I can’t tell you the last time I bought myself a CD for any reason. Maybe this is the beginning of a wave of price changes. But sadly, I’m pretty sure the people who will ultimately suffer are the musicians signed with these labels. It’s one of the main reasons I like going to concerts.

Once upon a time, I was dreaming about becoming a music composition major. Specifically, I was interested in writing music for films. My musical inspirations, the same exact ones he listed, were and are a big part of my life musically. Knowing that I have it in me to do similar, I wanted so badly to gain that treasured title: composer.

However, life was not as I hoped.

I eventually found myself on the path that has lead to where I am today. I have absolutely no regrets or complaints about the cards I’ve been dealt in life. I like to think I’ll still compose music for films someday. But back then, the timing wasn’t right, and I wasn’t qualified. Maybe some day.

This is exactly how I feel about going back to music composition. I’ve enjoyed my career as a web designer. I feel passionate about design, even if I’m not at the highest level of quality in my designs. Web design is and will always be a part of my life.

Music, however, has been and still is a huge part of my life. I even think music IS life. Without it, I don’t know who I would be. It is my inspiration, my motivation, the reason I smile, the reason I’m sad, it stimulates and touches me. I use it to enhance my life in times of joy and times of sorrow.

Recently, although not lately, I have finally begun a new journey back into music. I’m not sure where this journey shall lead, or if it shall produce the results I intend. I’m writing music with a friend, who is just as musical as I am. We intend to see how this turns out, what our music shall do. We don’t know what kind of success we could have, but I know this is important to both of us.

My dream for music composition is once again a reality, but not the reality I sought so long ago. I cannot wait to see where this venture goes. It’s a big reason I am still in LA today, maybe the main reason.

Today, however, I feel like the world is in a tube. I can hear half of what I was able to hear last night. When people talk, it sounds like my tubes are cutting out half of the timbre and tonality of their voice.  So, if there’s a lot of noise in the background, it’s not that I can’t hear the person talking. I just can’t always make out what they say.

Although these earplugs are rated well for me, Hearos branded earplugs don’t work for me as advertised. Supposedly, the rating for hearing protection with these plugs are better than standard plugs you’ll find at any drugstore, but my experience unfortunately has left me half deaf. Sadly, I’m already half deaf as it is so this is tragic. I can’t say I’m a little upset at my experience too but I really had little to no control over the situation.

I love seeing good music, I really like supporting bands by going to see them. I do not, however, like going deaf. It’s back to the cheap foam earplugs!

(via bash)

I don’t know how it took me 27 years to really discover both of these musicians.

Nick Drake
Elliot Smith

I admit that I might not always be right, but the way I analyze things comes from a very logical/practical mindset mixed with my personal experience. I take what I know I can do, what I know about life, and apply it to all situations that I go through or see others go through. Maybe we’re all this way. We all think we’re better than everyone else.

But my complex is deeper in some way, a lot of it being musically. I’ve been a musician for much of my life but not really a practicing musician. More of a sideline kind of guy. I enjoy watching and listening and feeling the music. In my head, however, I analyze music and break it down. I hear the bad pitches and wrong notes and bad vibrato and tones. I think to myself, “Why have I never challenged myself to compete with these people? I could kick their butts”.

I’m the only person who keeps holding myself back.

I’ve used being shy as an excuse for so long. I’ve never sought out others who could help me for one reason or another [insert poor excuses here]. But I’ve also had different agendas or ideas than others about how I should do things for myself and it’s kept me from going anywhere. I don’t want to just learn the piano and sing by myself. I need some guidance and help from others, but I’m too shy to seek out this help. Or too stubborn for their opinions. Most of it is being shy though. It scares me to try out new material in front of strangers at a random cafe when the spotlight is only on me while it’s possible that they might not like it. I can’t take this rejection very well. It’s pain and I hate pain.

When I’m at school, I’m the kid who keeps his mouth shut. I don’t talk to anyone because I don’t know who they are. Deep down inside, all I want is for someone to reach out and include me. Yet, sometimes I’ll still pull away for no reason when I’d rather they fight to include me. I think I have a stupid complex about the people I associate with sometimes, mostly when it’s with strangers. I don’t want to be the one who’s the center or attention at first but rather the one that people seek because of my wisdom or knowledge. It’s always then that I love being the center of attention. How can anyone desire to seek me when they have no idea what I know or what I can do.

This is my story with music. I have a lot of musical ambition, aspirations, but I’m too scared to sit down and try it out myself. I need to practice but it eventually bores me. I need to learn new songs but those take discipline.

If i intend to actually move on with my life in other directions, I must get over myself. Stop judging others and thinking I’m better and actually prove to people that I can do something. I lack confidence in myself. I can’t just start from scratch with nothing, so I need to build something before I move into other directions.

It’s funny thinking about this because I know what could happen. If I decided to finally pursue a life of musical performance, meaning a band or solo or whatever it is, I know tons of people who would be right there front and center to support me.

And that’s such a great feeling.
Motivational.

1. When you pay around 99 cents for a certain song on one of those sites, the artist gets maybe 2-8 cents per song, if even that. It’s very likely that the artist doesn’t get but fractions of a penny for those purchases. Most of that money goes to the RIAA, which I will continue to try and never support.
2. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says they represent the artist and tries to protect his or her rights, but in fact they are only looking out for number one and are actively taking the money away from the artist.
   When you download a digital music file from stores online, you are downloading a compressed, inferior quality file than if you would had you bought the CD. But it’s only 99 cents you might say! Well, let’s say you bought the CD from the store for $15. The CD that you buy from the store is straight from the record company and the songs on the CD are uncompressed and in their original forms. The digital music that you download from the Internet is compressed, which means its of poorer quality. What this means is that random digital information from the song is deleted so that even though you’re hearing the song like it sounds on the CD, the quality of that song is nearly 60-80% less than what it is on the CD.

   Let me make this comparison. You have a whole cake, and it costs $15. If you divide that cake into 15 pieces, you have the equivelent of the 99 cent download, right? Wrong. Take one of those pieces, cut about 40-80% of it off. Now you have the equivelent of a 99 cent download. It tastes the same, it smells the same, it looks the same, but it’s only a fraction of what you should be getting.

3. So, assuming that a CD costs roughly the same as the album costs online, you should be purchasing a CD or song for about 40-80% less than you pay for a CD in the store. Yet, you’re not. Why? Because of convenience. But is convenience really worth that much of a premium? You don’t really get the complete, full version of the song and it’s for sale at a bloated price, nor does the artist really get any benefits from your purchase. You’re just making rich people richer.
4. A lot of the music that you buy online has something called DRM (Digital Rights Management). This means that it’s protected from things such as pirating, copying, transferring to another computer, etc. I’m not sure what MSN does in terms of DRM, but it’s likely that it has some heavy protection so that you can’t really do much with this file once you download it. If you were to buy the CD instead, you could legally and illegally do with the songs what you want. You can make your own digital copy and have full control over it.
5. Let’s assume you only want one song from a CD. Why buy the CD when you want only one song? Yeah, this puts a little more justification into downloading it from iTunes, but not too much more. I can possibly even find that soundtrack for free online at one of hundreds of sites. Then I could take the one song that I want and delete the rest. And it didn’t cost me a thing except time.
6. For someone on a modem (unsurprisingly, there still are plenty) trying to download a file, what’s the chances that your modem connection gets interrupted and you lose the download? Would you have to go back to iTunes and pay 99 more cents to download the rest of the file or redownload it again? I’m not sure I’d want to take that risk.

So for these reasons, why would you bother paying 99 cents? I don’t think the convenience is worth the premium nor do I want to support companies which use a digital lock to prevent you from doing much with your files. You pay the price of honesty for the few that are dishonest out there. By dishonest, I’m not talking about someone downloading this song for free off of “illegal” sites. I’m talking about someone purchasing this music, copying/burning it to lots of CDs and pirating the music CDs to others for a few bucks per CD. That’s wrong. But downloading a copy of a song is just like, at least in my opinion, recording a song off the radio and listening to it. You shouldn’t be prosecuted for that kind of stuff. Which is exactly what the RIAA is doing by suing all of these thousands of people. It’s absurd.

The French government has voted on a draft legislation to legalize file-sharing (of files like music, movies, software, etc.). I would GLADLY pay $8.50/month to legalize what most kids my age already do illegally. I hope this passes into law and soon. Show the world what this kind of legislation can do to an industry.

If only I was smart enough to do the research, patent this technology and market it, investing in reproduction of microscopic hair cells in the cochlea located in the inner ears would make me a billionaire. My generation is going to have severe hearing loss when we get older, and the iPods and iPod knockoffs are one of the main causes.

But that’s like saying guns cause death.

Ah, very true. People with guns can cause death, not the guns themselves. So, let me rephrase this:

People who constantly use iPods and iPod knockoffs at high levels will go deaf unless they limit the amount of noise they allow into their ears on a daily basis. I’ve already got hearing loss with my ongoing, annoying tinnitus, most of which wasn’t even caused by my CD/digital music players.

I think this really is the best research to invest in right now and when I manage to figure out way of doing it, I also plan to invest money in this area. I’m definitely going to need the help as I age because hearing loss runs rampant in my family already.

Do you download music online? So do I. In case the RIAA or MPAA have scared you away from downloading any kind of music or movies, I’m going to reassure you that it’s still as possible to do it as it’s ever been. There are, however, still threats out there that might cause you grief and worry, the foremost being the threat of being sued by the Nazis at the RIAA or MPAA.

I am going to give you some facts about downloading so that you know where you stand:

First, almost all of the people sued were using Kazaa or another related software to download AND upload their music. Bittorrent users are just now starting to become a more major target as well. But, the Nazis aren’t going after people who download music. They are suing people who upload and share their collection with others. Turn off the ability to share/upload your music, the Nazis at the RIAA and MPAA will almost definitely leave you alone.

Second, there are millions of people downloading all the time. You’re literally one in a million and the RIAA is verrrrrrry unlikely to find you. It IS possible, but not too likely that you’ll be sued. Besides, they are mostly targeting students at universities.

Third, you might hear talk about how many people have settled the crazy lawsuits for thousands of dollars. But, as stated in a recent article, only a very small percentage of people have actually chosen to settle with them. Of MOST of the people who were sued, their lawsuits have been dismissed.

For those of you who want some more legitmate underground ways of downloading, you might be intersted to check out sources such as EasyNews. There is a lot of good info about how to run a Usenet application on your computer, but this is basically a Newsgroup that you and millions of other people subscribe to and upload and download just about ANYTHING that you want. It’s $10 a month and it’s been recommended to me by many different people.

So should you still download more music or movies or televisions shows now? That’s your decision. I just wanted to share a few facts.