Campbell Vertesi

I would love to be singing full time.  I'd like to be able to earn my income from my voice, doing what I love.  Unfortunately, that's just not a reality at this level.  All of my colleagues rely on day jobs to buy their dinner, and I'm no exception.  But my day job is a technical one, and it drives me crazy.

I design and host websites for a living.  It earns pretty good money, and it's a creative outlet I suppose... but man, I can't stand doing web design!  I don't know how you CSS hackers can stomach it!  When I design sites, I like to use as much "plagiarized" code as possible (with permission! don't worry...), and make the changes I need.  Every once in awhile though, I really have to build a site from scratch,  and it drives me crazy.

Honestly, I find the whole positioning thing in CSS a little nuts.  Relative position, absolute position, floating... it all becomes a big jumble in my head.  When I design from scratch, I absolutely must have some scratch paper, just so I can write down the totally obvious things.  And if it gets complicated - ohhhh boy, I can be up until 4 or 5 in the morning beating my head against the keyboard.

This week I'm out of school, and Bryn is out of town.  That means it's time for me to do some serious code work and get some of these web sites off my plate.  Hence the procrastinatory blog post.   

Yes folks, it's true.  I've sunk to a new low, usually only inhabited by musicologists and other cave dwelling creatures.  Your humble blogger is excited about a term paper.

I get to write about the effect of the internet (and the digital revolution in general) on the classical music industry.  Specifically - where it's going, is this a good or bad thing, is there anything we can do about it... all my favorite questions.  Expect advance copies to circulate on this very blog.  Also expect me to beat myself up for my own milk money.

Time to admit it: I'm a music nerd.  sigh. 

I can't believe it - my computer died.

I was doing completely mundane - ok, relatively mundane - things with it, and POOF!  Now it freezes in Windows.

"Well?" I hear you say, "you're a technician - fix it!"

Yeah, it turns out that when my computer breaks, it can't be an easy little problem.  No, this is like my computer having recurring brain seizures.  I've tested most of the parts and I know which part has gone bad, but... I'm still trying to discover if I can fix it.  Cause if I can fix it, my gaming addiction goes on uninterrupted.  Otherwise - panic!  I'll have to send the part in for replacement, which can take WEEKS!

So pardon me if I'm a bit distracted.  My brain is full of RAM specs, CPU tests, and the like.

Lately I've begun playing with a new way to interact over the internet: Second Life.  I've been encouraged to explore this medium by one of my jobs... and I've found it interesting, for lack of a better word.

First of all, a brief primer: Second Life is a freeform virtual universe, where people interact over the internet.  It's a bit like a giant chatroom, with visuals.  When you sign up, you create an "avatar" (a character) to play as.  You can change your avatar's appearance as much as you like, at any time - be male, female, dragon, or flying spaghetti monster.  And then you go interact.

As I mentioned, SL is entirely freeform.  The parent company (Linden Labs) creates only the land where things happen.  Users create everything else.  From chairs and couches to buildings and fighter jets, everything is built by users.  Not that you have to be able to program in order to get by - people own stores as well, to sell the things they build.  This means that the world contains literally anything you can imagine.  Plenty of people have homes that float in the sky.  Flying (yes, like superman) is a major form of transportation.  People, are, have, and do the wildest things you can imagine.

SL even has an economy of sorts - a currency with a free floating exchange with the US dollar.  There are people who earn a living in this virtual world.  Anshe Chung for instance, was the first Second Life millionaire - that's millionaire in US dollars.  I'm not kidding when I say that this is an entire universe.

So why am I posting about it on a music blog?  Because like the real world, second life also has a music industry.  

This is still hard for me to wrap my head around, so bear with me.  There are concerts given in SL all the time, often synchronized with real world events.  To my understanding, they work much the same way a real concert does - buy a ticket, sit down, and listen or watch.   The website touts virtual concerts by U2, Duran Duran, and Susanne Vega. 

Having no experience with this aspect of the virtual world, I can't offer you much insight into it.  But maybe you all can help me?  Is there a future for musicians in this sort of digital broadcast?  Is it worthwhile streaming any of your performances over the internet, in any format?  What would be the attraction of having an avatar stand on a virtual stage and perform to your instrument?

And inevitably: does performance art like opera have a future in this kind of virtual environment? 

I took the plunge today, and set up a new feature for the blog.  From now on, when you comment (anonymously or with an account), you will have the option of receiving email notification when someone replies to you. The notification is easy to turn off - especially if you have an account - and with any luck, it will help to get discussion going on the site.

I just put together my new computer this afternoon.  It's been a long time since I've done that; things have changed!  Anyways, now it looks like it works perfectly but... I can't find my Windows XP CD.  I have all sorts of useless CDs, old documents, backups, games I haven't played in years... but the one CD that's actually important to hang on to?  Nope.

Argh.  I'm solving the issue as I type, but seriously - what a stupid thing to get hung up on. :(

(for those geeky few who are interested: Intel Core 2 duo e6400 @ 3ghz, 2gb RAM, 160gb RAID0 "cache disk", ATI x1950XT 256mb video card.  And it's on Windows because it's sole purpose is gaming)

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about nerds, the fact that I myself am a huge nerd, and about the various nerds in my life.  Let me come out and say it: I’m a nerd, and very proud of it.  All of my friends are nerds too, and I like it that way.

I'm sure a few of you are saying "well, I'm not a nerd!"  Care to consider the alternative?  There are lots of people out there who aren’t nerds.  These people work very hard to be just like everyone else, they don’t let themselves “geek out” on any subject, and they’re careful to express only the most non-committal of opinions about the most mainstream of subjects.  You know what I call these people who aren’t nerds?  I call them Boring.

So here’s to everyone I know who is passionate about a subject, who enjoys learning, who holds opinions and talks about them.  Here’s to all those people in my life who geek out about some things, and who don’t care that that makes them “different” from the fictional norm.  

Here’s to all the nerds.  Stand proud.

Here’s some more great news in the musical geekery world!  Has anyone else heard about San Francisco Symphony’s new Keeping Score program?  This is great stuff. As the SF Chronicle puts it:

“[Keeping Score] is an undertaking that will allow music lovers to crawl inside the heads of the composers; ...peer at the score while a pointer marks the place being played; become historically immersed in the time and place in which the music was introduced; ...and at the same time listen, listen, listen.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

A few weeks before every concert, they start playing the pieces on the radio . Local classical stations I guess, NPR… that sort of play.  Each time, there are discussions about different aspects of the pieces, interviews between Music Director Michael Tilson-Thomas and instrumentalists he knows.  Then they do a video broadcast on PBS – documentaries, biographies of composers (check local listings).  Finally (and this is my favorite bit), they set up a website for the pieces.  Not a mom and pop website like you’re used to, either.  This is a high-quality, information packed flash dealie.  A veritable cornucopia of music geekery.

Listen to the piece while reading about the programmatic aspects.  Watch the score scroll by as you watch a video of the orchestra playing it, each measure highlighted as you go.   Interesting information is represented as colored blocks in the score.  Click on one to see an interview with a particular player (“interview with trombonist John Doe on the role of the horns in this piece”), a discussion on the music theory behind the passage, perhaps a historical tidbit, or a ‘parody’ explanation (parody is music history speak for “plagiarized”).  Musical notation can be moused-over, to see an explanation of “pp” or “adagio”. There are mini-interviews with music director Michael Tilson-Thomas.  There is so much information to geek out on, it’s unreal.  The first time I saw this site, I think I wet my pants.

Go on.  Check it out.  Their pilot project is Tchaikovski’s 4th symphony. Enjoy!  Now this is the kind of thing I like to see - getting audiences more involved in the stuff that give classical music such depth!

Here it is! The post I've been waiting to - um, post!!  May I present the Lucrezia Project!

Next month, CCM is producing The Lucrezia Project - a sort of modified version of Respighi's opera Lucrezia.  I know next to nothing about the way the show itself is being modified- my involvement is with a novel way to approach thematic development in an opera. And this is an opera about Honor Killing.  Go on, read the wikipedia link.  It will help make this whole thing make sense.

 You see traditionally, the director does days of painstaking research in developing a serious, deep theme for their presentation of an opera.  They analyze characters, they break down scenes into their subtle implications - in short, they wrack their brains over this stuff.  Then they try to impart this theme to their acting singers, who skimp on the studying, and try to fake their way through a character that somehow (hopefully) supports the director's concept.  Finally, the audience arrives, and is perplexed at what the hell is going on in the first place, and why on earth did they use such odd lighting??  Theatre sure is funny!

This is the natural life cycle for an opera with a concept.  But perhaps not The Lucrezia Project.  The idea behind this production is to let the audience in on the development and thematic issues right from the start, using the internet.  I built a website that incorporates directors' blogs with discussion forums, and areas for the public to watch the performers grow their characters.  On this site, people can discuss the moral implications of Honor Killing - especially in the context of the modern world, as Eastern and Western civilization collide and intermingle.  How do you take the right to dictate another culture's morality?  Is the growing monoculture of our increasingly globalized world a Good thing?  What can or should be done for girls who seek asylum from their own families? (see, I told you to read the Wikipedia link.  Now go back and do it)

All of this will go on in a public forum - along with cast comments, directors' notes, and the whole playbuilding process around this incredibly contentious issue (dammit! Read the friggin' Wikipedia link already!).  The whole project culminates in a podcast/videocast of the production, and a series of interviews with the artists about their experience in the project.  Of ccourse the show is open to the public as well, and UC students get in free.

Can you say "badass"?  Can you say "New Media"?  Finally, you can have an audience that really understands the directoral vision.  Finally, a crowd that knows your character as well as you do!  At last, the audience will know more and have thought more about the theme than they did in the 5 minutes between reading the program notes and the curtain call.  This has the potential to take the thinking in theatre into a virtual discussion - and vice versa.

The down side - this project is limited to participation from UC students only.  Outsiders (we call you guys "normies") can spectate, but not post.  Feel free to write on your own blogs I guess, and submit the link on the contact page.  Your thoughts will likely be included in the discussion. At least post a link in MY comments.

Oh, and the shameless plug - I designed the site!  This is the exciting project I've been doing at work for the last month, and it's finally in production.  My supervisor Ellen Davis and I have worked on the Lucrezia Project tirelessly for weeks, and we really hope this participatory theatre concept takes off.  I did the visual design though. :)

So head on over and take a look!  I don't know if the forums or all of the content is up quite yet, but I'm not waiting any longer.  This time tomorrow I'll be posting from California, and I should have all sorts of other, interesting stuff to write about!

Disclaimer: This is NOT the awesome post I was so excited to write today.  That's coming later. Be patient and eat your vegetables, and you'll grow up big and strong like your Father.

  From the BBC:

 "If every hour a burglar turned up at your house and rattled the locks on the doors and windows to see if he could get in, you might consider moving to a safer neighbourhood.

And while that may not be happening to your home, it probably is happening to any PC you connect to the net."

This story hits close to home with me, since I'm a Network Administrator by day (that means: massive computer geek).  The BBC set up a "honeypot" computer to connect to the Internet.  A Honeypot is a computer that intentionally has "average" security.  It secretly keeps track of everything that happens to it, so that people like me can see what kind of hacking and virus attacks it faces, and adapt the security of our important systems accordingly.

The results:

"When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it. "

"... When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it. "

To your computer, this is precisely like having someone come along and rattle your door and window locks every few minutes.  Imagine how frightened that would make you if it happened to your home.  Now remember that in your home, a burglar would have to hunt around a bit to find things of value.  On your computer, a cracker knows exactly where to look to get your internet passwords (including to your online banking account), your credit card numbers, and everything required to steal your identity. Scared yet?

If your computer doesn't have a firewall - get one!  if it doesn't have anti-virus and anti-spyware programs- get them!  Anything else is like leaving your front door open, and all your valuables on the porch.   If you don't know what these things are, or how to get them - hire a computer professional to help you.  Better yet - hire me!

No, seriously.  I'm cheaper than GeekSquad.  And I sing.