Saturday, September 26, 2009
Margie & the MidiSkirts
Today I learned not to leave an SD card in the reader when I power down PC at night. Cause it was an alarming puzzlement when the machine demanded an F12 bootup today when I turned it on. I hadn't had my coffee yet. Nothing worked - not the power switch, the keyboard, no mouse pointer. Fortunately, the SD card had a bit of an orange label showing, so when my mind cleared a little I spotted it right away. Pulled it out, shut the power off at the surge box, turned on, & it was alright. The old PC had a plug in external reader & didn't see a card on boot up.
Tranferred the bulk of files over, not everything, using a 2GB SD card in safe quantities. I knew my cranky old PC could freeze up during the process, losing everything on the SD, & in fact did, & at another point the card itself had to be reformatted & contents deleted.
I most enjoyed opening up & playing some midis on the new PC. They sounded real good. A long time ago, a friend send me software on disk for playing with midi files. That this little gift even occurred to her showed long-distance insight. With the software, I could download complex midis, take them apart, reassign all the various parts to different instruments, edit lines of music; even compose music on a staff, although that was more tricky. It was a great toy.
How a midi file plays back depends on the quality & make of audio card in the computer, & on what media player is used to play it. So midi music rarely sounds the same on two different computers, except in maybe the most simple arrangements. I accepted that. My old old PC had an excellent Soundblaster card, a choice of three media players, & good amplified speakers.
In honor of my friend, who has a great , silly sense of humor, I created a lounge band called Margie & the MidiSkirts & hired them as the house group in a wiseguy-run Kismet Klub on my Boardwalk website (my imagination here is rooted in authentic boardwalk history). Margie plays keyboards, mainly Hammond organ, & her band consists entirely of keyboards, xylophones, marimbas, drums, & other percussion instruments. It 's all-female Tiki lounge kind of band, but they don't play exotica music or Hawaiian songs; they have a repertoire with everything but. I never decided exactly how many musicians were in the band.
My next PC, the one I just replaced, had a crappy sound card. The midis I had arranged did not sound right on the PC, & sometimes they did weird things, like a high note not being available & low note substituted, or the PC replacing a specific instrument with what it considered an approximation. When I call for a bass marimba, I don't mean tuned tympanis. It could be amusing. I didn't play much with the midi program.
Those old midis came alive again on the new PC. If the program works on this PC, I'll write Margie & the MidSkirts some new arrangements after I renovate Kismet Klub, where Wednesday is "Whack your own calamari day."
I wasn't smoking funny weed when I arranged "I Gotta Crow" from Peter Pan for two marimbas, calliope, & dog bark. It just sounded right for the song.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Tranferred the bulk of files over, not everything, using a 2GB SD card in safe quantities. I knew my cranky old PC could freeze up during the process, losing everything on the SD, & in fact did, & at another point the card itself had to be reformatted & contents deleted.
I most enjoyed opening up & playing some midis on the new PC. They sounded real good. A long time ago, a friend send me software on disk for playing with midi files. That this little gift even occurred to her showed long-distance insight. With the software, I could download complex midis, take them apart, reassign all the various parts to different instruments, edit lines of music; even compose music on a staff, although that was more tricky. It was a great toy.
How a midi file plays back depends on the quality & make of audio card in the computer, & on what media player is used to play it. So midi music rarely sounds the same on two different computers, except in maybe the most simple arrangements. I accepted that. My old old PC had an excellent Soundblaster card, a choice of three media players, & good amplified speakers.
In honor of my friend, who has a great , silly sense of humor, I created a lounge band called Margie & the MidiSkirts & hired them as the house group in a wiseguy-run Kismet Klub on my Boardwalk website (my imagination here is rooted in authentic boardwalk history). Margie plays keyboards, mainly Hammond organ, & her band consists entirely of keyboards, xylophones, marimbas, drums, & other percussion instruments. It 's all-female Tiki lounge kind of band, but they don't play exotica music or Hawaiian songs; they have a repertoire with everything but. I never decided exactly how many musicians were in the band.
My next PC, the one I just replaced, had a crappy sound card. The midis I had arranged did not sound right on the PC, & sometimes they did weird things, like a high note not being available & low note substituted, or the PC replacing a specific instrument with what it considered an approximation. When I call for a bass marimba, I don't mean tuned tympanis. It could be amusing. I didn't play much with the midi program.
Those old midis came alive again on the new PC. If the program works on this PC, I'll write Margie & the MidSkirts some new arrangements after I renovate Kismet Klub, where Wednesday is "Whack your own calamari day."
I wasn't smoking funny weed when I arranged "I Gotta Crow" from Peter Pan for two marimbas, calliope, & dog bark. It just sounded right for the song.
Labels: home furnishings, music
