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Wednesday, November 23, 2016

I wrote you a song.

I know you’ve all missed my awesome chord progressions and off-tune singing, so I’ve made yet another one of my music videos!


In the attempt to protect you from my own appearance, I recently invested some money into an animation software by name Anime Studio. It has a 350 pages tutorial. Me being myself, I didn’t read it. But I spent the last weekend clicking on any menu item that couldn’t vanish quickly enough, and I’ve integrated the outcome into the above video. I think I kind of figured out now how the basics work. I might do some more of this. It was actually fun to make a visual idea into a movie, something I’ve never done before. Though it might help if I could draw, so excuse the sickly looking tree.

Having said this, I also need to get myself a new video editing software. I’m presently using the Corel VideoStudio Pro which, after the Win10 upgrade works even worse than it did before. I could not for the hell of it export the clip with both good video and audio quality. In the end I sacrificed on the video quality, so sorry about the glitches. They’re probably simply computation errors or, I don’t know, the ghost of Windows 7 still haunting my hard disk.

The song I hope explains itself. One could say it’s the aggregated present mood of my facebook and twitter feeds. You can download the mp3 here.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, and I want to thank you for giving me some of your attention, every now and then. I especially thank those of you who have paid attention to the donate-button in the top right corner. It’s not much that comes in through this channel, but for me it makes all the difference -- it demonstrates that you value my writing and that keeps me motivated.

I’m somewhat behind with a few papers that I wanted to tell you about, so I’ll be back next week with more words and fewer chords. Meanwhile, enjoy my weltschmerz song ;)

23 comments:

  1. I've never met a scientist or engineer who did not have some very creative hobby. Now I know what yours is, at least one of them. Loved it! You were on key all the way through, yes the song was self explanatory, and while the rhythm/melody a bit to "techno" for my taste it is an easy kind of pattern to do a song to. Did you do the music & lyrics?

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  2. You don't perchance have a band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers, do you? :-)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckaroo_Banzai_(character)

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  3. Thank you, Bee, for wishing us here in America a happy Thanksgiving. Way back when my three sisters and two brothers were preteens and teenagers, our parents took us to Plymouth Rock to see the great boulder on which the Pilgrims first set foot in the New World. We also explored Plymouth Plantation, the simulated 17th century English village the Pilgrims founded.

    Thank you for reminding about the donation button. Having enjoyed reading your amazingly informative blog, and truthfully very mesmerizing musical videos, for years, I feel derelict not having ever donated, and will do so tonight.

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  4. I tried the donate function a short time ago, thinking I could do it directly through VISA, but it asked to log in to Pay Pal. So, I logged in, and the Pay Pal page came up in Chinese characters. I clicked on the English version, then tried to proceed, but it defaulted back to the Chinese characters. The donation might have gone through, but I will have to wait till after Thanksgiving on Friday to check.

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  5. Finally found the donate button, only shows up on phone if you ask for desktop version!
    Thanks for the Science and song's!

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  6. Beautiful! The drum beat's a tad heavy, but the background music is gorgeous, and the message really moved me (assuming that the liar refers to Herr Trump). I would never suspect that the singer is Frau Dr. H herself -- master of time, space and dimension (as Steve Martin puts it). Again, great job!

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  7. Bee made APSNews again - front page! "Q&A with Sabine Hossenfelder: Consultant for Armchair Physicists" 25(10) 1 (2016) November.

    https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal-data-abused/
    Win10: All your keystrokes are belong to Microsoft.

    Do sensitive material on a Win7 box. For Debian Linux on the fly, boot Knoppix 7.7.1 or later from a DvD or thumb drive.

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  8. Your singing isn't out of tune, you just choose to sing in a unique 1/8-tone scale.

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  9. Matthew,

    I did the whole thing from scratch. I admit it's somewhat of a style-mush, I'm not sure exactly what one would call it. The main reason is that I have a very limited range of 'virtual instruments.'

    The way it works, you buy a software for the audio composition and mix. These come with a set of basic instruments and beats. On this, you can add instruments which you have to buy in addition (not to mention other fancy plugs to eg fix your vocals). It gets very expensive very quickly. And since I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing anyway, I've shied away from getting any better synthesizers or beat machines or what have you. It also means, basically, no guitars. And it seems kinda pointless to spend money on a better vocal processing if my recordings are miserable to begin with. So, these are the constraints that I work with. Best,

    B.

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  10. VSTi guitars will always sound awful. The guitar has too many vectors of expression to sample all possibilities and arrange it convincingly. If you want to expand your available instruments, though, it's hard to beat Spectrasonic Omnisphere for the money--easy to use and a ton of high-quality presets, and diverse source waveforms if you want to build your own.

    That said, I like the retro synths in your videos. I say just keep doing what you're doing.

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  11. Sabine, it's a hobby and you grow it over time like everything else! No need to apologise for early efforts. All part of the process.

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  12. I think a tune like that could catch on. Maybe a bit more work but you've got the stuff

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  13. I much enjoyed your music.... like all ? old people I was searching for the CC button, but what the heck. Have been trying Kodi, but DESPERATELY need to figure out the subtitles. I am surprised you got a manual. John

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  14. John,

    If you click on the YouTube icon in the bottom bar, the video will play on the YouTube site. Click on "show more" below the video and you'll find the lyrics there. Best,

    B.

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  15. If you're still looking for new video-software, you could try Adobe Premiere Elements.
    I've been doing video-montage as a hobby for ages and the Elements version of Premiere suits most of my demands. I also use Pinnacle Studio every now and then, but even at close to 20 years since version 1.0, it still isn't stable.
    Best thing is, the Adobe version allows for a trial-period.
    Both Premiere Elements and Pinnacle studio are at sub-100 euro level, which I think is a fair price. Although both have their silly quirks and design-choices and both crash every now and then, with Pinnacle being the most unstable one.

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  16. Sabine,

    Rather amazing that you pulled that off. It makes for good theater, maybe like classical Greek or some earlier tribal pageant. The music is a strong, tactile current. It left me on the hook with feelings though, kind of dark, wondering what to say.

    Feel responsible for my part in your eclipse. We fumbled the ball and these lizard-brained bipeds have carried it off. I realize that for Europeans with any sense of history it must feel like a portent of a dark tsunami rerun. And over here the guy with the US patent on tears is pricing yachts. Still, there is wide awareness and resolve, an urgent feeling of coming on an accident doing what one can.

    Mostly I am worried that our election will interfere with your work on quantum gravity and feel a need to proscribe treatment for your anxiety. Consider mounting a spirited expedition to some local jazz club (your choice of spirits). Maybe something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hgqMys-Bs

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  17. Bee, I need to cheer you up. Armageddon is not around the corner, any more than it already was/is. If we can (re)fuel the fires of capitalism and pull this world out of SEVERE lethargy and PC and statism, we [all of us] may make it to the next century still free. We are on the threshold of a lot of great things --let everybody find them. You probably didn't want to hear that, but I am 72 and I don't fear the future. It is unknown by definition, we try to design it/man at our peril. You have to let men free to find it. Best! John

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  18. However that may be, there is a very high probability of a Winter Solstice and a returning of the light. Keep the music coming. Best.

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  19. Your songs are brilliant! I love them. Unique & individual. Please keep them coming Bee!! I don't really understand physics but I sure appreciate your creativity. :o)

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