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Dec 27

Enjoying iTunes via Statistics and Music Geekdom

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
This next post is not as much a lesson as a confessional. Did you know you can combine music and statistics? iTunes has so many labels and tags that can be added to your music and the database that it is possible to evaluate this music with statistics. (Whatever that can be labeled can be measured and whatever that can be measured can be tracked with statistics). I am a huge statistical geek (an obscure soccer league, political elections, band ratings, etc) so the idea of analyzing the music I listen to in new ways is like combining peanut butter and chocolate. First of all here is the best page with links to great software that can help analyze your iTunes library. It is located at TuneQuest. Check it out… I have tried two different programs. The most polished one is called SuperAnalzyer and it is pretty super. It creates some wonderful statistics and graphs. SuperAnalzyer PDF Document The other program is not listed on that page but is courtesy of a fabulous little script written by Scott Yanff. iTunes Statistics Text Document Now these statistics were taken late December 26, 2009 of my personal library. It is a snapshot […]

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Dec 26

The John Sellers Formula

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
I always thought it would be cool to come up with a way to evaluate musical artists and bands using some kind of mathematical formula. But thinking and doing are two different things. An intrepid author by the name of John Sellers who wrote a book called “Perfect From Now On” answered my prayers and created such a formula. I am not going to provide a book review, except summarize it by saying it is an entertaining memoir from a person from my generational cohort (so that means its full of piss and vinegar) who talks about his devotion to the Alternative Rock scene. What Sellers does in his Appendix that had my geek-senses all aflutter is create an elaborate, pretentious, but all so tasty combination of math and music fandom. With John’s permission, I am pleased to make my own contribution to his formula by enshrining it in an Excel spreadsheet. Now you too can see how your favorite artists align (or don’t) with John’s passion for the abrasive world of Alternative Rock. I would hope that John’s formula could become a template for others to tweak and create their own formulas. Check it out… John Sellars Formula

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Dec 21

DJ Crsb is in the House

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
Consider this to be my Christmas and Holiday Gift to you. I am releasing for free ( hey, you get what you pay for 😉 ) my first album of Electronica music. I originally composed this music for a computer game that I had in development between 2004 and 2007, but that game has now been shelved and the music was good enough to still be shared. So without further ado… DJ Crsb is pleased to release his debut album called “Never Mind The Billogs Here’s Chris Billows”. Yes, corny is what I aim for, but you will find the music not reflecting that tone. I might not be taking myself too seriously as far as the album name and sleeve is concerned, but I did work pretty diligently on this stuff and am proud of it. Check it out and Merry Christmas to you. Presents (1) Standoff 2:31 (2) Duel 1:54 (3) Rising 1:51 (4) Chalk Shock 2:06 (5) Crystal Lullaby 2:12 (6) Fairy Tale Down 2:53 (7) It’s Never Too Late To Rewind 2:46 (8) Soft Space Scrap 3:11

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Oct 31

Lesson Two in Using iTunes: Rating Your Songs

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
Once you begin importing all of your music, what do you do next? Rate them! iTunes has a robust 5 star rating system that allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff. Since rating music is considered to be a personal matter, there are some who think that it does not matter how these ratings are arrived at. Personally I believe in having some standards or rules when it comes to deciding how to rate music. Here are some suggested standards: 1) Don’t confuse bad music as being the same as music you don’t like. Good and bad is pretty relative (though not completely) when it comes to music. Strive to be objective about what you are rating for. Is it about how the music makes you feel? Do you like the instrumentals? The lyrics? Is it what the artist stands for? The production values? 2) Rate only music that you honestly can appreciate. If you don’t like Rap music, then don’t rate it until you have given it an honest try and can appreciate what it trying to do. I think its an form of intellectual dishonesty to rate something you don’t understand. The challenge is to blend […]

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Oct 12

Lesson One in Using iTunes: Importing

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
Since I have publicly disclosed my love affair with iTunes, I thought I would share some the my lessons in love. 😉 The first lesson I learnt in importing one’s music library into iTunes is: Do it right from the beginning. (Not really helpful eh?) 😛 What I mean by “right”, is that you should import all of your songs off the entire CD, and do it at the top end of the bit-rate range. The first mistake I made is that when I started doing the importing about two years ago, I was anxious about running out of hard drive space. I would try to pick the top five songs off every CD. When I started importing my CDs, I would listen to them, identify which tracks that I wanted to import into iTunes, write those down, do the import, and finally place the CD in storage. It became a headache in having to debate when a song made the cut or didn’t. Well, I eventually learned that a song that I might have not liked when I first heard it, might be worth re-listening to when prompted by an article or recommendation. Now I had to go dig […]

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Oct 04

A Love Affair with iTunes leads to Marriage with Apple

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
I have loved music for as long as I can remember. Playing music on records (I still remember my first record player and albums when I was six), then to cassettes, and then CDs. But it was the combination of music and computers that opened up new possibilities to think about music. Combining music with computers in the form of MP3 files was a revelation for me, but I struggled with finding a program that would do everything I wanted. I tried everything except iTunes since I wrongly believed that I needed an iPod to use it and that it would not play or catalog my MP3 files, just the ones purchased off the iTunes store. So about two years ago, I decided to see what everyone was raving about, I downloaded version 7 and immediately fell in love. What charmed me was that my most wanted features at that time were being provided: iTunes provided a clean and attractive interface that controls the folders of the MP3 files. Unlike many other control freaks out there, I don’t care what the file or folder is named, I just care that the files are there and easily found. iTunes allowed me […]
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