The Magic in the Magic Trackpad

For a long while, I've heard things about trackpads on OSX and how they can improve your workflow. I used to think that it might be cool to have one, but I'd eventually end up not using it a lot and it'd just go into the tech drawer. But recently after my sudden influx in video and music editing and with all the gesture support in the recent versions of OSX, I thought it might be worth it to try a trackpad out on my main computer. So, I got one as a gift.

A Magic Trackpad

After the initial unboxing and stroking of the aluminum (what, people don't do that?), I paired it with my Mac which, surprisingly and unsurprisingly, took only about a minute. Then, I started moving a clicking away. And after using it for about two weeks, I found my original thoughts to be quite contrary to reality: I now use my Magic Trackpad more than my Razer Mamba mouse. It's even more surprising when you consider how good and expensive of a mouse the Razer Mamba is.

But why? On my mouse I have six buttons which is very good for a mouse as most only have three. On my trackpad I only have two buttons. But what I do have that I don't have on my mouse is the arrangement of my fingers.

Not only do I have the approximately fifteen gestures that Apple includes with OSX, but there's this amazing program called BetterTouchTool that allows you to attach gestures with your Magic Trackpad/Mouse to keystrokes and other types of input per application or system wide.

These are just some of the gestures included with the program

This has changed my whole way of navigating my computer, especially in Final Cut Pro X. I do a good amount of video editing and this guy's BetterTouchTool preset for Final Cut Pro X has really sped up my workflow. Instead of having to use two devices, a mouse and a keyboard, I can mostly use only one not only for controlling basic functions in Final Cut Pro X, but systemwide functions such as opening applications and switching between them. And not only am I using it in some of my more complicated applications, but I'm also using it in Chrome now too, binding taps and swipes to opening and closing new tabs and commands such as those. The trackpad emanates convenience.

Of course a trackpad will never replace my mouse. My mouse will be a go to for gaming and purposes where moving my finger back and forth repeatedly is just more work the moving and clicking my mouse back and forth. My trackpad also occasionally goes wonky on me which I hope Apple will fix. But my personal anecdote goes to show that the trackpad does have its home not only on the laptop, but on the desktop as well as showing how a trackpad and a mouse can live together in harmony with their own strengths and weaknesses.

 - Aidan

Thoughts on "Why Are Guitarists So Bad at Guitar Hero/Rock Band?"

I wish I could write more...

But anyways, my dad plays guitar. Not professionally or anything, but I'd say he's decent (that kind of sounds mean, doesn't it?). However, despite his guitar skills, he cannot play Guitar Hero or my recent purchase of The Beatles Rockband (which is a great game by the way). He just cannot get through a song on any difficulty without failing it.

The answer, it seems, is obvious at first; it could be said that he's playing a totally different instrument.

Exhibit A: "Fender" Rockband Controller.

Exhibit B: Fender Stratocaster (sexy, isn't it?)

Yes, they look similar. But everything about them is different; the weight, the method of strumming, the way notes are played (on one of the guitars, there's only five options), and most importantly the sound, or lack thereof. So, sure, they're different things, but is it still a terrible difference? Shouldn't it be relatively simple for a guitar player to adjust? With all great questions we turn to Google for the answer. In this case, I found an article dubbed "Why Are Guitarists So Bad at Guitar Hero/Rock Band?". I'd suggest you read it before continuing (it's short). But, it you’re too lazy to read the whole thing, this is the ultimate answer to the question:

All of this is true because experienced guitarists have wired their brains to subconsciously feel out their musical surroundings “in real-time” and adjust tempo, pitch and even musical progressions accordingly. With a touch-and-go type of routine, musicians find it hard to re-train their brains to perceive music in a strictly methodical manner (and thus tell their hands to act accordingly). We feel the urge to pop out a solo, or break the chain of commands with a subtle tempo change.

I'm not a guitarist but I've been playing piano for nine years, cello for about four, and am level 8 (hopefully soon to be level nine!) in the Certificate of Merit program so I know music. And I can play these types of games great. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I can play these games on Expert and mostly score in the 90% total notes hit rate. So, why don't I have trouble playing such a "methodical" game?

It's not like I just picked up the guitar and played it near perfect on my first try. There was learning involved. I got my first Guitar Hero game probably about three or four years ago and gradually over time I got to the point where I can do pretty much any song on expert and pass it.

What does this say about guitarists playing these games? They have trouble because they're playing a new instrument. As mentioned earlier, the Rockband guitar is just different enough where regular guitarists find it hard to play but just similar enough that they get embarrassed and angry when they can't play it. Because these guitarists get angry and get up, they don't actually want to practice the instrument (which is how you get good) and, thus, they never get better.

It's also interesting to note that the author says the "touch-and-go-type" feel of these games are what's hampering guitarists. Sure, the ability to interpret music is huge and I do it everyday, but when you're reading sheet music, do you usually do a lot of improvisation and changes from the music (unless you're really good)? The discs flying down the fingerboard of the guitar on the screen are exactly like notes on a staff and they are actually better than notes on a staff as there are only five notes possible on a Rockband guitar. What most people are doing while playing Guitar Hero are sight reading. Of course, knowing the song beforehand helps immensely (which is why these games focus mostly on popular songs/groups).

Here's a personal example: on the piano, I've been remarked as an excellent sight reader by evaluators and peers. However, when I sit down to play a piece I've never seen on the cello, I can't do it as well as I would on the piano because I don't know the instrument as well. I've been playing that piano since childhood so it's almost a part of my being. But the cello came into my life rather late in the game and I don't practice it nearly as much.

It is not the programmatic nature or lack of interpretive, natural playing that makes these games so hard for guitarists (and I guess you could say musicians), but the fact that you are playing an instrument you have never played before. These games are not bad things for musicians at all, but rather as the article stated "If nothing else, they can help with finger dexterity and rhythm!" along with sight reading, I might add.

So, in essence don't blame the game and simply, practice.

 - Aidan

P.S: Rockband does have a keyboard accessory though I'm pretty sure it would require another compatible game and, of course, the accessory. It would interesting to play that on Rockband one day and revisit this question. Also, it would be cool to play this song on Rockband

Thoughts on Journaling

I've tried to keep a journal numerous times; They've all failed.

I've tried paper journaling, journaling using applications, and even journaling with a cloud service that syncs your journals to all your devices (it's a very beautiful application for Mac and iOS devices called Day One). And a question popped into my head today: Why do a lot of journaling attempts fail? Especially, it seems, in today's generation.

Nowadays, copious amounts of people in the world have some sort of an account on a social networking site whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. What do all of these have in common? They're archives. For example, although I don't use Facebook anymore, I can still log into my account and look at my posts from years back, detailing how I was on a specific day or showing how I saw the world that day via a picture I posted at a specific time.

We don't need journals today because we journal without even recognizing we're doing it. We post things we like, things we're thinking, relationship problems, thoughts about our life, school, work, etc; basically, most of us post a lot of information about our personality and lives. And as long as these websites are functional (or there will be someway to access or download an archive of our data), we'll be able to log onto Instagram in 30 years and show our kids what the sunset looked on a specific date.

Isn't that awesome?!

But there are of course problems with this. The first is the information you would put online versus in a private journal (whether via paper or an application). Sure, we post a lot of information about ourselves online, but there are still some things that we wouldn't want people to know about. Maybe an embarrassing health issue or a certain grade we got on a test. The majority of us probably filter mostly the good or the interesting of our lives to display online.

And really, that could be related to a lack of seriousness in (mostly) youth today. My English teacher showed us this really interesting article that left an impression on me called "How to Live Without Irony" and I highly suggest you read it. If you find you are too lazy to read it, it basically describes some of the movements of today, such as the hipster movement, as trying to not being true to yourself and liking things that are "cool" instead of liking things that you actually think our cool... I hope that made sense.

The point is, although people shouldn't post every gory detail about your life online, it shouldn't be normal or considered okay to make an online persona totally different to your own. I'm not talking about posing as your mom on Facebook or something, I'm talking about revealing only your good side or, even worse, making things up to make yourself seem really "cool" and "awesome". Be who you are. Tell people of your accomplishments, your failures, and just be human.

Am I guilty of not being truly who I am online? Probably. And probably many others as well. I'm not trying to get down on anyone, but it's just so easy to be different from who you really are online and I know many people do it. So my advice to you is to just be yourself online as I try to do, although I'm not perfect.

My mom keeps a journal and she's been keeping journals since she was little. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, to turn to. Just her and her thoughts.

And maybe one of the reasons we don't keep private journals anymore is because we find it boring to talk to a book. I mean let's face it, would you rather post on Facebook that you won a 1st place gymnastics trophy today and get some likes and comments from others telling you how awesome that is, or would you rather write in a book which gives you a pale, white stare? When you posting something online, there's a chance someone will see it; there's a chance that someone will think of you for a moment or even take action to like it or tell you how much you like it. With a journal, especially because there's much more private information in it than a social networking site, you're most likely going to be the only person to ever see what you wrote. And twenty years from now, when feeling a bit nostalgic, are you really going to go on bringbackyourfacebookfromthedead.com to look at your old Facebook posts in a nice, organized, chronologically-ordered list or are you going to try to leaf through your paper journal to try to find an interesting time in your life (hopefully, you bookmarked those parts)? Although this problem of trying to find something manually can be solved by a journal application, since it's a journal there's going to be a lot of superfluous and uninteresting information that only applied to that day. Isn't it still going to be burdensome trying to find something to read versus seeing what cool, outdated links you Tweeted that one day?

Really, it seems the only point of keeping a journal now is if you like to record your day in great detail (maybe to relieve stress or because you know you'd find that interesting in the future), to put down sensitive information, or because you don't trust social networking sites with their longevity as a service or their privacy policies. It seems like a lot of people don't really care about these because there are a stunning lack of journal takers it seems, at least in my generation.

But regardless, keep journaling journalers, like my mom, and keep posting social butterflies. If you've never tried journaling, I suggest you try it, just for a little while; you might just find it's your cup of tea.

 - Aidan

Back to Square One

It feels like eight months ago.

Eight months ago, I was barely a speck of dust to the Internet. Sure on Youtube I had slight success with some videos, but on all of the other social networks I had nothing. Fifteen followers on Twitter, four views on each video I posted, nothing on Google+, etc. People cared somewhat about my videos and not me. I was kind of depressed about that, although really I shouldn't be. However, shortly after acquiring my (now ex) girlfriend, she quickly surpassed me in terms of internet popularity somehow (something to do with furry voodoo magic); she promoted me to her hundreds of followers and I got more views on my content which made me happy.

However, she's gone now. Well, I guess not technically gone, but she's not promoting me anymore. Through my experiences with her I've learned many things. One of which is that I can't rely on others to promote my content. I need to be liked and known not because of sympathy because someones boyfriend is not popular or because I'm some cool chicks boyfriend; I need to be known for me, for what I make. That's not to say that promoting your friend/significant other is bad in any way, and really that couldn't be farther from the truth. But if that's the only reason this person is getting recognized after a while then that's a problem.

So, either I'm not doing a good enough job advertising or maybe the content itself is not good enough. Or maybe I just need more time, though I doubt this because I've been putting content on the web for about two and a half years. And I don't really know how to solve the problem of advertising as I can't really do much with my current financial and social position. But one thing I know I can improve and work more on is the content. I have been starting to make more music lately. In fact, I'm working on two (most likely) full length tracks right now. I am being very heavily inspired by the works of C418 and Owl City as my pieces are starting to have an electronic almost ambient tone to them. For example, while working on one yesterday I thought to myself, "Wow, this would sound really good in a documentary". I am still trying to figure out my unique musical style. Through making the music I'm making I'll hopefully be able to figure it out and use it to my advantage. It would be really cool to eventually make an album and I even have ideas for an album/artist name although those are really just fantasies at this point. Sometime in the future, I might show sneak peaks of these things and make smaller, shorter pieces to expand my musical portfolio.

In short, one thing I have learned is to depend on yourself and not others for what you produce. It's your work, not theirs.

 - Aidan

My Piano Teacher Went Crazy

I had to write this two days after the incident because I didn't have time.

So I went to my piano lesson a few days ago as usual, expecting to have another lesson as usual. My mom had driven by her house thirty minutes earlier (our houses are in the same neighborhood) and she noticed a police car at the house. It was when we actually went to the house that we figured out why the police were there.

We went in, sat down, and listened to the police officer talk to my teacher's husband about "missing persons" and things along those lines. It was after he left that he told us what actually happened.

My teacher had woken up at 7:30 that morning which, according to her husband, was normal. She would sometimes get up, read email, go shopping, things along those lines. He said when he had gotten up at 9:30 and noticed she was gone, he didn't give much thought to it. However, when she didn't come home a few hours later, he started worrying and called a house that she was supposed to go to to give a piano lesson. He told the family to inform him if she never came to the house. She never did.

After that, he got even more worried and started calling her. When that didn't work, he called local hospitals in an attempt to find her. He eventually had to call in to the police and report her as a missing person which was about the time we came. He told us this and would inform us of any updates to the situation.

That night, my friend's parents (my friend happens to go to the same piano teacher as me) took the husband to the airport because he had read on their bank account online that a plane ticket to Washington D.C. had been purchased with their credit card. When they got to the airport, they found their car which she had taken off with; the keys were still in the ignition and the doors were unlocked.

This part of the story I'm a little fuzzy on but I believe what happened next is they called the airport that the plane ticket had gone to and asked the security if they would look in their airport for my teacher after being unsuccessful in the airport they were at. Security agreed and sure enough my teacher had been sitting there for about 7 hours. Thankfully, American Airlines sent her back home on a flight and she's now at home and at a hospital.

Why did this happen? A few years ago, my teacher had a battle with a brain tumor and had to stop teaching for three months. Apparently, the tumor has been growing all this time and affected a part of her brain that made her act the way she did.

I hope she gets better and is able to teach again soon. I don't know how much and how permanent the damage to her brain is, but it might mean I have to switch teachers. Certificate of Merit, an annual piano test I take), is in about two months and I still need practice. I might have to go to another teacher. Not to mention I have a recital next week.

So yeah, this was a weird, disturbing experience for me. Any prayers and thoughts about her would be appreciated.

 - Aidan

Satisfied Customers

So, as you may or may not know, I've started doing commissions for thirty second pieces of music for only $3. I've already made five pieces and you can listen to and download them here. And by the way, if you want information for how to order one, go here.

But anyways, the real point of this blog post was to show some of the emails I've gotten from people who have ordered a piece from me. Along with each quote, I will include a link to a picture of the email, just so you know that I'm not making this stuff up X3 The first one's from the first piece I ever made called "Rue's Getting Angry" for Gir Zim:

"...It most certainly satisfied my requests! I really REALLY like it! And sorry it took so long to reply...

This is excellent! And really cool, so thanks again!

-Zimgir (ᗡog)"

 Photo of email

This next one is from Hybrid when I composed the piece "Approaching the House" for him:

"...i don't mind the wait, it was worth it
i have to say though, i was a little disappointed that the piano was a little overpowered most of the time
but i love that you added the rain and thunder sounds <3
that really helped paint the picture of walking up to an old house
overall it was a great piece, thank you very much"

Photo of email

This next one is for when I did the piece "Into the Cosmos" for @TehDeminz on Twitter and he Tweeted me: 

"@throughthemines That is amazing. @.@ It's a lot more than I was expecting x3 I definitely love spacey music. :3"

Link to Tweet

And by the way, whenever I get one of these my heart pretty much melts inside so thank-you so much to whoever sends me feedback :3

So, I guess if you were still unsure to commission me even after listening to the music, this is more incentive to, I guess X3

Thanks for reading,

 - Aidan

Apple: It's Not About Features, It's About the Experience

Hey, we're going along with a technology theme, huh?

So, Apple recently released a commercial that I found... interesting.

So, let me tell you what I, an Apple guy, think about this commercial.

Eh, not feeling it.

Don't get me wrong, the Do Not Disturb feature is great and acts just like the commercial says. But I kind of had the reaction that @TehDeminz had when he Tweeted me and said "... So their selling point for that commercial is a glorified snooze button, and they used ping pong to do it? #wat". Like I said, it's a good feature but it's not one of the best prominent features of the iPhone. It seems like Advertising couldn't think of anything more significant to advocate. At least if you're going to advocate this feature, do it with other more significant and impactful features.

(and as a side note, the whole premise of the commercial was just weird. I've never dreamt of two chicks playing ping pong with me, but hey, maybe that's just me)

For example, Apple in the past has done commercials where they focus on a specific type of person. Like this one that focuses on shopping:

Sending pictures or going online with your phone was nothing revolutionary. But being able to figure out a great gift for your wife, cheaply and quickly is what Apple's trying to sell. They're trying to sell an experience instead of above which is a feature. This "feature selling" is apparent in some of their other recent ads as well, such as this one touting noise cancellation:

Noise cancellation is great, but when is the Average Joe going to be drowned out by an orchestra? How about instead, he asks Siri where the nearest Starbucks is and then he goes to get a coffee and pays for it with Passbook. Then while on a bustling city street outside, he gets a call from his wife telling him to meet her at a café (while talking to his wife, the city sounds grow fainter, suggesting noise cancellation). Then using Siri again, he gets directions and using the turn-by-turn navigation in Maps, is able to get to her. I included four features in that commercial, but it wasn't a commercial, it was an experience; a real life scenario. Apple isn't about features, they're about experiences. That's one of the things that makes them so great and different from other technology companies (or at least, usually different). One awesome example is from their competitor, Google.

First of all, you have an adorable child and a mother (+50 points). But, while you see distinct capabilities of the Nexus (e-book reading, 3D gaming, apps, Siri-esque capabilities), that's not the focus or the point of the commercial. The point is that this Nexus is helping a child fuel her curiosity (which, oddly enough is the name of the commercial and the name of the rover that just went to Mars) for space and for reading which is not only cute and adorable to regular people, but is further impactful for moms who now see this device as something that can be beneficial to their child. That's what Google gave to me and to probably many others. Isn't that better than noise-cancellation or a Do Not Disturb Feature?

So basically, I'd like to see more commercials from Apple based around experiences rather than features. And I bet many others would too.

 - Aidan