JoLynn Seaman // Blog

We are opening an INDABA CHAT ROOM on SKYPE so come and test it out while its up for a little while. Make sure to download SKype first (mac or pc) first .. its FREE!  (if the moderator ignors you ..its becuase she's sleeping, hihi)

I am keeping my name! :) Deal with it! HAHAHAAH   (thanks guys)

After 50 hours of work and an excruciating month of wating for results, news finally broke that the boys of broken Iris have chosen the winner of HaloGrid.com's Broken iris music video contest. [Drum roll please].....A big fat congratulations to...........HELLHAWK of Walter Works Inc.!!!! (WooHoo!!)

imSuck, renowned Halo machinima maker and administator of the popular Halo fan site; HaloGrid.com, posted the winning video on Youtube yesterday. For his prize, he will recieve an autographed t-shirt and CD, and will be playing with his friends against the band members in a Halo tournament!

YEAH!! (That's my boy!) ;)))))))

You can see the winning music video for the song, "One Track Minded Age" here (Click on "About this Video" to read the movie description.):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dYvCBdiOx_M

For more Hellhawk videos:

http://vimeo.com/user369518

Well, I've finally gotten a Logitech chat headset. (WooHoo!) BTW, who puts a chord on the RIGHT side instead of the left?! Obviously this was made by the PC crowd.. (sigh!) So while trying not get tangled up, I need a smart, Mac proficient PC user with a headset to practice on. Any volunteers???  ;)

Forgive me, but I can't contain my excitement...I've gotta blog! My Berklee instructor just called me "brilliant" and my mix, "rockin'"! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Any Halo fans in Indabaland? Check this out:

The boys of the band, broken Iris, are major Halo fans. Imagine their excitement when they learned that Halo execs were gathering new music submissions for consideration in the upcoming Halo 3 soundtrack! Imagine their dismay upon finding out they missed the deadline! Imagine their glee to hear that the moderator of one of Halo's popular fan sites, HaloGrid, just happened to be a huge fan of the band (whew!). When news reached him of the band's missed opporunity, he came up with an idea: A machinima music video contest. To promote the band's music to the Halo community, the call went out to create a music video using one of three songs from the band. 

Enter Hellhawk: An upcoming "machinima master" famous for his "Floaty Silence" series. He is a former machinima contest winner in the leading Halo fan site, HBO (halo.bungie.org). Recognized by Halo music composer, Marty O'Donnell, as an "upstanding young man" (entrusting him with one of his Halo 3 songs), Hellhawk is a serious contender for the top prize which includes playing Halo with the bandmates! I am pleased to announce his contest submission called, One Track Minded Age. Named after the song, this movie poses the question, "Are our nightmares our own, or have they been passed on to us?" 

You can see more machinima from this talented director here. What's all this have to do with me? I hate video games....but I love Hellhawk... (He's my son!) ;)

I am in such a FUN mood, tonight! I finally had some time to "play" with my friends here at Indaba. I'm feeling so good I thought I'd post a little something, but first an update:

Thanks to Indaba's recent contest, I'm enjoying my generous prize at Berklee. I'm taking "Advanced Mixing & Mastering with ProTools" (what the heck?!)... So far, so good. ;-) Anyway, with engineering fresh on my mind, I recalled an article in EQ Magazine a while ago that just made me giggle my socks off! I'm betting some of you can relate to this poor guy:

Spence Peppard (no realation to George), engineer at Encore Studios in the Nacogdoches (Willie Nelson fame), mostly records country and hard rock. He's had his share of fits and was kind enough to compile a little "tip" list for us. So here is Spence's five cents worth from "a hell of an angry guy":

1.  One of us is not talented, and it's not me.

2.  Pro Tools will allow me to build a decent-sounding guitar solo for you, even though you can only play three notes of it at a time. Your "Frankenstein" solo will sound good on the CD, but you will still suck live. One of us is supposed to have lightning-fast fingers, and it's not me.

3.  If you want to use the studio as a $125-an-hour rehearsal space, fine. Bands used to come to the studio ready to record, but whatever. I can fix all sorts of mistakes with Pro Tools. One of us is totally unprepared, and it's not me.

4.  You planned to do the entire rhythm section of your recording with loops. Now you don't like that it sounds canned? One of us is an idiot. That would be the part of US that doesn't include me.

5.   A little compression makes music sound better. A lot of compression can make a CD sound better when played in a loud environment. I would like to produce just one recording where the client doesn't insist on every meter being a solid bar, where there are some dynamics, and where everything isn't compressed into a big, fat crap-cake. One of us will do that every time they're given the chance. Can you guess which one of us that would be?

.....Whew! I just made my own day! :)  [insert hysterical laughter link here] I hope it made yours too. -Stay beautiful! :)

**Cudos to my girl, Lauren, at Music Player Network for publishing clearance. :)

Finally I've finished my last minute rush in preparation for Christmas eve. Now that I have a moment while my hair is setting, I'd like to send out a big 'ol "MERRY CHRISTMAS" to all of my fellow Indabites!

In honor of the occastion I recently uploaded three well-known Christmas carols: "In the Bleak Mid-Winter", "Oh Holy Night", and "Oh Come Immanuel". I thought I'd pass along a bit of history behind each song. 

"In the Bleak Mid-Winter" began as a poem written in 1872 by Christina Rossetti. She was reading a magazine called Scribner's Monthly. They were asking their readers to submit a Christmas poem. The music was written later on by the English composer, Gustav Theodore Holst. After Christina's death, the song became the Christmas carol we know today.

I've already given you a little trivia about "Oh Holy Night" but here's the story behind it's origin: It was 1847 in France. The parish priest needed a poem for Christmas mass. Who came to mind? Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure. Placide was the commissionaire of wines in a small French town but people knew him for his poetry. As a man of Jewish ancestry, he was reluctant to take on this commision since he did not embrace Catholic doctrine. However, Placide considered it a challenge; so using the Gospel of Luke as his guide he wrote the poem, “Cantique de Noel”.

He was very pleased with his creation but he saw it to be more than just a poem. He envisioned it as a song, but he wasn’t a musician. This song needed a master musician’s touch and he just happened to know one: His friend Adolphe. The son of a well-known classical musician, Adolphe Charles Adams was well qualified having studied in the Paris conservatoire. His talent and fame brought requests to write works for ballets and orchestras all over the world, yet the lyrics that his friend Cappeau gave him challenged the composer unlike anything he received from London, Berlin, or St. Petersburg. Adams quickly finished the work and, just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the song was performed for the first time. It then became a standard song in various Catholic Christmas services and quickly grew to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in all of France.

Then, in 1871, the armies of Germany and France were embattled in the Franco-Prussian War. Placide had joined the socialist movement and the church then discovered he was a Jew. The heads of the French Catholic church were so incensed, they banned “Cantique de Noel” as “unfit” because of lack of musical taste and “total absence of the spirit of religion”. This proved to be to no avail as the French people continued to sing it at home.

A decade later, a shy American writer, John Sullivan Dwight, heard the it and, determined to bring this wonderful song to America, began translating the lyrics into English whereby the title came to be known as “Oh Holy Night”. It quickly became an American favorite, especially diring the Civil War.

Finally we come to "Oh Come, Immanuel".  This song began in the Middle Ages as a series of Antiphons. These are a series of Gregorian verses that begin with the word “Oh”, either spoken or sung before a Psalm or canticle. Recorded as early as 500 BC., antiphons played an important role in historical Catholic liturgy as each day different monks would take turns singing them. Eventually, these particular antiphons were arranged into poetic verses which we recognize as “Oh Come, Oh Come, Immanuel”.

In the mid-nineteenth century, an Anglican priest and hymn writer named John Mason Neale translated the stanzas from the original Latin to English. Speculations abound as to the origin of the tune. Despite evidence of fragmented forms of the Gregorian-style chant, “Kyrie”, most historians believe it is of French origin as far back as the fifteenth century.

The title comes from the Hebrew words, “Immanu’ el” which means, “God with us”. This refers to the prophecy of the Lord through Isaiah to his chosen people the Jews. Isaiah was told by God to tell King Ahaz, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Is. 7:14). Hundreds of years later, the apostle Matthew also refered to this prophecy in his account of the birth of the savior, Jesus Christ, born to save us from sin and reconcile us to the Father through his death on the cross and bodily resurrection (as stated in John 3:16). At the end of the book of Matthew, the Lord himself says, “"Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mt. 28:20).

May God's peace be with you all as you celebrate the greatest gift to mankind; the birth of our saviour Jesus Christ... "God with us" 

What was the first song to be broadcast via wireless radio? Let's see if you can guess....

The year was 1906. Reginald Fessenden was a 33 year old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison. Using a new type of generator, he attempted to do something long thought to be impossible. The day was December 24; Christmas eve. He spoke into a microphone and for the first time in history, a man’s voice was broadcast over the airwaves. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,”. People were shoked and astonished, rushing to their wireless units to hear the first broadcast from the Gospel of Luke about the birth of Christ. After he finished the reading, Fessenden picked up his violin and began to play, “O Holy Night”. This was the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves. Thus began the new medium that would take it around the world. Cool, huh? ;-)