New Composition: Untitled for S. I wrote a peaceful, flowing jazzy pop song tonight. It's called "Untitled for S." and you can listen to it by clicking below. Comments are always appreciated :)

> Untitled for S. - MP3 time 2:29  ¶ 11:45 PM

Spending time online is good for kids An article on Physorg.com (click here to read article) talks about a recent study by the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley which observed kids as they spent time using the Internet and taking part in online communities.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

The study, which can be found online at macfound.org, identified two categories of teen engagement with digital media: "friendship-driven" and "interest-driven."

Friendship-driven participation centered on "hanging out" with existing friends online while interest-driven participation involved accessing online information and outside communities, the study said.

"In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior," the study said.

"In the process, young people acquire various forms of technical and media literacy by exploring new interests, tinkering, and 'messing around' with new forms of media.

"Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to their repertoire, such as how to create a video or customize games or their MySpace page," it said.

The study said young people are motivated to learn from their peers online with the Internet providing "new kinds of public spaces for youth to interact and receive feedback from one another."

  ¶ 11:06 PM

bazaar picnic time,
let's party with wine,
go dining and camping
so
a bbq,
a basket,
how bout
a beverage,
coolers,
what a lifestyle! tailgating never was better.

-GP

Poem created with words from Veryrelated.com.
http://www.veryrelated.com/related.php?base=Picnic  ¶ 7:43 PM

film I composed music for, on the big screen! I while back I wrote some music and performed on the soundtrack/score for a film called "The Letter Goodbye" (with Andrew Ming).

On Saturday it's showing its world premiere at Tinseltown as part of the Vancouver Asian Film Festival.
http://www.vaff.org/fest08/a-moment-in-time  ¶ 1:40 PM

Musical Tidbits on the web A bunch of updates relating to music and the web... hope you enjoy!

SearchMe.com - legal loophole opens door to amazing music search engine

I came across SearchMe, a really neat free/legal music search engine that lets you listen to full versions of the songs. I don't know how it's possible for this site to exist, but apparently they get their music through Imeem widgets, and Imeem has a licensing agreement with four major record labels, and there is some kind of loophole in their licensing agreement which allows a site like SearchMe to exist.

To access the site, go to www.searchme.com and click on Music. I was able to find really rare stuff on there, such as the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack by Yoko Kanno, Ahmad Jamal's 2008 album entitled It's Magic, some Kenny Barron albums, some Roy Hargrove live tracks - it's pretty much endless! It also lets you share the songs. For example, click here to listen to one of my favorite Ahmad Jamal jazz piano trio tracks, a song called Arabesque from his album It's Magic.


Henry Hey and Sarah Palin - jazz piano brilliance mixed with politics

In other news, I discovered the music of New York jazz pianist Henry Hey. I was browsing the web and saw a link to a YouTube video about Sarah Palin singing along with a jazz piano accompianist (click here), and was intrigued. It turns out that pianist Henry Hey took a video of a Palin interview and added piano behind her words, in perfect time with her vocal rhythm and intonation. I thought to myself, "this is where Jazz Piano meets political activism" - from a musical and political standpoint this video is pure genius.

So the result of all this Youtubing is that I went over to Henry Hey's record label Nineteen Eight records (click here) and bought his 2008 piano trio album entitled Watershed. It costs $9 USD for the whole album as a digital download, and is available in non-DRM MP3 format (which let you freely copy to any of your devices or computers to enjoy the music wherever you are: but of course instead of copying to friends you should encourage them to buy their own copy from the web site to support the artist).

If you'd like to listen to some of Henry Hey's music, check out his myspace page (click here).


Youtube video of myself performing Chick Corea tune

Also, in the past few weeks I have been working on learning the wonderful Chick Corea tune, entitled "Windows". I mostly know it from his incredible 1988 album Now He Sings Now He Sobs.

Last weekend I made a Youtube video of myself performing my own improvised arrangement of Windows (click here to view), and the comments I have been getting are really encouraging.

dugin27 writes:

I don't know how much money you're going to make playing piano but I know enough to say that you're goning to have one hell of a fine time with that instrument for the rest of your life. Bravo and best of luck. Bud

drmhouse writes:

Very nice playing... you love to just play and it's fun as hell to watch.

I'm really enjoying this whole Internet thing, to be able to share my music with people around the world, and learn from other talented people by watching their music too, it's the greatest thing! Many interesting years ahead!!  ¶ 1:10 AM