I was planning to go out with the camera this evening, but then I got lazy (and besides, it was raining and really dark outside). So, to end the day, here is another photo taken at noon today, in a children's playground. I'm not sure what was my intention of taking this photo, but I guess there was something playful about these lines.
Going off-topic, Andreas wrote a nice posting on finding good music recommendations: "I find much by browsing lists and recommendations on Amazon, I find thing by chance, I get personal recommendations, don't worry, instead of drying up, I have to restrict myself to not browse too much."
This rang a bell. I have collected quite a lot of music during the years. Years ago this meant going through the cd collections in music stores (especially the discount tables), and more lately browsing through Amazon.com, Play.com, Emusic.com, Last.fm etc. In fact, I have 7865 tracks in iTunes which have never been played. (I'm not sure whether I have listened to them from a cd either.)
However, nowadays I'm lagging behind even with my Emusic.com subscription. There are several instances when I have forgotten to download the monthly 50 tracks. (Reminder to self: remember to download before Christmas the Emusic tracks of December.)
For one reason or another, most of the current digital music services suck. Emusic.com has a nice collection, but it is limited in a same way like a discount store: sure, there are excellent things to be found there, but if you try to find a particular piece, it is missing more often than not.
In many ways, iTunes is excellent, except that I don't like any kind of DRM - it complicates backups and potentially locks me out of my music collection. (And still I have bought several hundred tracks from iTunes.) Buying cds is one option, but I don't like to wait for the music to arrive after several weeks of waiting.
But worst of all, the digital music stores have a really limited music selection. For example, most Finnish artists are not covered in any of the big music stores.
On the other hand, perhaps it would be best to listen to the music I already have, and not to try to get even more music which might never be listened to.
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4 comments:
Juha,
these "one foot in the image" compositions have something very powerful, and I guess they would work fine in stock photography. Of course you'd have to invest into a DSLR to play that game, and I know you don't like that. Still. Very generic, very powerful.
Yes, I can imagine a whole series of "my left foot" images, and trying to get my foot in stock photography. But that would be a bit tedious, I feel. Not that I won't take such photos if there is a photo to be taken.
First of all, nice picture...
Concerning the music, I'm an eMusic subscriber too (90 downloads/month!) and it also happened to me twice to forget to download my month's tracks (also due to the fact that the reset date continuously shifts forward; it would be easier if it was a fixed date like the 13th of every month...)
You can gather from this that I'm a great music lover and a consumer of huge amounts of music (I won't mention the size of my CD collection;). I'm always interested to explore new grounds. As you mention Finnish artists, do you have any good recommendations? I know a lot of classical Finnish composers (Sibelius is one of my all time favourites, but I also like Klami, Aho, Sallinen, Sariaaho and especially Kokkonen and Rautavaara). But on the rock and popular front, apart from Värtinnä and Nightwish (which I like both!), I could use some suggestions of music that's available either via download or on CDs that can be ordered online. Thanks in advance.
Marc.
@Marc: As I wrote at Andreas' blog, "One of the most difficult things I know is to recommend music to someone else, or to buy music based on the suggestion of someone else."
And I'm really bad at this. So, any recommendations I make are only suitable if you have friends with a range of musical tastes, so that you can give the music you don't like to someone else.
And I have no idea how these would be available outside Finland.
You mentioned classical, so to get started I wonder how you feel about opera and sopranos. Karita Mattila is one of my favorites, perhaps best in concert where she gives her all. Of her recordings (I have five cds), "Sibelius Songs" is deeply Finnish. There are a multitude of Finnish opera singers in addition to her, but I'm not going to list more of them.
You mentioned Värttinä and Nightwish, so it seems that you are not limited to one genre. Somewhere in the middle of these two (but different) is the folk-rock band "Lauri Tähkä & Elonkerjuu". I have five cds, of which perhaps "Tuhannen riemua" (from 2007) would be a good start. But I should mention that they sing in a Finnish dialect and very much divide opinions, at least here in the capital region, being more of a provincial favourite. And they might be best heard live - I got the music only after attending a performance.
Going further, I don't really know where to start. Perhaps pointing to the list of current Finnish music favourites.
But here are some Finnish artists in my "most played" list: Aki Sirkesalo (died in the tsunami in 2004 in Khao Lak), Ultra Bra (band broke up in 2001), Jari Sillanpää (still going strong, perhaps not my personal favorite but gets played a lot at home), Johanna Kurkela (ditto), Ismo Alanko (a singer-songwriter with a succession of bands), Jonna Tervomaa, Kemopetrol.
And I also have a really large collection of children's music in Finnish. ;-)
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