These members of the Bluecoats (DCI) have spent years perfecting their craft to even earn a spot on this drum line. Now watch as they warm up for the World Championships in Indy.
Yeah - This is just a run through of their music before they enter Lucas Oil Stadium in front of tens of thousands of fans. Enjoy!
We are a special race, you and I. Being human gives us incredible experiences in our tiny nook of the universe like being able to ask abstract questions. For instance...
Should being a billionaire even be a thing? Can a person honestly earn that much money? Well, after pondering this for some time, the first exception I can think of is someone who created and sold something... like George Lucas. Does he deserve to have a net worth of $5.1B? (Forbes) As an artist I'm inclined to say he does more so than a CEO, however both are similarly creators. They both worked hard to lead others and build something.
BUT... 5 Billion dollars...
Here's how that breaks down according to my handy iPhone calculator (thanks 90s math teachers for saying we wouldn't have these everywhere we went)
Bob makes $15/hr x 40hs/w x 52w = $31,200/yr
5B / 31,200 = over 160,000
Translation: George Lucas could live equally to Bob for 160,000 years without lifting a finger. (guy in the back yells "BUT TAXES") Fine, let's just put up 1B for Lucas. 32,000 years.
Back to the top. Is this a problem? Keep in mind that putting Lucas' money up against the global average would likely add a zero to the estimate. Right now we're just talking about a fair wage.
Let me be clear, I have nothing against Lucas, and I'm a big fan of what he created. I'm just using a human example instead of a nameless monopolist. I think people who have this kind of money and power have a responsibility to the rest of mankind. Forget about countries and borders, just our human race.
Humanity is about a species that jumps in front of subway trains to save strangers. Humanity is about giving to those in need. We are the race of the good Samaritan. At least, we want it to be. But too often, the ones with power and money, aren't like the rest of us. Perhaps Money really does change you. Maybe you can only acquire such wealth by being selfish and aggressive.
Maybe the next step in our intellectual evolution is learning that we have to be heartless to get anywhere. But... that's not what we want at all. The vast majority of us want a loving world. We want peace and harmony.
There are two paths ahead. One in which we allow the powerfully rich decide humanity's future, and one in which we decide for ourselves. Do we force the ungiving super rich to give? Or do we allow them the right to keep what is theirs, and watch the rest of the world fight for scraps. Really... What is the right thing to do?
Okay, you may be able to tell where I'm leaning here. Stay with me a couple more paragraphs, though. As a race, is it our responsibility to unify our kind towards humanity? Final analogy:
The world is a classroom without a teacher. There are 20 students. One of them is a bully with a literal shipping crate of crayons. 9 kids have 6 crayons each, and 10 have none. The kids with 6-packs share with the students who have none, and the bully hoards his collection. (Except for the white crayon. Who the hell needs that useless abomination?)
Have you decided in your mind that because the crate belongs to the bully, that he should be left alone with it, unless he decides to share? What if I said the crayons represented meals? By many modern, western standards... yes. He can't be forced to feed the hungry. This isn't a law of the universe though, it's just our philosophy. My question for you then is this:
Does this philosophy bring about harmony and reflect intelligence?
Farewell, David Bowie.
So I was desperate one night. I wasn't drinking or anything but was certainly lacking my usual skills of judgement... You know, we've all been there. Except instead of texting exes and Facebook ranting, I sign up for stuff.
It's like this:
Hey! I write music, and have a bunch of unused tracks, why don't I just sell them on audio jungle and get some connections??
Then it's like this:
Okay if I make 100 tracks and they each sell for $10 5 times a year, that's.... $5,000. Okay but, BUT!!! If I have 200 tracks that sell once a month, that's $24,000!!! Boom..
Then it's like:
Upload track, fill in information, agree to not sell it anywhere else, write a description, bla bla bla, submit. And wait.
...
So I did all that with one track. Then after a couple days of hearings nothing I started regretting the whole thing. Let's face it, I'm better than this. Plus I'm not going to upload 200 miraculously successful tracks to a website... It's just not worth it. I tried to delete my account but believe it or not that button is hard to find... And I was lazy. I really just wanted to cancel the submission on principle alone.
Then I got the best news ever! Get this. My track got rejected! "Not a high enough standard of quality"
...
What a relief. These guys read my mind. And no I wasn't offended in the least by the rejection. Heck it might have just been a technical specification. But just so everybody knows... This was the very track that landed me my first feature-length soundtrack gig.
Fun times. Well, hit me up if you're a director. Will compose for film!
-Aaron
I have too many thoughts on the subject for just one visit to the laptop, but here goes my intro:
I can score a film without writing a single note down on paper. Most film composers can, especially entry-level. At the University of Tulsa, my entire "Introduction to Film Scoring" class was completely digital. No actual scoring required. Just create the appropriate music directly in a DAW. Obviously there was much more to the class than this, but no assignments required notation.
This is simultaneously freeing, and enslaving. One the one hand, it's easier for someone to create a decent score for little to no cost, but it does very little for a composer's skills. Using Logic Pro to create epic chase music or a chilling suspense theme doesn't help the composer move towards actually recording with an orchestra.
What I've noticed about the music created by actual composers using these programs:
1. If they actually write the score out and use the midi-controlled export, it sounds fake - because they aren't performing the parts for a realistic sound.
2. If they skip the writing and just record with a keyboard, it's not musical and melodic. <---That one's been me.
The last problem is some great composers don't have the skills to work with these kinds of software. Why should they? They're musical professionals, not computer tech wizards!
Too bad. In my experience, you've got to learn both. If you want to score your first low-budget indy film, you won't have an orchestra to work with. If you want to move up, you need to know how to collaborate with other musicians. If your dream is to be the next big star, learn it all.
-Aaron
