I never knew that Michael Jackson was such a good beatboxer! I was little in the 80’s, so that’s my excuse. But really - check out this video I found of him with Oprah from way back in the day:

edit!: Wendell informs me that this video was from the mid-nineties, actually, so… shows what I know! Can I regain any cred if I do the zombie dance from Thriller? I think I’ve watched that video 300 times, so this is somewhat feasible.

We can’t let Beatbox week roll by without sharing this video. It’s not proper beatbox, but it IS “proper” creative mashing up, AND it happens to be something you could very easily make on Splice. Now, how about that?

Despite the audio being a bit choppy here and there, this is a great documentary about beatboxing. Trust me, you’re going to love it.

There’s some creative mashing up for you.

Oh here, one more. Geeks + Music = Goooooood.

Hello, my beautiful and lovely Splicers! Just me, Thaumata, popping in with my periodic friendly reminder about what is ok to upload to Splice, and what is NOT ok to upload to Splice. I like to think of the sounds I upload as Legos. (Remember Legos?) They should be little bricks of sound that other people can stick together in different combinations to create big giant creations that are cool and unique. A drum loop or a melody, for example, are great, and you can make these using all kinds of programs.

What is NOT ok to upload here are entire MP3s of your favorite band or rapper. For starters, even though they are fun to listen to, they’re not very easy to remix, and remixing is what brought us all together, right? Right! Most importantly, these songs are almost always copyrighted, which means that you don’t have that person’s permission to put their music here. These things will get deleted from the site, and that will leave a big hole in your song (and the songs that anyone else made with it.) Nobody wants that, so don’t do it, ok?

The best thing you can do if you want to see a certain artist here is to tell that artist! A little peer pressure can go a long way, you know! So, do your part to keep Splice rockin’, and know that your fellow Splicers will love you for it.

[11:49:12 PM] Amiee says: So I just made this song on our site and then I made it better
[11:49:15 PM] Thaumata says: I feel so accomplished
[11:49:28 PM] Thaumata says: I have contributed something worthy to the community of creative commons
[11:51:58 PM] Rig says: yayyyy
[11:52:07 PM] Rig says: I just finished another version of that song, actually
[11:52:18 PM] Rig says: you vs thatcrooner
[11:52:26 PM] Rig says: I JUST saved it
[11:52:29 PM] Thaumata says: woohoo!
[11:52:35 PM] Thaumata says: I am famous on teh intarnets
[11:52:38 PM] Rig says: I’d wait for the mp3 to show up
[11:52:40 PM] Rig says: haha

I’m always telling people that the best thing about Splice is not that it provides a technology for remixing music, but rather that it provides a new kind of venue for building tighter global communities through music. When you think about it, that’s pretty cool. The internet makes us almost telepathic - a thought that I’m having can be typed and trasmitted to your computer, and therefore into your brain, in a matter of seconds. This kind of technology is taken for granted by most people who have it, despite it being in it’s infancy, relatively speaking. (The internet revolution has only just begun, regardless of what my grandmothers would have told you.) It’s an amazing new tool for bringing people closer together. Music, on the other hand, is one of the oldest tools available for this same purpose. There hasn’t been a culture in the history of humanity that hasn’t had music. I think that’s significant.

To me, Splice is a shining caduceus of these two things, and I love nothing more than giving people examples of the neat things that happen when you give people some tools and a little creative breathing room. My example today starts with another long-lost Splicer, ThatCrooner. He’s a performer and singer from Barcelona, Spain. I’ve always enjoyed his unique vocal work and have been missing his contributions to the site. Lo and behold, though, he’s back, too! It’s like a Splice reunion this week (we must be doing something right!):

So, in my joy at having another vocalist come back to play, I recorded some vocal work that I’ve had stashed in my brain for a while. Typically, I am super self conscious about sharing my music online… since I don’t know a lot about recording, I’m never satisfied with how it sounds. But I had this (glaringly obvious) realization that Splice is actually MADE for sharing unfinished work. I mean, we’re here to make projects TOGETHER and not just post shiny and completed mp3s, right? Right! So then I went ahead and posted this lullaby:

As predicted and hoped, someone picked it up and did a few things to it. Rig went ahead and downloaded the vocals, pitch-corrected them in some places* and then re-uploaded them into HIS version of the song:

Which is extra lovely. So there you have it - From Spain to the USA to Canada… this little train of inspiration just keeps going. Who in the world will hear this song and remix it next, or write something else after being inspired by it? I guess you’ll have to stick around to find out, right?

* I have to say I did laugh at Gurdonark’s comment to me that “you ought to tell rig that the dissonance and unexpected key variation is often a charming benefit to a sophisticated track! .” And well, isn’t THAT a nice way to put it?

Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music, v2.5 is a highly entertaining read, and a lot of fun to play with. For those of you who are new to electronic music, and for those of you who are not, there is a lot here to chuckle at and then IM to your friends.

I suppose I should warn you that it’s full of bad language, but if you care about such things, you probably shouldn’t hang around with me, either.

Want to see something fun? This is my response to everyone who says they can’t make some beats because they have nothing to play. If you’re creative, EVERYTHING makes music, as evidenced here in this clip, entitled Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers (might take it a moment to load, it’s a bit long):

If someone ever threw a party in my apartment like this and didn’t invite me, I would be SO MAD.

Just for fun, I thought I’d share this video I found today. I know you guys will get a kick out of it!