Notes_Norton

I agree that something needs to be done, but I don't know exactly what that will be. I'm not an expert in that field. But when AI and other automation processes take away too many jobs, and the desperately poor class gets large enough, that's when civil unrest will begin. IMO, the upper 1% does not need to have over 50% of the wealth of this country. As long as the balance is where too many people are starving, things will go on as usual. The country is so politically divided that it's going to take a lot to make any change. And we all know, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.” I've also read worst case predictions that if we keep warming the planet at the rate we are today, our food crops will start failing around 2050. So if correct, I guess civil unrest will come anyway. Notes ♫

I don't see that in the USA. One of our political parties is so anti-welfare for the poor, but pro-welfare for the already rich, that they will block any attempts from anyone to get UBI. That also tends to go towards socialism, which a lot of people are also extremely opposed to. Me? I don't see extreme capitalism or socialism as the answer. I think a mixture would be great if we can find the point where both the capitalism sector and the socialism sector benefit our society. Notes ♫

I love road trips. Probably because my father liked to drive. We would drive from as far as Connecticut, New York, or New Jersey to South Florida to visit relatives. After high school, I tried to join the Air Force and got a 4F on my physical. So instead, I got in a road band. 4 guys, one car, and a 4×6' trailer full of instruments. What a gas. I've driven to all of the lower 48 US States, and much of Canada. Yukon and Labrador being the farthest. I've rented cars and/or campers in Alaska and Hawaii too, plus Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia, the UK, and a few parts of Europe. In Europe, I mixed rental cars with public transportation; trains, buses, and trolleys. Driving gives me the freedom of going at our pace, stopping if we find something interesting, and pleasant company with me (wife). As a musician, I've taken jobs more than 200 miles away. Mostly from people who moved from our area to other parts of Florida. I figure time and fuel, give them a price, and if they buy, I'm all for it. For these reasons, I'd never buy an electric car, but a plug-in hybrid would be my best choice. Notes ♫

But they still aren't reliable. They haven't even reached beta testing stage yet. They still do things they shouldn't, which is why someone in the driver's seat is supposed to be paying attention at all times. The problem with that is; Sitting in the drivers' seat of a car that is driving itself, lulls the person in that seat so he/she isn't paying proper attention. The result of that is accidents that can take the life of the people in the car, and others. With time, more failures (bugs), software patches, more bugs, and more patches, eventually they will be safer. I would guess that getting a driverless car to go from Boston to Atlanta safely is more difficult software-wise than landing a probe on Mars. So give them time and experience, but I'm getting in one yet.

I agree, but I won't be an early adopter. The cutting edge is often the bleeding edge, which is even more appropriate when the computer is driving your car. And most of us know, don't buy version 1.0 of the software. On long trips, I enjoy driving more than I do being a passenger. I get bored in the 'shotgun' seat after a while. But if all self-driving cars happens in my lifetime, I'll comply. Notes ♫

I think eventually self-driving automobiles will be safer, but until version 4.0 or 5.0 comes around and gets all the bugs out, there will be deaths. I see a lot of naturally stupid drivers every day.

It's coming, a thing called A I The people are saying, “Oh my!” Our jobs will be gone, we're losing our home And now we are all gonna die. (This limerick was NOT generated by AI — AI probably would have written a better one) Notes ♫

Punch cards put loom operators out of work, and all the Luddites in the world couldn't stop that. Quicken, TurboTx, and others put accountants out of work. Direct Dialing put telephone switchboard operators out of work. Voice to text put stenographers out of work. Self-checkouts put cashiers out of work. Robots put automobile and other assembly line workers out of work. Harvesters put farm laborers out of work. DJs put musicians out of work. Where are the lamplighters, electric meter readers, telephone installers, Linotype operators, typesetters, ice delivery men, telegraph operators, elevator operators, film projectionists, milkmen, camera film developers, soda jerks, ditch diggers, blacksmiths, paperboys, gas pump attendants, pin setters, TV repairmen, highway toll takers, and so many others who have been replaced by technology? To survive, they all had to find something else to do in order to make a living. AI will definitely put people out of work. — It's nothing new. We can all be Luddites about it, but that never worked in the past, probably won't work in the future. Capitalists want to increase their profits, and one way to do that is to lower their labor costs. It's nothing new. Most things seem to be happening at a faster rate than they did in the past, but technology feeds technology. The question so many think about is this: If they put too many of us out of work, who will have enough money to buy their products? I suppose there will be a balance point. The richest of the rich will profit, some displaced workers will find other jobs, a few in the industries that replaced them, and others will tragically be forced into poverty and hardship. Fortunately for me, as a live musician, my advancing age will eventually put me out of work long before AI takes my job. Notes ♫

The software I'm concerned about is the Band-in-a-Box aftermarket products I sell at nortonmusic.com and the >650 backing tracks I made myself for my duo s-cats.com They are all stored off-site. Anything else is replaceable. Notes ♫

I think that when concerts became big business, with big investors, there had to be some sort of fail-safe. With millions of dollars at stake, not only do you have backing tracks, but need the ability to replace anyone's voice who gets laryngitis. And with so many acts being acrobatic in their dance moves, I suspect the lead singer is also on the track. In my duo, I'm proud that I make my own backing tracks, but the audience doesn't really know that. I hope they are better than the karaoke tracks my competitors use, and I hope that's what they notice. Notes ♫

I don't know if insurance companies will include software. It's a good question. I backup my software off-site. That's the best insurance I can think of. Notes ♫

I totally agree. I was playing an old Selmer Modele 26 at the time, which sounded good, but the intonation, like most older saxes was challenging. Especially for a student, having better intonation is a good thing, after all, the young person's ears aren't fine-tuned yet. The last 2 saxes I bought on the Internet. I'm happy with both, but I wonder if I could have been happier if I could have tried them out and compared them with others. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. I do miss local mom & pop music stores.

When I bought my first professional saxophone, a Selmer Mark VI (which is now like a pre-CBS Fender, worth a lot of money). I went to Ace Music in Miami. They were our equivalent to Manny's. Saxophones are not in tune with themselves. An adjustment of lip pressure on the reed for each note is required to play in tune. The player practices long tones in front of a tuner, and learns the 'signature' of each horn he/she buys. Which notes are sharp, which are flat, how much, how little, and so on. Muscle memory and ears take it from there. Ace had 3 brand-new ones in stock. Our school Band Director loaned me the school's strobe tuner. I picked the one with the best intonation of the three. It served me well for many years. Now, if I want to buy a pro sax, I have to get it online. I don't get to pick the best one they have in stock. I miss brick-and-mortar music stores, especially the mom&pop type. But there isn't much I can do about it. I supported the last one around, buying everything from strings and reeds to instruments, but too many others went online and he went belly-up. Notes ♫

What do I dislike about Apple? Certainly not their products. It's their upgrade or die attitude. I know they are just trying to make a buck, but this is not respectful for their customers. Do I have a right to disagree? I created a 'fake disk' for Band-in-a-Box customers in the 1990s. Mrs. Notes and I spent over a year upgrading it to reflect the thousands of new styles and the improvements to Band-in-a-Box over the years. I'm getting ready to release it. How much? Zero. It's Free. Why? It's the right thing to do. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Bought a few things from a Florida store, including my wife's first Parker guitar. Now everything seems to be on the 'net, instead in-store. Most of all, though, I miss the old mom & pop music stores. Notes♫

I'd rather hear someone using AI to write a song, than to hear someone with a tin ear relying on auto-tune. But that's just me. I listen with musician's ears, the public does not. So it really doesn't matter what we think. Whatever is fed to the masses, and whatever is 'in', good or bad, will be popular. I'd rather hear an intense Shostakovitch symphony than anything any current pop star ever put out. But the masses definitely don't agree with me. I wish I could predict what will become a hit with accuracy. If I could, I'd go into the consulting business, and make some big money. Notes ♫

It's something that breathes life into the song.

The first RnR guitar hero has gone to the great gig in the sky.

I gigged on cruise ships from 1986 to 1990. The TVs on the ship only played a movie over and over and over again, and the port advertisement commercials. I got out of the habit of watching TV. Instead, I got into the habit of doing things, rather than watching things. When my mother-in-law needed care, we jumped ship, I hooked the cable up, and a couple of months later, Mrs. Notes and I realized we were paying $45 a month for something that we weren't using. So we disconnected and never looked back. The last two TV shows I watched were Johnny Carson's last Tonight show, and Jay Leno's first Tonight show. And we had to go to my mother-in-law's house to do that. Full disclosure: We have a small TV, and we turn it on once a week to watch a movie. We had the minimal Netflix one-disc-at-a-time subscription for a while, now we go to the library, or stream from public library associated sites. I guess we're weird. In my duo we play covers. Some like the record, some similar, and some are our own complete rearrangement. We also play many different genres of music, from the 1920s to the 2020s. We do pop, rock, country, Caribbean, Musica Latina, and whatever. It's easier to say what we don't do. We do only one heavy metal song and only one rap song. I would play 'art music' but you can't make a living doing that around here. I like not being a wage slave working from Monday to Friday, getting bossed around, and living for the weekends. I'm free. I make my living playing music, I benefit from my good decisions, and hopefully learn from my bad ones. And we really enjoy what we do. It's the most fun we can have with our clothes on, and we make a living that way. I don't think AI is going to take this job away from me, at least in my lifetime. Insights and incites by Notes

Back in the 1980s, when the then future Mrs. Notes and I quit the 5-piece band we were in due to personnel problems resulting in loss of work, we became a duo. My main instrument is saxophone, it's my voice. I also sing and play flute, wind synth, guitar, bass, drums, and some keyboards. Mrs. Notes is a fantastic singer, and she plays rhythm guitar and synth. Most duos at the time had a drummer and either guitarist or piano/organ player. I didn't want to play drums all night. I wanted to sing and play mostly sax on stage, so I bought a multi-track tape recorder, and made my own backing tracks. This later went to MIDI, but MIDI wasn't around a lot in the mid 1980s. Other musicians used to say, “You are putting musicians out of work with that thing.” My response was, “I'm putting two musicians to work. I'm gigging in rooms that historically only hired singles or duos, so tell me who am I putting out of work?” That usually ended the conversation. Now is AI going to put songwriters out of work? I suspect to a certain extent. Sooner or later it'll regurgitate enough of the past hits to make something the public will eat when it is fed to them. After all, remember the hit song, Get Up And Boogie by The Silver Convention? If you don't, here are the lyrics. (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie Boogie, boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie (That's right) Boogie, boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie Boogie, boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, get up and boogie Get up and boogie, get up and boogie Get up and boogie, get up and boogie Get up and boogie, get up and boogie That's it. Background “singers” in parentheses. I'm sure AI is capable of that already. And if promoted properly, anything can be a million seller. Insights and incites by Notes

I sign my posts, so other people know who to blame! Notes ♫

The best gig I had was playing in a jazz band. The leader played with Ira Sullivan for a while, and settled down to teach jazz guitar and theory at the University of Miami. It was all live, and heavyweight jazz stars would come by to sit in every once in a while. Players so great that I felt like I was faking it. Other players would come every week, some great, some good, and none were bad. I guess you have to be pretty good to show up at a jazz gig with your instrument. Sometimes, the leader would call songs I didn't know, he and the keyboardist, who pumped bass with his left hand, would call songs I never played before. He'd call the key, and I could figure it out by the time my solo came, I'd give him a nod. We'd also play Real Book songs that most people knew. Other folks would come to sit in, and we had a great time. The only problem was that it was on Sunday Afternoons only. It was during the time I had a day job, trying to see what normal was all about. I was a field engineer for a Cable TV manufacturer. I'd fly out Monday night to whatever system I needed to work on, work Tu. W. and Th. and fly back on the Thursday red-eye, so I could play on the weekends. It was fun playing 'art music' that I didn't have to depend on and not being in control, was living on the edge. It was an exciting gig, and a lot of fun. But I found being normal for me was over-rated, so I ended the CATV engineer gig, and started playing music full-time again. I'd rather play “Brown Eyed Girl” for the zillionth time, than be a wage-slave again. A bad day playing music is still better than a good day at any other job I can think of. I went back full-time and never looked back again. In retrospect, it was the right decision and the best thing I could have done. Notes ♫

Here's another. Giant Hi-Rez TVs with Hi-Fi sound in the living room. In the days of Black & White and later CRT Low Rez TVs, you got less than realistic picture and very tinny, mid-range audio. Plus, before CATV, there were only a few channels available. Face it, we have a lot more competition now. And for those who want to be recording stars, without the labels and radio stations being the filters, the competition is astronomical. Anybody can put up a YouTube video or put their efforts on a streaming audio service. Being discovered by a potential listener is like being that needle in the haystack. So we have to find a way to adapt to the changing times. Notes ♫

My saxophones and flute would become stars, and could drown out those acoustic guitars Notes ♫

I've played just about any venue a musical can. From seedy dives to big concerts and everything in between, cruise ships, weddings, condominiums, yacht/country clubs, singles bars, show clubs, grand openings, private parties, and so on. In a live performance, IMO, the musician(s) and the audience have a dialog with each other. We need each other to complete the circle. That's where the magic happens, and I hope AI doesn't take that away from me in my lifetime. Notes ♫