Everything’s gone green - The world of mistrust music

Not exactly music-related, but some news anyway. I’ve recently had an article published in a popular e-learning magazine in the USA. I wrote about how young kids are growing up learning the language of the World Wide Web and how we should encourage them to become proficient in using the internet at an early age. The article was reproduced from my own e-learning blog that someone from the magazine found a while ago, and asked if they could publish it. I’m quite chuffed, as you can imagine, and it just adds to the the list of other articles/letters I’ve had published in the last year or two (eg in Future Music magazine).

You can read the whole thing (and the rest of the magazine) online in a virtual magazine reader here at E-Learning Magazine’s website (go to page 50 of the NextBook edition.) or see it in its original form on my e-learning blog.

Also…. I’m seriously considering moving all my other blogs into one place (here!) as it’s easier for me to keep tabs on what I’m writing and who’s reading them.

I’ve just launched a new add-on to my blog/website. It’s a mobile website, built on something called Winksite. I came across this through my elearning daytime job when I was looking into podcasting. Winksite lets you make webpages that can be viewed on mobile phone, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but never got around to it. I’ve only added a few things to it at the moment, some things are copied directly from this blog, but I’d like to have some mobile-only content. At the moment, it’s in it’s infancy and I haven’t tried it out on many phones, so I’m hoping that a few of you who read this blog and who have mobile phones will browse the mobile pages and let me know if there are any problems with it, or if it works ok.

The address for the mobile site is:

http://winksite.mobi/mistrust/music

or just click the Winksite logo…

Other news:

I’m still plodding along with my remix of Pitch Black’s Rude Mechanicals. Should have it finished soon, but it feels like it’s missing a melody or pad line, so it’s that which is holding me up - plus I only get about 10 or 15 minutes a night to do something with the remix because I’ve started taking Paul for a drive a lot earlier than usual.

I got a message posted on my blog the other day from the editor of an e-learning magazine in the USA, asking if he could use one of my posts in the forthcoming edition of his mag. It’s something I wrote a few months ago on my e-learning blog about getting young children used to the language of the Web as soon as possible. I said yes to them using the article, so it should appear in ELearning! Magazine in a few weeks, in a section entitled “The Last Word”. More fame!

Just to let you know I’m finally in Music Tech Magazine for winning the Motif XS6 synthesizer! The article is in February’s edition - but in case you don’t want to buy it, the editor sent me a copy of the page, and I’ve attached it here as pdf (the whole page) and a jpeg (click to see the whole pic).

Other news…
the manager of a band from New Zealand called “Pitch Black” has said I can have a go at doing a remix of a track from their new CD, “Rude Mechanicals”. If it’s good enough, it’ll appear on the band’s remix CD and as a download on music sites like iTunes and Beatport. More on that soon when I decide which track I want to have a go at….

Non-music stuff: we took Paul to see a residential school in Shrewsbury today. Absolutely amazing place. Part of a 16th century hall and estate. Class sizes are usually 2 students and one teacher - it’s for kids with autism. He sounds relatively keen on it, but we’ll have a job on convincing the education authority to pay for him. It’s around £30,000 per year!

Page from MTM magazine reproduced by kind permission of Music Tech Magazine/Anthem Publishing/Yamaha UK (c)

I’d guess that a lot of people have a video or two on Youtube, Google Video, and some of the many other video hosting sites. Out of those people, how many of them use the videos to drive web traffic to their own, or someone else’s website?

I’ve got a couple of the O’Neill surfing clips on Youtube. These are two of the sections that are used in the “Deep Blue Open 2005″ promo film, featuring three of my tracks.  Since I uploaded them, I’ve have quite a lot of hits, but it doesn’t seem to be driving a lot of traffic to my this blog or the mistrust music website. The videos are amongst quite a lot of other surfing videos so you’d think that people who watch those would follow the links to my music. Maybe not. There doesn’t seem to be a lot written on the web about how to improve your traffic using Youtube etc. Maybe someone could suggest something.

Following on from the last post - “The Colour Purple” - I can now report that I was featured artist of the week on a show on Purple Radio, which is the official radio station of the Big Chill organistion. The DJ, Ketsbaia, played three tracks, “Dubcrazy”, “Painless Light” and “Distant Shores”. I got a few nice comments from the DJ, and some support on the Big Chill Forum. My tracks were played alongside a lot of “A-list” bands, and seemed to hold up ok. He ran out of time to play a fourth track “Never Alone”, but said that he liked it that much that he’d play it in a couple of weeks.

As for other things…

The “mistrust clan” went to Borth near Aberystwyth for a week in a caravan at the end of July. It’s an old fishing village, which is very quiet and suited Paul (my stepson, who has PDD-NOS, and a massive social phobia, amongst other things). It started off as a complete disaster - pouring rain, burst car tyre, everyone worn out - but in the end we didn’t want to come home. Lots of nice scenery and fresh air to inspire me to write some new tunes. I’ll put some of the photos on Flickr soon.

I’m in the middle of applying for a new job, and contemplating a move from the Manchester area to Yorkshire. Things are happening at work which mean I could be out of a job or at least being downgraded in the next two years, so the time is write to put my skills to better use. Besides that, the holiday proved how much Paul, and the other children, need to be nearer the countryside and aware from where we’re currently living. If anyone reading this lives in the more scenic areas of West Yorkshire, please can you leave a comment saying if it’s a nice place to live?

I’m something of a perfectionist when it comes to something looking right, and usually I get this nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me that something doesn’t look as good as it should. That explains why I’ve changed the look of this blog about 5 times in the last few weeks. I’ve reused the old “green” header and adopted a more plain-looking body. Hopefully I’ll be satisfied now and not want to change it again.

I’ve been trying to work out what to write here because there’s just been so much going on at home, work, and with the music. When I’ve got everything straight in my head, I’ll post more info here.

Other things: I’ve been helping Paul with some more tunes. He’s finally got back into music-making, so he’s been asking for some help. Expect more of his stuff on myspace soon.  Also,  I came across a great WordPress blog called Svartling.  It’s a comprehensive list of loads of new VST plugins and music-making software. Highly recommended!