tunequest

Ah, it's been a while since we actually talked about music here at tunequest, so let's pick up where we left off: Susumu Yokota. I recently posted about my discovery of his music via an Amazon recommendation for his 2001 exploration of ambient minimalism, Grinning Cat (perhaps a reference to Alice in Wonderland?). Having piqued my interest to the extreme, I started researching the man and his work and ...

Read the rest of this post.

Quite the musical week here at tunequest. A little more than usual. First the Ratatat show, now a symphony performance. The Atlanta Symphony put in a wonderful performance of Holst's Planets. From the raw power of Mars to the ethereal ambiance of Nepture, the orchestra dispatched all seven symphonic poems with passion and exuberance. "Wow", I say "Wow." Parts of Mercury felt a little bit off, but it could have just ...

Read the rest of this post.

So the tunequest is now powered by a new 5.5th generation iPod (80GB). His name is "Gustav" (after Mahler and Holst); let's all give him a warm welcome. At long last, I can fit all my remaining tracks in my pocket, none of that "2000 songs sorted alphabetically by album" crap. That's pretty awesome. However, I'm slightly dismayed that I still can't take my entire library with me on the ...

Read the rest of this post.

In 1996, LucasFilm embarked on a multi-channel marketing project in an effort to make more money off the aging Star Wars franchise. The result was Shadows of the Empire, a venture that involved all the machinations of a movie marketing and tie-in campaign, without the production of an actual movie. In total, the endeavor included a novel, comic books, video games, trading cards, toys (of course) and, most ...

Read the rest of this post.

Len Vorster & Robert Chamberlain took holst's seminal work, the planets and arranged it for two pianos, with results that exceed any sense of excellence. try their rendition of venus or jupiter

Read the rest of this post.

When it comes to organizing for iTunes and iPod, classical music is an entirely different beast. Why tie yourself to an inefficient and illogical "album" model when classical works were never meant to be treated that way? iTunes allows you to appreciate individual works as they were conceived and executed: as individual, stand-alone works. :: Example of my tagging structure (click to see full size). I recently ran across Musicbrainz's classical music ...

Read the rest of this post.

out with the old, in with the new. tunequest is now powered by one of those new-fangled intel-powered imacs. getting it set up and customized took a good portion of my weekend, but my first impressions are quite positive. the thing is remarkably fast. it's not perfect, but is a large improvement over the previous g4. for one thing, iTunes isn't nearly as sluggish, and that can mean only ...

Read the rest of this post.

if you're into pictures and charts (and who isn't?), i've posted some graphs of my progress. r.e.m. [automatic for the people] gustav holst's suite no.1 in e-flat (performer unknown) christopher franke [babylon 5: z'ha'dum] berlin philharmonic performing dvorak's concerto for cello and orchestra mercury rev [deserter's songs] roni size [brown ...

Read the rest of this post.