Free music

Although I’ve not read it yet, I know of a book title “Free : The Future of a Radical Price” by Chris Anderson. A review on the Web tells me that in the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price. Digitalized stuff gets to be available free of charge sooner or later.

When my brother came to my place on this Golden Week, he said that the sales figure of CDs has been declining for years. I don’t go to CD shops these days. If I dropped by a CD shop, I could not find CDs I want to buy.

We can get music with no expense by the Internet or other ways. The IT technologies have been changing past methods and stuff including music. Less people buy CDs to listen to music.

According to him, compilation albums with famous songs seem to have relatively a large circulation. I wonder that it means that the gap between famous songs and not ones is increasing.

There are many aspiring young musicians. They are working on to aim to be professionals. However, they are unable to make both ends meet by the profession in reality even if they become professional musicians.

The review of the book shows another rule of “Free” that we can’t stop the “Free.” The sense of value on music has been changing.

My brother also told that some members of the music industry whom he met have moved to other jobs. It’s a pleasant shift for consumers, but for producers it’s a matter of life or death.

Jazz Gift Song

When my brother came to my parents in winter vacation, he checked upcoming music and called a mixer to adjust sound volume or balance. The compilation album was released in mid February. The title is “Jazz Gift Song.” His band “native “ plays 10 of 12 songs in it.

From the first song “Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head (original by BJ Thomas)” to “Rainy Days and Mondays (by Carpenters), it collects good old songs. They are arranged as being easy to listen to. The catchphrase says “It’s No.1 Jazz album for ladies want to make an elegant atmosphere.”

We call it as “Kikaku mono” or “one-shot project.” However, at the present, a quite much rate of Jazz listeners is likely to be women. It may be a firm way to seek the target of middle aged women.

His band “native” plays these tunes with their distinctive stylish style. It may be good for BGM or driving.

Hatsune Miku

A NHK news program in this morning reported Hatsune Miku for about five minutes. There might not be important news because of Sunday. However vocaloids including Hatsune Miku have been growing their popularity as much as the Japanese public broadcasting introduced them.

We’ve seen a commercial film featuring her on TV since a month ago. It’s a Google CM. According to its advertisement, the most videos seen by Japanese are related to her. Despite of declining CD sales and reducing young Karaoke singers, music related to Hatsune Miku is growing.

We have to thank Yamaha which has developed the voice synthetic technology, and should be proud of the Japanese original technology. The popularity is based on allowing the secondary use by Crypton Future Media Inc., which is selling the vocaloids’ software. By means of the secondary use, various derived ways have been posted in the video sites like YouTube or NikoNiko-Doga. We can enjoy original songs, animations, dances, and so on.

Amateur composers are said to have made more than 30,000 songs for vocaloids. There are a variety of song types, some are experimental. I think music is a kind of stimulus. That means the experimental tunes are stimulus in a certain sense.

On the other hand, while Hatsune Miku was developed with the vocaloid 2 software, Yamaha released the new vocaloid 3 software last fall. There are many vocaloid singers using the new software. New songs of Hatsune Miku appear to decrease. In that sense, I feel the NHK news is slightly late behind the real fact.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the songs downloaded through the videos. I really thank works of composers and creators.

A music concert by the city fire fighters band

A regular concert by the city fire fighters band was held at a concert hall today. My mother was looking forward to listening to their music. She had applied for the tickets including my family to the fire fighter office a few weeks ago. Besides she went to the hall to change them into reserve seat tickets in advance this morning and gave them to us.

The concert was 16^th anniversary of the band, and the 100^th anniversary event of this city. The venue was packed by audiences. It was comprised by three parts, the first was classical music, the second was marching band and the last was popular music stage.

Their occupation is fire fighters or officers of the city fire fighter agent. They are not professional of music, however, the level of their performance is enough to offer audiences.

At the marching band stage, they played the “From the new worlds symphony No.9” by Dvorak arranged a marching band style with a marching performance and percussion performance. We were mesmerized by the performance.

I had an impression that their music was a bit solid or had me remind of an army-type discipline. It’s natural that people working at dangerous places are required of the discipline.

Anyway I had a good time at no charge.

High school joint concert

A high school my son attends is one of the strongest brass bands in this prefecture. When the band takes part in a contest, they always win somewhat prize. The band held a joint concert with neighboring high schools at the high school hall today. It had been notified through a message board, I went to see it with my wife.

When we entered the hall, another school band was playing before the band. It was good as the meaning as they were able to play without wrong note. I’m afraid that the whole sound was not so rich and dynamic. I thought I wanted to hear more powerful performance because they are enough young. Yet, they might not have made a practice enough of playing tunes. If they don’t have a room to play tunes with thinking of the dynamics or sound balance, they get to play tunes just reading the music scores.

After this band, the main band performed. The first tone was very impressive. The moment I heard the sound, I found the difference from the previous band. The dynamic range, the sonic pallet and the understanding of the tune. Although I was touched by the performance, the following tunes had me disappointed.

They are a brass band. But they sang in chorus at the next song. Chorus itself was not so bad. However, why did they have to sing a song despite they are a brass band? The next songs were “Bellavia” by Chuck Mangione, “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder and “Shake A Tailfeather.” Maybe these choices must be favorites of the teacher. The announcement told us that they were aiming to play with dancing. So they played them with dancing like standing up and down, swinging their neck and hips. At last, the members run to the access aisles and danced and clapped. Of course, the quality of performance was going down.

I have watched a TV program the other school bands performed like this. I wondered whether it’s necessary to do that. It may be prevalent. I can’t complain so much because I was able to enjoy them without charge.

CD; Libertango in Tokyo

This album is a live recording of Richard Galliane and Naoko Terai at Tokyo Jazz Festival 2011, which was held on last September. I watched their tunes on TV last December. Tokyo Jazz Festival itself has a sort of experimental factor. Musicians, who had never had a chance to play on a same stage, have been collaborating. Some of the combinations seem to have not been matched, though. Nonetheless, the collaboration between a beautiful violinist Naoko Terai and a gifted bandoneon player Richard Galliano was amazing. When I watched their music first on TV, I was impressed and got goose bumps.

Performance of Naoko Terai was emotional and gave us warmth of her heart. Moreover, I thought Richard Galliano was superb. In the concert, she played mostly sole performance. In fact, most tunes of this album were composed by Richard Galliano. Terai played lively on his tunes.

In particular, I was deeply moved by the “Opera Concerto” composed by Richard. The splendor of a composition was distinguished. It has a tense feeling and a sense of release. I enjoyed it to my heart’s content. Excellent players gleam more richly in an excellent composition.

CD: Tricoroll by Kazumi Watanabe

I received a CD I had ordered at an online shop on Saturday. It’s a new album “Tricoroll” by Kazumi Watanabe, a Jazz Fusion guitarist. When I started to listen to his play, I was a school boy and he was popular very much because Fusion music was becoming very popular at that time in late 1970s to early 1980s. His accurate picking was praised by many fans. I have had some opportunities to hear his sound afterward.

I got an e-mail noticing his new album last month. I was able to hear his tunes by an Internet radio. A few tunes brought me back some memories. He plays the tunes which he had performed in 1980s. When we were young, I felt his play was a sort of aggressive compared to other fusion guitarists. In this album, his technique is the same or more than it used to, and the tunes create comfort. It’s pleasure to hear them for me. I think he might become wiser as he becomes old.

There are numerous musicians in the world. A few of them can survive in the harsh world. One of the tips to survive is to have a personality. That doesn’t mean to play well. The moment we listen to a performance, we can see who is playing. Such individual character even in short phrase is necessary. So I enjoy his performance with a sense of nostalgia.

Downtown scenery

I went for a walk in the downtown of this city today. Though it’s a downtown, quite a lot of stores have been closing in a several years, so window shoppers are fewer than they used to be.

I dropped by a musical instrumental store and bought a set of guitar strings. At the corner of the store, a group of the elderly performed harmonicas with a glittery uniform. The number of audience was not so many. But I assure it’s important for them to get an opportunity to play harmonica.

As I passed by an open space between department store buildings, a band played their tunes. This band is a local fusion band and a bit known by some people who are fond of this kind of music like me. I should say it was lucky to hear their music without any charge. However, strong chilly west winds blew through the buildings. It was so cold. Their faces were frozen. I thought they were unable to move their fingers enough to play well.

In the front of the train station, a girl sang with karaoke equipment. Her voice was soft and well trained. She must be an aspiring singer. A several people heard her songs. But it was so cold by winds that I could not stop there.

I think it’s a good thing for the city which has been aiming to revitalize it with music. However places should be altered in case of such a chilly season.

Vocaloid songs downloaded from the Internet

I’ve checked up vocaloids’ songs at a video site on the Internet every a few days. It takes a half year that I began to hear songs composed for vocaloids like Hatsune Miku. In the early days, I was stunned by a mountain of songs which have been increasing every day. Many amateur or professional song writers upload them into video sites. Some don’t achieve a level enough to hear them, or others are not my favorite genre like hard rock. However it’s relatively easy to find my favorites from among millions of uploaded songs.

It’s delightful and convenient that I can get favorite songs readily. Videos and songs made with precise work give us impact and emotion. I think popular songs have a meaning equivalent to a stimulus. In case of Jazz, we can enjoy the interaction among musicians. Or at classic, we try to sort out conductors or bands. These two gives us a different way due to enjoy music. We have a desire to demand stimuli. Even if a song were excellent, we would get boring to it as time passes. So we require another song to fill our mind in by another stimulus. Therefore the vocaloids’ songs have an advantage because lots of them are released every day. We are impossible to listen to all songs unless we have much time to hear them.

The key is “free.” We are able to get them by free. The vocaloid was born in the current internet marketing ear and it’s obtained the popularity. Offering something at no charge will create a new value. Someone benefit from it.

CD: Further Explorations by Chick Corea

 I don’t remember when I listened to Bill Evans music first. It might be a high school boy. I remember I received a sense of poetic transparent from his tune.

 This CD is a live recording that Chick Corea played at the Blue Note Tokyo with Eddie Gomes and Paul Motian lat year. Some tunes at the beginning are a kind of difficult for me because their play was a bit awkward or unfitting, though the atmosphere like Bill Evans might be created. I think that Chick performed tunes with his characteristic in the later part.

 I realize it’s difficult to play other’s tunes even though he is a great pianist. The stronger was the impression of original tunes, the better performance players were required to play. However I’ve not listen to the album well yet. So I want to hear it more carefully.

 By the way, when I took a glance at Chick at a TV program this spring, he was thinner compared to his of a few years ago. I don’t think a fatty Chick was fit. His rapid losing weight makes us worried because he is enough old.