Monday, October 22, 2007

Analog Vs. Digital Circuitry - Which Is Better For Music?

There are 10 kinds of people in the world.
those who read binary, and those who don't.

The encoding of sound into digits has changed the media through which people experience music forever. Proponents of analog sound have much in common with the Spartan’s suicidal last stand. In the digital age the inevitable demise of analog technology is certain. Or is it? Let’s have a look at the characteristics of both the analog and digital worlds
and see if we can make any qualitative decisions.
Analog sound is continuous. Recordings made using analog circuitry have no missing information.
But digital recordings are like film in the sense that “snapshots” of sounds are played back in a succession that “fools” the ear into hearing them as moving. This is much like the way a film is a series of still frames fooling the eye into percieving motion. The drawback is that audio information is missing in between the “frames”.
Analog as mentioned is far superior on this particular count. No missing information whatsoever. This is the reason that older albums if not remixed especially for digital sound are actually inferior on CDs when compared to their original analog release. This loss of information manifests itself noticeably in the upper midrange frequencies. How many times have you listened to a fantastic sounding LP, bought the CD version later and noticed the harshness of certain sounds? (Woodwinds and violins seemed to suffer horribly from this malady in particular). The missing audio between the frames of digital sound are the culprit.

Look at an analog soundwave compared to a digital soundwave.



Well of course things have and continue to improve. Producers and engineers are aware of the problem and compensate for it on most releases today. CD audio files have a sampling rate of 44.1 k. The sampling rate defines the number of samples per second taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. ( analog to digital conversion).
For time-domain signals, it can be measured in hertz (Hz).
The inverse of the sampling frequency is the sampling period or sampling interval,
which is the time between samples. (The holes in the sound).
So in other words to continue our movie analogy,
CD audio is like a movie for your ears with 44,100 frames per second flashing across the screen.
Here is the lowdown on sample rates encountered in popular media.

Samples/sec Description
5500 One fourth of the Mac sampling rate
7333 One third of the Mac sampling rate
8000 Telephony standard.
11025 a quarter of the CD sampling rate,
or half the Mac
16000 Used by the G.722 compression standard.
18.9 k CD-ROM/XA standard.

22 k (22050) half the CD sampling rate,
32000 Used in digital radio,
TV work, also long play DAT and Japanese HDTV.
37.8 k CD-ROM/XA standard for higher quality.
44056 Professional audio equipment to fit an integral number of samples in a video frame. 44100 The CD sampling rate.
48000 The DAT (Digital Audio Tape) sampling rate.
96000 Professional Studio Recording Software

Another weakness of digital audio is that physical sound must be converted to digits and then converted back into sound again so that the listener can indeed hear it.
These Dacs (digital/analog converters) are most often the weakest link in the chain.
A quality Dac runs about $2,000.00 U.S. so you can safely assume you don’t have any in your 99.00 player.




Inexpensive Dacs create noise, distortion, and other degrading artifacts. The deficiencies we observe in digital sound may not really be the fault of the technology itself but in the conversion of that technology back into sound waves.
In the last few years Professional sound studios have been using the newest versions of software such as Pro Tools and Steinburg Cubase that allow for recording audio in a 24 bit 96 kHz sampling rate (with 32 bit internal processing) ! This is 96,000 “frames” of audio delivered to the ear in a second. ( CD audio as mentioned is 44.1 kHz, and is 16 bit. Generally speaking the more bit’s, the greater the amount of audio information theoretically encoded in a given sample). This goes a long way to bridge the quality gap between continuous and discreet sound. Does it sound good? You bet! Unfortunately at the moment there are no devices available for consumers to hear this more pristine CD audio sound.

It seems consumers are happy enough with CD sound and no one is gambling on a new medium or player in the consumer market at the moment. (Manufacturers are still trying to get their act together on DVD Audio and SACD which we will discuss in a moment.) Meanwhile consumers have embraced MP3 players. Ipods and the like have blossomed, the fact that one’s entire music collection can be archived into a small player and easily carried around is indeed marvelous. However the sound is compromised by the inherent data compression used to shrink the audio files. On any serious playback system the degradation is obvious. Mp3 audio is not for an audiophile experience though it certainly has it’s place.


Sony and Phillips who invented the CD offer the only consumer high end audio devices using high sample rates. These are their SACD (Super Audio Compact Disks). This and DVD Audio which is similar, use an entirely different scheme to create and playback music. One of the few industry moguls to raise his voice against the digital format in its early days was the late Maurice Oberstein, an American who was head of the Polygram UK (and later Universal) label. "Do you realize we are giving away our master tapes here?" he asked at an industry event. At the time, everybody was far too busy counting the cash coming in from CD sales to listen. But as the advent of the recordable CD dawned, and a black economy in counterfeit and illegal trade flourished, Oberstein was proven right. Regardless of how we may feel about the music industry’s gluttony and poor management in recent years, the end result of file sharing and piracy is that a recorded song has less value financially today than any other time since the birth of the industry. This hurts artists as well as the businessmen.

Ideally music business and music artists partner to create product and both benefit. The implementation of this partnership worked well in many cases and not so well in others. The beef many have had with the business is that artists often did not benefit in proportion to the business folks and so many great artists were “taken to the cleaners“ by less than scrupulous record company executives. However, the golden age of rock music for instance was ushered in by cigar chomping “old guys” who did not particularly understand the music but were willing to take chances and see what happened. They hired the next generation of executives believing that they understood the new music better and would serve to continue if not improve market positions. The opposite ended up being the case. The new breed never took chances and acted as if their primary concern was supporting their drug habits. The new business model favored providing product that was cheap to manufacture and produce that would yield maximum profits with little investment.

The advent of the Compact Disk brought with it a tidal wave of profits for the industry. Why? There are 2 reasons primarily. First and foremost CDs were and are much cheaper to manufacture and package than LPs were, yet the public was paying considerably more for them . And secondly the size of the marketplace increased exponentially as people who had already purchased music in older formats purchased it again in the newer format. Record execs did not have to raise a finger to have their companies be highly profitable. When this gravy train came to a halt there was no one left in the business who had the vision or fortitude to deal with the problem in any reasonable way. They continue to stick their fingers in the holes of the Dyke as leaks and cracks appear everywhere.

Back to SACDs and DVD audio. Many have suggested that these new formats are merely an attempt to reclaim the copy protections the music industry has lost control of. This may be true to a degree. I think the music industry does want to control duplication of it’s products and has a right to do so to a degree. The fact that standard 44.1 kHz audio can be accessed and copied from these disks but not the high definition material seems quite fair to me. Ultimately if music isn’t profitable fewer and fewer people will bother to create it. And that would be disastrous. I see serious damage already as talented young people turn away from higher education in the arts in favor of more marketable professions, closing the door on perhaps the next John Lennon, Kate Bush, or Randy Newman. SACD and DVD audio do use high sample rates, but there are only 2 factories that are allowed to create the disks. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, nor can SACDs be created except by the 2 licensed disc facilities in Shizuoka ( for Sony) and Salzburg (Phillips).

The vast majority of SACDs are hybrid disks. That is to say they have 2 layers. One layer has conventional 44.1 kHz CD audio embedded in it while a second layer has the higher resolution/multi channel information. The disks are backwards compatible with existing players and drives which will read the CD audio on the lower level while a special player is required to read the high resolution audio. These players are also forward compatible in that if the High resolution layer is not present on a disk, the laser will read the conventional layer, so older CDs will indeed play on these machines. In fact most any type of disk is playable. Photo disks MP3 disks, etc.

Conventional lasers see "through" the HD layer in a SACD.

The first SACD players on the market cost in excess of $5,000.00 U.S. but now a player can be had for $849.00 and these players also play High Definition Video Disks. My guess is that when the price drops a little more, consumers may embrace this technology if just for the fact that they can play all types of media in addition to the High Resolution audio and video on a single machine. Multi channel audio has been tried before but was never more than a novelty for consumers. However today most people actually have the ability to take advantage of multi channel recordings already set up in their homes as home theatre systems. I think the future looks bright for the Sony and Philips SACD technology. The competing platform - DVD audio is not backwards or forwards compatible so I suspect it will go the way of the “beta” video tape. SACD players are not permitted to digitally output an unencrypted stream of DSD ( Direct Stream Digital) making it impossible to duplicate (at least at the moment, we all know for every lock there’s a lock picker). SACD audio is stored in a format called Direct Stream Digital (DSD), which differs from the conventional PCM used by the compact disc or conventional computer audio systems. DSD is 1-bit, has a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz, and makes use of noise shaping quantization techniques in order to push 1-bit quantization noise up into inaudible ultrasonic frequencies. This gives the format a greater dynamic range and wider frequency response than the CD.

Promotional materials about SACD supplied by Philips and Sony suggest that the system is capable of delivering a dynamic range of 120 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and an extended frequency response up to 100 kHz, although most currently available players list an upper limit of 80–90 kHz. Conventional wisdom is that most human hearing recognizes 20-20 kHz. So why does anyone care about sound waves at 70 Khz ? Well every sound ( except sine waves) possesses partials and harmonics. I believe that harmonics and overtones exist well into the frequencies you don’t actually cognitively hear but still perceive in some sense. And if they are missing you are subtly aware of that too. The process of creating a Direct Stream Digital signal is conceptually similar to taking a 1-bit delta-sigma analog-to-digital (A/D) converter and removing the decimator which converts the 1-bit bitstream into multibit PCM ( Pulse Code Modulation, the type of sound encoding used in Pro Tools and virtually all digital audio recording software) . Instead, the 1-bit signal is recorded directly and in theory only requires a lowpass filter to reconstruct the original analog waveform. In reality it is a little more complex, and the analogy is incomplete in that 1-bit sigma-delta converters are these days rather unusual, one reason being that a 1-bit signal cannot be dithered properly: Most modern sigma-delta converters are multibit. Because of the nature of sigma-delta converters, one cannot make a direct comparison between DSD and PCM.

An approximation is possible, though, and would place DSD in some aspects comparable to a PCM format that has a bit depth of 20 bits and a sampling frequency of 192 kHz. PCM sampled at 24 bits provides a (theoretical) additional 24 dB of dynamic range. Due to the effects of quantization noise, the usable bandwidth of the SACD format is approximately 100 kHz, which is similar to 192 kHz PCM.
There are three types of SACDs: Hybrid: The most popular of the three types, hybrid discs include a "Red Book" layer compatible with most legacy Compact Disc players, dubbed the "CD layer," and a 4.7 GB SACD layer, dubbed the "HD layer." It is not uncommon for hybrid discs to carry the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo to show that the disc is CDDA-compliant. Single-layer: Physically a DVD-5 DVD, a single-layer SACD includes a 4.7 GB HD layer with no CD layer. Dual-layer: Physically a DVD-9 DVD, a dual-layer SACD includes two HD layers totalling 8.5 GB, with no CD layer. This type is rarely used. It enables nearly twice as much data to be stored, but eliminates CD player compatibility. Hybrid SACDs are the most popular type, they can be played on all existing drives but when played in a SACD player deliver the high resolution SACD sound. They are also multi channel and most SACD recordings are released in a multi channel mix. Does it sound good? Yes. I think most anyone would hear a difference through decent speakers.

As of April 2007, there have been over 4,500 SACD releases, a little over half of which appear to be classical. Notable artists who have released some or all of their back catalog include Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Depeche Mode,Bob Dylan, Elton John, The Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, and Nine Inch Nails. Pink Floyd's seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon (the 30th anniversary edition of 2003), The Who's seminal album Tommy (the 34th anniversary edition of 2003) and Roxy Music's Avalon (the 21st anniversary edition, 2003) were released on SACD to take advantage of the format's multi-channel capability. All three were remixed in 5.1 surround, and released as Hybrid SACDs with a stereo mix on the standard CD layer. Many people purchase SACDs even if they don’t have a player yet because the remix on the standard part of the disk is usually superior to previous releases anyway. Plus they figure at some point they will purchase a player. The other side of the coin is compressed audio. We love our mp3 players because we can fit so much music in such a small space. And take it all with us. As far as these compressed files are concerned the earlier formats used logarithmic encodings to squeeze more dynamic range out of fewer bits for each sample, like the u-law or a-law encoding in the Sun AU format. Modern compressed audio files use sophisticated psychoacoustics algorithms to represent the essential frequencies of the audio signal in far less space. Examples include MP3 (MPEG I, layer 3), Ogg Vorbis, and WMA (Windows Media Audio). Now I think these files sound pretty good but they are shy of being high fidelity. They refer to themselves as “near CD quality audio“ and that‘s right.

As mentioned before CD audio is 44.1 kHz. MP3 audio is theoretically capable of encoding sample rates from 1 to 200 kHz. However to my ear even when the sampling rates are higher, because of the data compression, I believe they sound noticeably inferior to standard CD audio. Even on computer speakers I think you hear the difference between a .wav file ( which is uncompressed) and the same sound as an MP3 file ( data compressed). But in terms of fitting a lot of decent sounding music in a small space, these files rule and do an admirable job. They are not however, audiophile grade material . Now DAT ( Digital Audio Tape) uses a slightly higher sampling rate than Cds (48,000 samples per second) and I thought the discerning ear could detect the difference. In terms of consumer audio, Dats never caught on even though they were arguably a superior medium and pretty much a standard in pro audio studios. Historically Nashville was the first to begin doing digital masters. L.A. and New York resisted either because they had so much invested in their analog ways or didn’t see the merits of digital recording.

In the mid 1980s my own band Macchu Picchu recorded one of the first non-Nashville digitally mastered LPs. Released on Europadisk, you might find it in a “cut out” bin somewhere and it‘s actually a very good album. However I remember the attraction to the new technology. There was no signal degradation through transfers, a lower noise floor, and the highs were more present. The downside was the highs may actually be unrealistically harsh. The warmth of analog sound was gone.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of listening to the playback of a high-end analog magnetic tape running at high speed with Dolby Spectral knows digital audio isn’t up to this lofty audio standard yet. But exquisite analog systems are very pricey. For instance, a nice high end analog amplifier like the Quest 300B Monoblock pictured here will set you back about four grand.

High quality analog power amplifiers.


Of course you’ll need two for stereo. And these babys are the “budget” versions of their top models such as the $60,000 Ongaku (Japanese for music or sound & joy) and the $95,000 Gaku-On (more music!). You’ll need a good pre-amp too. $35,000 for the M8 pre-amplifier. Hey where are you going? We haven’t even shopped for speakers yet! Why the cost? Well the majority of components are hand made and hand wired for one thing. The entire assembly except for the tubes themselves are made in house one at a time (no mass production). The materials used are expensive and the labor is long and requires great skill. There are very few people who know how to make this all happen.
For example all circuits and connections are coated with silver or gold ( the 2 most conductive metals… also 2 of the most expensive.) The application of silver to equipment must be done strategically, because carelessly silver-wiring parts of a machine will only expose limitations of remaining non-silver components. Silver lacing an entire device will certainly bring about a wholesale improvement but will also skyrocket the cost. If this were a car, it would be a Ferrari or Lamborghini not a Hyundi. What do components like this provide? In the words of Peter Qvortrup who owns the company, as stated on their website… “an attainment of specific fidelity, low level detail, dynamic contrast, bass control with pressure expansion, intensity of piano attack, timbral separation between instruments, general presence, immediacy and presentation”. In other words you can hear the dandruff falling off Ringo’s hair. Detail.

If you are interested there are several essays about the mission of Peter’s company here. Analog offers warmth and musicality along with a natural sound "Analog" is "analogous" to real life. In real life everything is "continuous". Take the temperature of a place. The temperature of a place varies over time - say yesterday it was 25 degrees and today it is 20 degrees. This change of temperature does not take place all of a sudden - the temperature goes through all of the temperatures in between 20 and 25 degrees when it changes. There are an infinite number of temperatures between 20 and 25 degrees. At one point of time the temperature was 20.1 degrees, at another point of time the temp was 20.5 degrees, at some other point of time the temp was 20.578 degrees, and at some other point of time the temp was 20.78900748 degrees. In general, between any two temperatures, however close they maybe, there are an infinite number of temperatures. This is the idea of "continuity". Analog offers a continuity in the physics of sound .

But what digital audio offers is a longer life expectancy ( digital recordings do not degrade over time as analog recordings do), a far lower cost, and a wider frequency spectrum with more dynamic range. "digital" systems cannot understand continuous things. they only understand only "discrete" signals - e.g '1', '2', '3' etc. It cannot understand anything between 1 and 2 - not even 1.5 . In electronics it is convenient to represent numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc using the binary system because '1' and '0' can be conveniently related to "ON" and "OFF". (In normal day to day life we use the decimal system. The use of the decimal system can be traced back to the presence of ten fingers on our hands - which obviously proved to be very convenient also.) In the binary system one is 1, two is 10, three is 11, four is 100, five is 101, six is 110, seven is 111, eight is 1000 - and so on. (The idea is to try to represent a number using only 1s and 0s.) All digital equipment - microwave ovens, washing machines, traffic lights to calculators and computers use the binary system. Discrete audio signals are inherently flawed. That being said, the closer they can emulate analog in terms of continuous variability the better they sound. ( After all sound itself is analog in nature!) This can only be achieved by higher sample rates.

We must remember that analog is a mature technology while digital is a toddler. And that some of the absolute magic that vacuum tubes and tape saturation offer in terms of sound quality are colorations that we find pleasant, not truly analogous with physical sound. Of course there’s no going back to analog I suppose, and in reality recordings today are hybrids for the most part, as we love the old Neve recording boards, tube preamps , and so many of the outboard signal chains include analog and tube circuits. Let alone that most musicians would not consider firing up an amplifier to play through in the studio unless it had tubes. Both technologies have their pros and cons. But digital offers us better editing capabilities. Higher sampling rates may get us back on the path to true audiophile bliss and go a long way towards fulfilling the burgeoning promise of a luxurious digital future. I for one truly hope so.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

We Can't Talk At All - The Alternate Universes of Conservatives And Liberals



In the U.S.A, Thomas Jefferson was the 1st Democratic President.
The writer and primary architect of the U.S. Constitution
and one of the most profound thinkers of the age of reason.

"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson



"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" -Abraham Lincoln


Things change. Despite what we may wish, change is inevitable.
Not all change is good and not all change is bad. But change comes,
like death, taxes or spam, it is inescapable.
Abraham Lincoln was an atheist liberal. (Yes the Republicans in Lincoln’s day were the more liberal party.) As stated things indeed change. As they change new solutions must be found for new problems. Where will these solutions come from? From conservative minds or liberal ones? A study conducted by scientists at New York University and UCLA which was published in Nature Neuroscience concludes that the brain activities of conservatives and liberals are quite different. Indeed we may either be wired as a liberal or conservative thinker in our anterior cingulate cortex!

The Mechanism Of The Conservative Brain
Is Completely Different
Than That Of The Liberal Brain


The Los Angeles Times ran an article on this study. From their article: "Participants were college students whose politics ranged from 'very liberal' to 'very conservative.' They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W. M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter. Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M." In other words, the more conservative a participant was, the less likely he was to discern between the letters and more likely to respond inappropriately. The difference was quite dramatic in nature: "Liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy."

Now I am not gloating over this and this piece is not about claiming superiority, the point is that ability to solve problems is quite different between conservatives and liberals. It seems we should not be looking to conservatives for solutions to serious problems confronting us in the world today. Especially if the problem requires an innovative solution. Most of our woes today in the world are not really new ones. Conflicts between nations, economic classes and ideologies have plagued mankind for quite some time. Looking to conventional previously failed ideas to help us solve these issues is an act of futility. Never try to teach a pig to sing. You’ll get no song and it annoys the pig.


If we look at the events in recent times with the knowledge of this study there is much to be gleaned. For instance, a few weeks ago the administration staged yet another intense advertising campaign to continue our presence in Iraq. Astro Turf’s ran ads showing a legless soldier begging to keep the occupation in Iraq going and Gen. David Petraeus appeared before Congress to make a highly anticipated report on the conditions there. To many it seemed Petraeus acted much more like a politician than a general, effectively plugging an open-ended commitment of American troops to Iraq. Petraeus argued in support of Bush's ongoing policy, with the only difference being a withdrawal of the troops sent as part of the "surge" six months ago. Otherwise, there was no recommended change at all. If you think about this in light of the Nature Neuroscience study, you see Republicans responding out of the habit of supporting whatever the military and administration claim. Unlike Democrats, who repeatedly observed that Petraeus was offering nothing new, Republicans were unable to discern that this was the same tired old dog-and-pony show.

Bush's "single-minded commitment to the Iraq war, despite evidence that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and despite vocal opposition to the plan by CIA and military personnel is a classic example of the behavior cited in the study.
Not only is the conservative mind apparently unable to practice discernment, it also objects to it in others . For instance, Republicans saw 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as a "flip-flopper" because he reversed his earlier support of the Iraq invasion. They see any change of opinion even if it is based on newer information as a lack of resolve. Yet to the liberal mind, it is critical to review changing circumstances and adopt solutions on new criteria. To the conservative mind, consistency –the tapping on the keys – is more important than substance - discerning the correct key.

" There was a bridge here before and I crossed it. So..."

Another alarming example of conservative failure to think things through is the increasing right wing noise to bomb Iran. It's déjà vu all over ,and over, and over again. With PNAC puppeteers and Petraeus and friends claiming the Iranians are financing the Iraq insurgency (just as they claimed Saddam was behind al-Qaeda). It doesn't seem to even occur to them that our military is all but depleted, that Iran is far larger than Iraq, that cleaning up the mess made in Iraq is sucking the life blood out of our economy or that such an action would anger Iran's allies- China, Russia and Venezuela- creating still more conflicts. ($5-a-gallon gasoline anyone? But of course Cheney and his top secret “Energy Commission” might see that as quite a benefit for themselves). Advocates of the action describe it with the same drooling enthusiasm with which they adored the "shock and awe" over a Baghdad skyline, completely oblivious to the reality that it was the beginning of yet another unnecessary bloody violence fest that has killed more than 3,000 young Americans and so many Iraqi citizens that nobody even bothers to count the cadavers anymore.

Speaking up for conservative brains, study author David Amodio said “it would be a mistake to conclude that liberal brains are better than conservatives” and “that the tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing, depending on the situation.”

Yes depending on the situation. And there is a difference between distracting information and ignoring important information. In today’s world that difference might include the note that crossed Condi Rice’s desk 5 times that suggested terrorists planed to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Or perhaps ignoring the rest of the world’s wishes when asked to wait for the results of U.N. inspectors before destroying a sovereign nation. ( It was going to be impertinent information anyway right?) How many other events in the current administration’s behavior can be attributed to this cerebral inability?
In fact I am having some trouble imagining a situation in which ignoring information can produce a useful analysis of any kind.

To liberals, the ranting of Republicans appears as above.


I am passionate about liberal politics not because of the policy making per se. But because there are certain core value judgments that one must commit to or ignore in order to be a Republican or a Progressive. It is these underlying values that make me reject conservative politics and embrace liberals. Do you value equality? Do you believe in education? Are you an altruist or are you motivated by greed? Like Dr. King, do you have a dream? Or are nightmares more your cup of tea? Do you see the future as a bright possibility or are you living in the past? Would you jail Galileo for sharing his observation that the Earth was not the center of the universe? Would you ignore this “impertinent” information? I have a conservative friend who objected to “wasting” tax money on special education programs. Something about survival of the fittest (which is funny because he didn’t think much of Darwin when it came to science, only economics) and tough luck if you have special needs… not his problem. Well in a twist of irony he no longer feels that way. His daughter is a special needs child and the medical expenses denied from his insurance company have nearly knocked his formerly wealthy family down to the middle class. He still thinks he is conservative but he sure believes in special education getting funded well. I am not making light of his circumstance and wish him and his family the best but it is interesting that when one personally stands to improve ones lot, well that’s a good program to spend money on. That my friend couldn’t imagine someone else needing this program before it was he in those shoes is revealing much about the motivations and underlying values of his politics. I believe my brain thinks in a liberal manner. I also believe that we must coexist with conservatives and respect their humanity. However they will never understand us and we will never understand them. We are wired to think differently. Their brains perceive reality in pre-existing forms that I doubt can be changed. ( It’s those pesky underlying values again.) And likewise we liberals will never be able to grasp their reality without rejecting our own core values and observations. It will always be a stalemate in terms of acceptance. We can be friendly and respect each other as human beings certainly but we can never respect each other’s political opinions because our brains can not process problem solving in the same way. Our universe has at least 12 dimensions that a 2 dimensional cartoon can not properly display. It is like explaining string theory to Fred Flintstone and conversely like Pat Robertson claiming to Richard Dawkins that the earth is only a few thousand years old . There can be no quarter given or taken.

To conservative thinkers, solutions must be linked to established institutions and conventional processes or it might as well be string theory. Suggestions from Democrats appear to them similar to the Elephant picture above but with a donkey.

In conclusion , because something was done one way in the past does not mean it can not be done differently or better now. Without the liberal brain the wheel would not exist. We’d still be living in caves looking for fires started by lightning. Conservatives argued with the founding fathers against overthrowing King George’s rule at the time of the American Revolution ( loyalists were about half the population). Virtually all knowledge and improvements are the result of liberal thinking. (Looking for new ways instead of clinging to the past). The conservative thinking religious zealots who wield box cutters and ignited shoes do seek to destroy and harm. But friends, cold war military hardware won’t stop them. Until the U.S. returns to it’s liberal thinking ways to solve today’s problems we are on a path of self destruction that is far more efficient than anything a shoe bomber can muster .
The study seems to verify another assumption
many on the left have long suspected about conservatives: They are easily duped.





Saturday, October 13, 2007

Praxis In The Volunteer State

“Innovation is not the product of logical thought,
although the result is tied to logical structure.”
Albert Einstein

New Release Celebrates Innovation!

Praxis-Tennessee


Music itself suggests a veritable cornucopia of ideas, it seems placing words in it excludes many of those ideas in favor of focusing on the few.
This is neither positive nor negative.
Merely an observation.
Although vocal music and songwriting as an art form are indeed held in high regards here at Duly Consider, instrumental music is seldom given the same degree of recognition in media at large today.
Visual artists at the start of the 20th century wanted their creations to emulate music because at that time music was reasoned to be the purist art form.
The addition of language arguably removes some of the purity.
This week we look at some wordless music.
Praxis is an instrumental group.
Is Praxis a super group?
Certainly in the sense that it’s members are all from well known bands and have garnered admiration and respect on their own. The new release “Tennessee” is a remarkable document of their appearance at the Bonnaroo Festival this year. Praxis is a sort of a Funk Metal band that leans heavily on the outer reaches of improvisation. Now I can certainly enjoy just about every project that Bernie Worrell has ever graced and Praxis is no exception. The Personnel joining Bernie on this outing are Bassist Bill Laswell (Band Leader), guitarist Buckethead, and drummer Brain. From the second the Hammond B3 kicks in on the 1st cut, “Vertebrae” you know your no longer in Kansas. The music on this instrumental CD is fierce. Combining the edgier elements of Funk, Psychedelia, and Riff Rock with some spicy improvisations that make for some remarkably fresh sounds. Proof positive that the muse is alive and kicking. There is nothing remotely gracious about this CD and that is the point.

Click here to hear excerpts of Tennessee or purchase.



Brian “Brain" Mantia has played with some of rock's more avant-garde artists
(Praxis, Primus, Tom Waits, Buckethead, Godflesh), as well as more mainstream ones (Guns N' Roses).


Bill Laswell has sought the symbiotic high ground that melds traditional styles. Trance music, new technologies, varied musical collaborators join to create ethereal new musical collisions. It’s Jazz, Funk, Rock, Hip Hop, World fusion. Laswell is equally at home playing with Herbie Hancock as he is an Indian Tabla player.


Although Buckethead (Brian Carrol) works primarily as a solo artist touring the United States with a trio,
he has had a wide variety of high profile collaborations with such artists as Les Claypool, Tony Williams, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Serj Tankian, Guns N' Roses, Saul Williams,
Mike Patton, and with Bill Laswell.




Bernie Worrell is a producer, arranger and performer, Bernie Worrell has worked with dozens of artists, including Herb Alpert, Bootsy Collins, Black Uhuru, Keith Richards, Sly & Robbie, and the Pretenders. He performed as a member of Talking Heads, and appears in their unique concert film "Stop Making Sense." Worrell is able to incorporate a wide variety of musical styles and structures within his arrangements. In 1997, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for being one of the primary
architects of the modern funk genre. His work with George Clinton, and related groups Parliament and Funkadelic, spawned such legendary releases as Mothership Connection, Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein and One Nation Under a Groove. Bernie Was a child prodigy giving his first classical concert at the age of four. At eight he wrote his first piano concerto, and at 10 played three piano concertos with part of the Washington Symphony Orchestra and Plainfield Symphony. He studied at Julliard and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Bernie is believed to be one of if not the most sampled musician in the Hip Hop world.
His remarkable approach to electronic keyboards have graced countless performances and esteemed albums. Among musicians he is revered as one of the all time greats.
His name is not out of place in the same sentence
with Beethoven, Charlie Parker, or Jimi Hendrix.
Yet now in his 60's Bernie is considered too hard to classify and unprofitable by the mainstream music industry. Bernie like so many artists of his time, naive of gluttonous morally bankrupt practices of the business world, signed away the publishing rights to his earlier music long ago, which of course today is worth a small fortune. Today Bernie labors in relative obscurity selling his music independently like so many great artists we try to spotlight here at Considerable Sounds. Although considered more vital today than ever by musicians, Worrell risks tumbling further into anonymity within the industry.
There is a wonderful award winning documentary about Bernie,
his career and his struggle called
"Stranger: Bernie Worrell On Earth"
directed by Brooklyn based Phil Di Fiore.
Here is the trailer for the film.

Stranger: Bernie Worrell On Earth (movie trailer)


The following clip spotlights the virtuoso guitarist Buckethead more so than any other members of the band however each member is given equal amounts of time to "shine" at Praxis live shows.




There are many intriguing releases headed our way in the near future and we hope to spotlight many of them for you here. In the meantime if you enjoyed any of this week's musical offering I hope you will support Bernie and his bandmates by purchasing their CDs or attending a live show. It seems unconscionable to me that Beethoven, Gershwin, Charlie Parker, or Jimi Hendrix would be considered irrelevant if they were among us today, yet Bernie Worrell faces this very real circumstance each day.

Monday, October 1, 2007

The Lamb Lies Down On Broad Street

Genesis Makes A Revelation in Philadelphia

The composer Robert Schumann wrote at the beginning of one of his compositions: "To be played as fast as possible." A few measures later he wrote: "Faster."

This is the splendor of certain types of music and art. To ignore physical boundaries. To venture beyond the beyond. To take it to the limit, and find that limit unacceptable.

Though we may endeavor to treat all music with a degree of respect and find value in it’s creation sometimes prejudices slip auspiciously into the mix. For me, there was a brief time, a window of glory in the 1970s through which progressive rock bands slipped into the mainstream consciousness. Now some may say “pretentious excess” and some may say “artful vision”. Neither would be entirely wrong. But for me at least, bands like Gentle Giant, King Crimson, and Genesis generated music that commanded respect and admiration. This article will focus on Genesis who are currently touring.


I attended the 1st evening of a sold out three night series of concerts at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center. The Band’s set lasted two and a half hours including an encore. The music was flawless. Although the lads are getting up in years the show was highly energetic and powerful covering many eras of their diverse releases. The much anticipated staging was as imaginative as one would expect from this group who pioneered so many technical innovations in stage lighting throughout their career. The show was dazzling and delightful. Whether you are a hard core fan from the Gabriel- Hackett era or know them from their domination of the pop charts through the 80s and early 90s, they played enough of both their hits and the more operatic styles to please.


Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Tony Banks

Philadelphia Setlist:

Behind The Lines / Duke’s End
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Land Of Confusion
In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke’s Travels
Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
Follow You Follow Me
Firth Of Fifth / I Know What I Like
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Invisible Touch

I Can’t Dance
The Carpet Crawlers


The Classic Line Up with Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel

In the beginning, music was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of Art-Rock moved upon the face of the waters.
And it was good. Tony Banks brought forth thunder and lightning with his keyboards.
Steve Hackett’s virtuoso electric guitar wizardry brought down the walls of Jericho.
Mike Rutherford’s guitar, bass and Moog Taurus bass pedals delighted the righteous believers. Phillip - son of Greville Collins begot intelligently designed rhythms.
And Saint Peter Gabriel converted us all.

A Flower?



Genesis 1:1

The band was formed by Banks and Gabriel while they were students at the prestigous Charterhouse School in England. Originally called “The Garden Wall” their early efforts were simple pop affairs influenced by the Beatles and pre-disco Bee Gees. Anthony Phillips was the original guitarist. ( His albums are worth the effort if you can find them, my personal favorite - Wise After The Event seems to only be available as a pricey Japanese import at the moment). They recorded 2 albums during this period. From Genesis to Revelation in 1968 and Trespass in 1969. Trespass hinted at the direction the band would take in it’s classic period.



The Firmament

The classic period. Their music from 1970 until 1975 was characterized by complex song structures, shifting time signatures, and elaborate instrumentation. The songs were focused on story telling and the live concerts were very theatrical with Peter Gabriel engaging in elaborate costume changes to represent the colorful characters in the stories.
( Who among us can ever forget the Slipperman costume
from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway?)
How Did Peter Get A Mike In this Thing?

Anyone who enjoys progressive rock simply must have Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in their collection. This is “the stuff that dreams are made of “ as Bogart said in The Maltese Falcon.

Atonement

“The vehicle we had built as a co-op to serve our songwriting became our master…”
This is what Peter Gabriel wrote in a letter to Genesis fans regarding his departure from the band after the Lamb Lies Down tour. The group began to audition singers to find a replacement for Gabriel. Collins, who had provided backing vocals, coached prospective replacements but none were quite right for the task. Eventually, the band decided to let Collins assume the lead vocalist roll. Of course some remarkable work followed. Trick Of The Tale continued the excellent story telling tradition and removed any doubt about the ability of the band to continue without Mr. Gabriel’s considerable talents. At the time critics claimed Collins sounded more like Gabriel than Gabriel. Trick Of The Tale is also produced by David Hentschel who brought clearer audio to the proceedings. Since Phil Collins was busy fronting the band the assistance of a second drummer was required, Bill Bruford, drummer for Yes and King Crimson was hired for the 1976 tour.
Genesis' first live performance without Peter Gabriel was on March 26, 1976, in London, Ontario Canada






Apocalypse 9/8

Later that year, Genesis recorded Wind & Wuthering, Released in December 1976, the album took its name from Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights, whose last lines—"how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth"—inspired Steve Hackett to write 2 instrumental tracks on the album. Wind and Wuthering was to be Steve Hackett’s last with the band except for the excellent “Seconds Out” live document which was recorded during the 1977 tour.



Genesis proceeded as a trio. It was this trio that absolutely dominated the pop charts well into the 1990s with strings of hits. For live performances drummer Chester Thompson ( Weather Report, Frank Zappa ) and session guitarist Daryl Steurmer (Jean Luc Ponty, George Duke) were brought in as permanent part time members. Now begins the dichotomy that both plagues and enables Genesis.
“Then There Were Three”, the next album really didn’t strike me as all that great but yielded the hit single “Follow You, Follow Me”. Ironically it became their first certified gold record.





I can not condemn a band for wanting success, though many of the old fans did. It mattered not as the next 20 years would be filled with Genesis pop music and solo albums by all. As pop music goes, their take on it was always enjoyable in my opinion. Though certainly the depth of lyrical content and musical experimentation was now tempered or gone altogether. So what? At least they gave us some of Art Rock’s finest moments. And who can fault pursuing a path that yields such obvious rewards? Besides, they didn’t do bad music as a pop band. I like many of those tunes as well. But I will always hold a reverence for the commercially naive but explosively original music they created in the 1970s.

Exodus 1:1

After much speculation regarding a reunion, Banks, Collins and Rutherford announced Turn It On Again: The Tour on November 7th, 2006; nearly 40 years after the band first formed. The trio had wanted to reunite as a five-piece with Gabriel and Hackett for a live performance of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Gabriel agreed to perform, but he was unable to commit to a date. Collins observed that "Peter is a little over-cautious about going back to something which fundamentally is fun".( press conference November 7th 2006). Hackett had also agreed to participation, but without Peter joining in on the tour, Phil, Tony and Mike thought that it would be more better to bring back Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer. Steve Hackett, however still maintains good relations with the rest of the band. A short note expressing his good wishes for the reunion tour currently appears on his web site. ( Steve Hackett is one of my all time favorite guitarists and his brand new CD, Wild Orchids is a worthy purchase by the way.)


The Rapture

Now it came to pass on the 23rd day of the ninth month in the year
2007 according to the Gregorian Calendar, the band brought its reunion tour to The Wachovia Center for a sold-out concert.
And lo, there was much rejoicing.



Collins sang forth, from time to time, basheth upon a heathen drum kit. Mike
Rutherford, son of Crawford, played guitar and bass. Tony Banks, son of
John, brought forth keyboards.

The trinity was backed by its faithful disciples, sidemen Daryl Stuermer and Chester
Thompson. Who have been faithful for 30 years now.

A technician said, "Let there be light," and there were many colors amid wisps of theatrical fog.
And Behold! The Biggest of all big screen backdrops brought forth a multitude of images.
Then Collins said, "We are Genesis, we are your entertainment for this evening."


Collins jabbed a finger angrily in the air as he belted out "No Son of
Mine" …honoring thy father?

"Ha-ha! Ha!" Collins laughed diabolically in the middle of "Mama" …honoring thy mother?


"Apart from us, any other old people out there
tonight? Good, because we're going to play some very, very old songs."
Phil announced. Indeed the band fulfilled the prophecy.


And lo, the Audience coveted no longer the sounds of “The Cage”, The Cinema Show”, nor
"Afterglow" (resplendent with virtual sunset).

No servant can serve two masters, yet this band tried its best, as
it’s conflicted soul found itself caught in the epic hero’s struggle between the
forces of progressive-art rock and the forces of pop.

Those extremes were difficult for some to reconcile at times during the 2 1/2
hour performance, but this dichotomy was always a part of the band’s history and true believers were not surprised. ( After all this IS the “Land of Confusion”).
Then sayeth the Phil, "We've come to the end of our evening together."

The Duality of the band revealed itself again during the encore. And
lo, the Art of "The Carpet Crawlers" and the pop of "I Can't Dance" were
met with more rejoicing, before the mass exodus.

The classic line up of Genesis was probably the most British of all English rock bands. Some music writers, in fact, felt that Genesis didn't actually play rock music at all, but used the vehicle of the popular art form to convey their strikingly antique, mentally aggressive, and emotionally unsettling explorations and visions. Rock music is generally believed to be at least somewhat affiliated with rhythm & blues. This crew of lily-skinned English lads didn't cater to the blues at all but drew more from the classical concert hall. These very British fable-mongers created Tolkien-like journeys that collided with the worlds of Edgar Allen Poe and Lewis Carroll. Leaving a legacy of evocative, haunting, and atmospheric collages the likes of which will never be duplicated. Oh Yeah, they played some darned good pop music too.

“Judge not this race by it’s remains…”
Peter Gabriel lyric- (Watcher Of The Skies)