3rs. Really wish they'd have more concrete answers, but all you get is a total score, not a score on each element. In some ways, you know its BS, but at the same time, you know "hits" do have specific elements - their site does explain some of how hit songs tend to have elements that fall into "clusters." But no real explanation of what those elements are.

They have some cool graphics of the clusters and all, but don't provide that for their instant reviews. Musicians can upload their own songs and see how they fair (the first two are free, but paid after that.) Interesting at least.

Doesn't mean the song is good art or not, just is it "hit" worthy.

So, there's a banner below - I added it just for fun. If a few people become subscribers there I get to test a few more songs. I don't really care pretty sure I'm not a hit writer/performer. Just creating music I enjoy singing and performing, and lots of people have said they've enjoyed. Good enough. But hey, if you're a musician, try it for fun at the very least.