Music Website News

with KEITH BRAMICH

Digital Ear

The Epinoisis Software Corporation has announced a new piece of software called Digital Ear which will analyse and convert a solo performance (recorded as a WAV file) to a MIDI file. The press release claims that this is not just another pitch converter, but that fine performance details such as vibrato, pitch changes, tremolo and portamento will all be converted. This means, for example, that you can sing or play a melody or any other solo line and then hear it played on a synthesiser, or process it further. Download the free demo at their web site. 

Visual Orchestra

David Perry has issued a new release of the music composition software Visual Orchestra which formed a part of his masters degree in electro-acoustics. Visual Orchestra is a graphical design environment based on the Csound audio processing language. Further information (and an evaluation version of the software) at the new VisOrch website.

Composer lists

From time to time we return to the subject of composers on the net. A quick look at the links below could make you amazed at just how many composers there are out there. They don't all have web pages - good news for people like me to know that we're not out of a job just yet!

 Harrassowitz's list of 20th century composers 

 The Classical Guitar Composers List - Chronological 

 The 'Catálogo de Compositores' from VINILO 

The Internet Cello Society

The Internet Cello Society is 'an international cyber-community of cellists' (nearly 4700 of them, from 76 nations). Featured artist for September and October is Frances Walton (a 71 year-old member of Philharmonia Northwest - a community orchestra in the Seattle area), and Tim Finholt interviews various other cellists, including Lynn Harrell, Ralph Kirschbaum, Steven Isserlis and Janos Starker.

New York Philharmonic

Have you seen the NYPO website? They've gone to a lot of trouble to provide something for everyone, including a new interactive website with music, games, history and fun for younger visitors, called Kidzone, and the NYPO e-Store, where you can purchase the new 10 CD release - 'An American Celebration'. If you live in the area, save up to 22% by subscribing to the 1999-2000 season.

Medical information about the voice

The Eastern Virginia Medical School's Voice Center has a web site devoted to describing disorders of the voice and the larynx. Not specifically designed for singers or other musicians, you should still find the information and photos here very interesting. The section on maintaining a healthy voice recommends keeping your vocal folds moist by drinking 6-8 eight-ounce glasses of water per day. The voice science section contains spectrograms of the human voice.

Magazines at DMOZ and Yahoo!

I think I recently mentioned Yahoo in a less than complimentary way. I thought I should point out that Yahoo's new classical magazines section is worth a look, just to see what's available. Some of these magazines are published online, but others just have a website to advertise their hard copy magazines. SoundArt is a magazine new to me. DMOZ (The Open Directory Project, and the directory of choice for AOL, Hotbot, Lycos and Netscape) has a similar classical magazines section. The listings are similar, but there are a few different ones.

Any connection between this item and Yahoo's recent discovery of Music & Vision is entirely co-incidental!

Ugly CD Covers

James Kearney wrote recently to the Moderated Classical Music List about ugly classical CD covers, mentioning in particular various Sony covers from the early 1990s. A BBC Music Magazine feature - 'The worst classical CD covers in the world... ever!' apparently mentioned a website which features some the worst offenders.

America's latest fitness craze

'You've heard of Tai Bo ...' the page begins, '... Now try VIOLA BOW - America's Latest Fitness Craze.' Endorsed by professionals (two members of the Codfish String Quartet), this new craze is a cross between martial arts and the Suzuki method. Need I say more? Learn VIOLA BOW now! Personally, I think I'll stick to swimming, but thanks for the thought, Jen!