Freedom From BigBrother Now!

January 2006 - Italy is living the bitter climate of political
campaign. Left and right don’t waste blows and all the occasions
are good to weaken the enemy. An Italian (maybe) left-wing
activist writes an article about a British documentary on TV
about right-wing hate rock and one of its protagonists, Viking,
loses her job.

He’s called Lycantrop. His article arrived directly to Viking’s
boss, before being published somewhere. Nobody knows how he got
the address and the real name! This is how a few hours later
Francesca Ortolani aka Viking, 23 year old video editor working
for an American film maker and productions company, was
dismissed.

We don’t know much about Francesca’s boss. She greets him on the
booklet of her cd “Gloucester Road”. He’s called James, but we
don’t know if this is the real name. We know that he’s an old
man, a film maker, a producer, he’s american, he’s a naturalist.
I knew the story from Ashtree Records Press Room’s spokesman
Magnus Torricelli, an Italian blacklisted journalist who lives
in the States, good friend of Viking’s. “He must have stolen the
address” says Magnus “I can’t explain it. Francesca has never
shown the videos on which she was working, so that nobody could
relate her to J. and his team. This Lycantrop has no face, we
don’t know him. He’s too coward to show his face.”

The British documentary Lycantrop wrote about is “Hate Rock”
produced by Neil Mackay, awarded journalist and opinionist in
Britain, who met Viking in March 2005 for an interview. I asked
Magnus what the interview was for: “The interview was about
white power music… you know, Francesca is a nationalist and
she dedicates much of her music to these ideas. She’s a well
known songwriter and producer in this scene, so she was included
in the documentary”.

If you think that under the political campaign everything is
permitted you should read the article he wrote. The writer has a
vivid fantasy! Lycantrop investigates Berlusconi’s relationship
with British media: “The Italians are not stupid and they
understand that Berlusconi is controlling television, but they
don’t know that he also makes his propaganda with the friends of
the NATO through the British television, the sanguinary face of
angel Francesca “Viking” Ortolani and the sex-symbol Donal
MacIntyre. Francesca Ortolani imported the documentary to Italy
through a long passionate review so that she could capture the
attention on herself and her friends. Meanwhile Donal MacIntyre
builds his own alibi as anti-nazi saying that he was attacked by
some of these undermen. People don’t know that Francesca
Ortolani aspires to work for the NATO and while she finishes to
study, she has been inserted in the media well, to make her
propaganda with subliminal messages, working as video editor for
an American company. Who’s piloting this? Bush, Blair and
Berlusconi. Viking’s university La Sapienza in Rome should expel
her, but the Faculty of Engineering must be corrupted in the
same game. Many professors work for companies that produce
military devices.”

I’m external to the matter, I’m not “building my own alibi like
Donal MacIntyre”, I’m external even though I’m one of those
17000 downloaders (Magnus says the number is not updated), so I
decided to meet Francesca Ortolani, the young singer Viking, for
some questions. She meets me in front of the Faculty of
Engineering and she asks me if I want to drink something hot.
She looks friendly and I can tell Lycantrop her hair is true.
She doesn’t look neither like a nazi terrorist nor a member of
the NATO. She has a teenage face, she’s very shy, but she’s a
determined woman.

I ask her what she will do with Lycantrop. “I don’t know” she
replies “I want to know who he is. I usually don’t proceed
against those who slander me, but this guy involved too many
people in his stories and I don’t want to see people fall for
me, so I’d do it, I’d bring an action against him if the story
doesn’t stop here, but I’m not sure the other mentioned people
in the article would be happy”. She tells me about her job “I
respect James’ decision. This won’t corrode our friendship. I
understand his dreads. He worked a life to get his position.
He’s a great professionist, he formed a great team and I feel
happy because I have been a little part of it. My work was to
make trailers of his videos for the web and other channels. I
was also starting composing some soundtracks for his
documentaries”.

I tried to have James’ contact directly, but the man wants to
remain anonym so I asked Magnus if he could kindly forward my
questions to him. This is James’ version of the story: “I’m very
sorry. I had told Francesca to stay out of white power music.
She has nothing of that world! She’s a talented songwriter, she
has an enchanting voice and she did a great job for me. She’s
got the skills as editor and the touch and the experience of a
producer though her age. I’m sorry, I must defend my work and my
team”.

James is quite reluctant at talking. Magnus thinks his decision
was very hard. For my fortune I could take another witness. It’s
N., 30 year old cameraman from Los Angeles who works for James.
He met Viking in London for work recently: “She’s cute. When you
do my job you meet a lot of people every day and you know that
you won’t meet them again. One day I met Francesca. I was with
J. We were filming …” he doesn’t tell me what they were
filming and what Francesca was doing there “…and God exists.
J. begged her to write music for us and make some promotional
clips. Our crew is a small family and Francesca is like a
sister. I don’t want to lose her friendship. Lycantrop…idiot.
I don’t know who he is. If I knew it, he would be dead now”.

Lycantrop also accuses Viking to present her new album to Italy
strategically during the campaign, to help Silvio Berlusconi and
Forza Italia to get votes and sympathies for some of their
initiatives such as the making of motorways, high-speed
railways, re-introduction of nuclear power in this country. He
accuses Magnus Torricelli “who lives in the States” to work
behind and shuffle the cards writing that the documentary
censured Viking, taking the attention on those censured parts,
involving Neil Mackay and company as contributors to this hidden
game. “I have never known this Neil Mackay, I don’t know if he’s
tall or short, fat or slim” says Magnus “We aren’t making any
hidden game, instead I think and I wrote that the documentary
censured Viking”.

Viking, a mysterious silent girl, looks at me first and after
blowing on the hot tea cup she tells me “The Lycantrop should
win a first prize for his novel. He had nothing better to do
that night when he wrote the article. I don’t serve any
political party or candidate. This story must have been a joke
but the real problem is how he got James’ name and address.” I
ask her if she feels spied and persecuted and she replies “I
don’t know. I keep on living with prudence and responsibility.
This time I don’t think I’m the persecuted one and I have no
bug…”. Viking alludes to the fact that the article was put
personally, not posted from a remote place, in the postal boxes
of James and Magnus in USA. They live in different towns and
states, they have never met before and they are only friends
because they are friends of Viking’s.

The author is unknown, the target is unknown, Viking knows only
that Lycantrop maybe knows Italian or somebody translated the
article for him. James received a version in English and Magnus
received the Italian version. Francesca didn’t receive a copy of
it. She doesn’t know if the producer of “Hate Rock” and company
received a copy because she heard nothing from them. She doesn’t
exclude more copies will be spread in Europe, so she’s waiting.
She doesn’t exclude the article will be published outside the
left-wing “collectives”. Magnus Torricelli wants to denunce the
“invasion of privacy”, the film maker James “will do something”,
the cameraman N. seems more interested in the fact that
Francesca is single at the moment. Silvio doesn’t know anything
of this story (officially). Donal MacIntyre has a new fan:
Magnus’ grandmother. Lycantrop has disappeared in the dark. Will
he reappear in Europe? End of Episode I.

Ah, broken chords. The sound. The cascading pattern of chordal notes. It’s beautiful. There’s no doubt about it. And this technique is one of the easiest to learn. After all, all you need to do to create it is have a chord under your fingers and be able to “break it up.”

What do I mean by break it up? You’ve probably heard of solid chords. This is when all tones are heard at once. For example, if I finger a C Major triad and play all three keys at once, I’m playing a solid chord. But, if I break this chord up into it’s 3 notes and play them one at a time you get a broken chord.

Broken chords are used frequently in New Age piano music. There’s something about playing notes of a chord in broken style that’s very appealing. Maybe it’s because it makes the piano sound fuller. Or it could be that it just sounds lovely.

Now, let’s take a look at how we can easily create it.

In the lesson “Reflections in Water,” we have 4 open position chords. These chords are ideal for “breaking up” because they are so wide-spaced. Over two octaves of notes lay under your finger tips. Once we finger this chord position we are able to play the broken-chord style. How? By simply letting your fingers play around with the note possibilities! And there are many of them.

When you listen to me play this piece, you’ll notice that it’s nothing to write home about. That is, I’m not after a “sophisticated” sound here. I’m just gently playing around with the notes and using the element of time to create a calm ambiance. And it works! The notes float out into the air and music is created. Not by planning or trying to come up with material but by following a few simple guidelines and letting go of the need to control the outcome.

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!

Is there such a thing anymore as free downloadable music? I know that with lawsuits and copyright plus royalty laws there is a real push to make sure that artists get their money when their music is downloaded, but what if you just want to put something together for marketing or a business website? It turns out that there is such thing as downloadable music that can be used for marketing at a cheap price. You simple need to get out there and look for royalty free music in a downloadable state.

If you are a web designer or marketer, you likely will from time to time want to use flash or video clips on a website or CD Rom. Likely there will come a time where such materials will need music, and avoiding the high fees of royalties on this downloadable music will be essential to keeping your costs down.

There are, surprisingly, tons of places to find royalty free downloadable music. There are so many sources, in fact, that choosing the right royalty downloadable music may be a real challenge. Your client will likely be requesting music from his favorite album or something he got inspired by on the radio on his way to the office this morning. However, the price tag that comes with those songs will quickly help him get over that. Royalty downloadable music sites use music that sounds up to date and timely, but you will have to sift through all of the canned 70’s sounding music. Take the time to check out all of the music you can, and you will be rewarded with modern sounding music at a good price for your client.

When you purchase a usage license from a royalty downloadable music site, it will likely be very flexible. You will be able to use the music on all of your sites and projects, but you cannot steal it. In other words, the license will entitle you, as the purchaser. It does not, however, allow your customer or anyone else to sell the CD with the music on it. You area also not allowed to transfer the license to anyone else by simply copying the CD and selling it to them. The truth is that you don’t own the music, you have simply purchased, from the original creators, the right to use it.

Music licensing can be very expensive. If your client wanted to hear the latest from Coldplay on his new website, he would have to spend more money than in is likely in his entire marketing budget. So what is the answer? Royalty free downloadable music can offer you the chance to put a hip sounding, newly produced piece of music on the site that may give you and your client the sound you are looking for without the high price tag. The only thing you have to be aware of is the limitations on the user license you will get with your royalty free downloadable music track. With that in mind, though, you have the solution you need in a world of high priced licensing and copyright laws.

If you would like the latest information on online music, or find more of my personal articles like the one you just read, visit my computing site.