Anyway, in the mean time a quick google brought up the following solution:

• http://www.dgf64art.com/2011/07/05/installing-amazon-mp3-downloader-on-ubuntu-11-04/

Unfortunately it doesn’t work – the step which installs the manually downloaded .deb files fails due to broken dependencies. However further googling found a post from 2008 which revealed a technique based on the very useful getlibs utility.

So here’s my solution:

1. Download the 32-bit Amazon downloader app for Ubuntu 9.10.
2. Run sudo dpkg -i --force-all AmazonMP3DownloaderInstall.deb
3. Run sudo apt-get install getlibs if you don’t already have getlibs installed.
4. Run sudo getlibs /usr/bin/amazonmp3 and answer yes to the confirmation.

At this point if you try to run /usr/bin/amazonmp3 you’ll probably hit Ubuntu bug 781870. The workaround is as follows:

export GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE=/usr/lib32/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders.cache
/usr/bin/amazonmp3

You’ll still get an error that it’s trying to load the 64-bit version of libgvfsdbus.so thanks to Ubuntu bug 369498. I had hopes that export GIO_EXTRA_MODULES=/usr/lib32/gio/modules would fix this, but it seems that this variable only gets honoured too late. However, apparently this issue doesn’t stop the program working so can be ignored.

Another option is to use Banshee’s built-in Amazon downloader, but even without all the politics surrounding Ubuntu’s version of Banshee this didn’t suit my tastes.

UPDATE: Wow. Just found out Amazon doesn’t support re-downloading stuff you’ve already bought. This is truly pathetic, especially considering their Android app kind of implements a locker service. From now on I’ll be using 7digital whenever I can – unfortunately their selection isn’t as big though. The quest for the perfect music services continues … :-/

However, more recently I have noticed that the majority of times I submit a new CD to freeDB, it gets rejected due to a discid collision. This is due to a fundamental limitation in the discid hashing algorithm which freeDB inherited from CDDB – it’s only a 32-bit number, of which a mere 8 bits are used as a checksum for the individual track starting times. So it’s no surprise that we’re getting collisions galore, at an increasing frequency as the database continually grows. Even worse, CDDB attempts to deal with collisions by making CD entries in the database uniquely retrievable by (discid, category) pairs, where category is one of only 11 musical genres. Of course this is woefully inadequate, because there are countless genres and most music defies classification anyway. They attempted to deal with this by calling the 11th category “misc”, but that still has the problem of restricting entries to one unique discid per genre. Unsurprisingly this has caused a huge number of collisions, especially in the “misc” category. As a result, people have been re-submitting collided entries into the wrong genre, simply because having an entry with the wrong genre in the database is still better than not having it at all.

Gracenote, the eventual owner of CDDB have developed a new generation database imaginatively called CDDB2 which adds a much richer meta-data structure. Gracenote has taken advantage of this to clean up the mess caused by attempting to shoe-horn classical CDs into an inadequate schema, and license the results to Apple for iTunes. Unfortunately that’s no use to those of us who recognise the value of freedom over vendor lock-in.

It seems that the freeDB server software hasn’t been updated since 2006, so presumably there’s not much of an active community left. So there’s a ripe opportunity for a smart philanthropist hacker to breathe new life into this valuable project. Sounds ideal for Google Summer of Code task, for instance. As this is largely a lazyweb blog post, here are my thoughts on what needs to be done; it’s unlikely I’ll ever manage to prioritise it above other things already on my plate:

• Design a new collision-proof hashing algorithm. It should produce at least 128-bit hashes, and include as much information about the contents of the physical CD as possible, namely:
  1. number of tracks
  2. starting times of all tracks
  3. total playing time

  This algorithm could be as simple as calculating the MD5 digest of a delimiter-separated concatenation of the above items represented as integers.

  Notice that this should be limited to information which can be retrieved very quickly; for instance producing MD5 digests of the contents of each track takes too long to be useful in practice.

• Design the next level of the CDDB protocol (which at the time of writing would be level 7), which allows additional querying by this new 128-bit (or larger) digest.
• Extend the existing freeDB server software to support this new level whilst remaining backwards-compatible with existing clients. In other words, database entries should be retrievable both by the old (32-bit discid, category) pair and the new digest. This would require iterating once through all existing entries to recalculate the new digest for each.
• (Optional) Extend one or more F/OSS clients to use the new protocol level, and advocate other clients to do the same …

For bonus points, you could extend the database schema in a similar way to CDDB2, and then start a crowd-sourcing project for cleaning up the database with respect to all those pesky classical tracks which have distinct composer / performer metadata.

So, any takers? You’d win the admiration and gratitude of a few, the satisfaction of knowing you helped slightly improve the lives of millions, and a place in heaven

Just over two years ago, I blogged about taking a leap of faith and turning down two great jobs because they didn’t involve doing something I was truly passionate about. It was a gamble, but even after two months I could tell it was going to pay off. Sure enough, two years later, I found myself with a wealth of new experience and knowledge which I’d had a ton of fun acquiring, plus a healthy boost to my CV and set of friends and connections within the industry.

Then the stars aligned again, and I found myself with another life-changing dilemma: take an even more awesome job than the one I was in, or quit IT altogether and face an indefinite period of zero income. Pretty obvious what to do, right? I quit.

If that sounds crazy, it’s because it probably was – definitely another leap into the unknown. But I’ll try to explain my decision. I’ve had a number of life-changing decisions to make over the years, and I’m gradually learning to trust my gut instincts in those moments, because they’re generally right. I think they work out well because they’re usually based on my need to keep doing things I love doing (or to put it another way, my pathetic lack of tolerance for things I don’t enjoy), rather than concerns about money and other tedious “real world” distractions.

But wait, I hear you ask – didn’t I just say I decided not to pursue an even more awesome job than the one I loved doing for the last two years? How could my instincts guide me away from that? There are two parts to the answer.

Firstly, I had a bit of luck recently which combined with existing savings and investments meant that I could afford not to work for a while. Secondly, I’ve had an itch for a long time to play more music, and it just wouldn’t go away. In fact it kept growing and growing, until (20 years later than would have been ideal) I identified it as a basic need that I’m stuck with for good. When I say “play more music”, I don’t mean the kind where you go off and play along with CDs in your bedroom every now and again, or join an amateur orchestra. That’s enough for some people, and I totally respect that – but for some reason (false pride, perhaps) I could never bear to think of myself as a hobbyist musician. For better or worse, I only ever enjoy playing music when I’m playing to the best of my ability, and experiencing real progress.

Unfortunately, in music as with many things in life, progress requires hard grind – the standard blood, sweat and tears formula. Jazz musicians call it “shedding” which is short for “woodshedding”, because the idea is you lock yourself in a woodshed for 6 months and practice non-stop. If a 15 year career in IT has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t develop your musicianship quickly alongside a full-time job outside music. So I quit. Or at least, I’m taking sabbatical. To be honest I have no idea what will happen. Maybe I’ll go back to IT full-time, maybe part-time, maybe never. Right now I’m just focusing on studying, practising, playing with other people … whatever I can do to improve.

I decided that I’m most interested in developing my non-classical skills, especially jazz but also various types of folk, pop, Indian, and whatever else takes my fancy. I’ve played (Western) classical music my whole life and had some of the most incredible experiences from it, but now I want to explore what can be done on the cello outside that – cello is such a versatile instrument and there’s a whole new sound world which is a mostly untrodden path at this point.

That’s all I have time for now, but I’ll blog again soon about the amazing experiences I’ve already had around the USA in the last two months – I have a whole ton of photos, audio and video, so watch this space!

• http://cellobello.com/blog/chamber_music/cello-is-my-co-pilot/
• http://cellofun.yuku.com/topic/4483

My situation is different because I have a Luis and Clark carbon fiber cello which is incredibly robust and generally does not even go out of tune when checked in as normal baggage and placed in the hold of the aircraft in a normal hard case. My case is a Bam Hightech measuring 54.5 × 21 × 88.7″.  It seems virtually all airlines policies regarding oversized baggage operate in “linear” or total dimensions, i.e. by summing up the 3 separate dimensions together.  This means my case has a linear dimension of 88.7″ which unfortunately is outside the 62″ standard limit, and even just outside Delta’s second tier limit of 80″.  Having said that, so far I have always managed to get it treated as normal sized baggage simply by confidently pointing out that the height is 55″ which is under 62″. In my experience, most staff at the check-in gate are not familiar with the exact terms in their airline’s policies, so having the right attitude (confidently knowledgeable and up-front but non-confrontational) can go a long way.

I’ve done some research on the policies of some popular airlines and referenced the relevant extracts below, with one section per airline. The quotes I’ve taken are focused mainly on national flights within the USA, because despite being from the UK, I’m currently flying around the USA a lot. However the policies for international flights seem similar, although sometimes with higher fees.

N.B. In addition to the below fees, most airlines typically charge around $25 for checking an extra bag.

Delta Air Lines

http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/baggage/special_baggage/musical_instruments/index.jsp

What Musical Instruments Can Be Checked?
Musical instruments or equipment can be checked if the total linear dimension (length+width+height) does not exceed 115 inches (292 cm) and provided the weight, including the case, does not exceed 100 lbs. (45 kg).
Standard rules and fees for overweight and oversized baggage

http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/baggage/excess_baggage/index.jsp#oversize

175 USD/CAD* for bags measuring 63–80 inches (161-203 cm) in combined length, width, and height. Some Specialty Items may be exempt from this fee.

300 USD/CAD* for bags measuring 81-115 inches (204-292 cm) in combined length, width, and height. Some Specialty Items may be exempt from this fee

Summary – could cost over $300 but been lucky so far.

Jetblue Airways

http://help.jetblue.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/webisapi.dll/,/?St=351,E=0000000000047971896,K=4928,Sxi=18,Case=obj(2132)

Musical instruments as checked baggage:
There is no charge for Musical instruments as long as they are within size and weight requirements. JetBlue accepts no liability for damage to Musical instruments. We suggest packing them in a hard-sided container designed for travel.

http://help.jetblue.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/webisapi.dll/,/?St=351,E=0000000000047971896,K=4928,Sxi=18,Case=obj(634)

63 – 80 inches (203.2 centimeters): $75 per bag
Bags over 80 inches: Will not be accepted

Summary: could be forced to buy an extra cabin ticket, or even turned away. However they have a good reputation amongst cellists.

United Airlines

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,50773,00.html#music

However standard oversized baggage allowed up to 115 linear inches:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,52907,00.html#oversize

for fee of $100:

http://www.united.com/page/article/1,,53403,00.html

Summary: musical instruments discriminated against and limited to max of 62″ whereas other oversized baggage can go up to 115″ for cost of $100.

Frontier Airlines

http://www.frontierairlines.com/frontier/plan-book/travel-info-services/baggage/baggage-chart.do;jsessionid=5DBD43BCE9C1368C59705E648F626AD4

For musical instruments, no extra charges but excess, oversize and overweight charges apply if applicable.

http://www.frontierairlines.com/frontier/plan-book/travel-info-services/baggage/checked-baggage.do

We know it’s a weighty issue, but please remember items which exceed 62 linear inches (length + width + depth) or weigh more than 50 pounds will incur a fee. There is a $75 fee for bags exceeding these weight limitations and a $75 fee for exceeding the size limitation. These fees are charged separately and one item can incur multiple fees. You can read more about baggage in the Contract of Carriage (PDF).
We take the safety of our passengers and employees very seriously. Frankly folks, our employees have to lift and carry these bags to get them to your flight and we’d really like to keep those checked bags under 50 pounds each. And, as much as we’d like to help, we don’t accept baggage that weighs more than 100 pounds or exceeds 110 linear inches (length + width + depth). If you need to transport items this large, please check with your favorite package delivery company. Thanks for your understanding of our policy.

Summary: $75 worst case – the best policy I’ve found so far.

Continental Airlines

http://www.continental.com/CMS/en-US/travel/Pages/BaggageExcess.aspx

Oversized Baggage

• Customers who travel with checked baggage exceeding 62 linear inches (157 cm) (total length + width + height) will be charged at the rate of $100.00 per piece for travel within the U.S., and between the U.S. and Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Customers to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America with oversize baggage will be charged at the rate of $200.00 per piece.
• These charges are in addition to any charge assessed for additional or overweight baggage.
• Baggage measuring more than 115 in (292 cm) (total outside dimensions; length + width + height) will not be accepted as checked baggage.

Summary: $100 worst case.

American Airlines

http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInformation/baggage/baggageAllowance.jsp#overweight

Checked baggage which is larger than 62 in/157 cm will be charged at the rate of $200 per piece.
Baggage measuring more than 126 in/320 cm will not be accepted as checked baggage.
…
Instruments may also be transported as checked baggage, however, due to their fragile nature AA does not accept liability for damages and has limited liability for loss. AA is also not liable for any damage to checked musical instruments not presented in a hard-sided case. If the outside of the hard-sided case does not have visible damage, AA is not liable for any damage to the musical instrument inside the case.

The implications of the last two sentences don’t make any sense – if they do not accept liability for damage (as in the previous sentence), why even bother specifying requirements for hard cases and visible damage on the outside?

Summary: as bad as Delta, and with highly ambiguous wording regarding liability for damage.

Conclusion

Any cello case, even a non-flight case, will exceed the standard 62″ limit for oversized checked baggage, and unless you are lucky at check-in, will incur a fee typically around $75 to $100. Most cello cases are unlikely to top the overweight baggage restrictions. Generally musical instruments are subject to a slightly different “special baggage” policy to normal checked baggage, but usually this amounts to a disclaimer of liability and similar or identical rules regarding dimensions.  Some airline policies are much worse, e.g. Delta, will potentially charge a whopping $300 for exceeding 80 linear inches, but having said that I have travelled with Delta several times and they didn’t charge me any oversize fee at all, just the extra checked item fee. United could potentially require a cabin ticket, and Frontier have the cheapest and most tolerant policy I’ve found so far.

So the other night I found myself desperate for a replacement.  I do have a Boss ME-70 with me which has a built-in phrase looper, but it only stores 38 seconds which is barely enough to get to the bridge of Cherokee.  Even worse, there is no way to undo/redo loop layers or store the whole thing after you power the unit off.

Then it occurred to me that I could potentially combine my laptop (a cheap Samsung N150 netbook) with a microphone, headphones (as a poor man’s substitute for an amp), and some software to achieve the same thing.  At this point, those of you with a Mac will exclaim “sure – use GarageBand!”  However, as shiny as Macs are, they are expensive and I also can’t stand Apple for philosophical reasons.  (I can’t stand Microsoft either, which is why I use Linux, but I digress.)  If you are interested in an alternative approach to looping with software, read on!

My netbook already has a built-in mic, which while surprisingly good for something so tiny, couldn’t ever hope to compete with a proper mic.  Plus it picks up noise every time you press a key or click a mouse.  Luckily however I recently bought an excellent little portable PCM / MP3 recording device when I was in New York: the Sony PCM-M10.  I’ve been using this to record all kinds of things on my travels – private lessons, groups classes/workshops, masterclasses, performances, jam sessions etc.  However one really cool feature is that if you press the red Record button, it goes into paused “ready to record” mode, at which point, any audio captured by its built-in stereo mics get passed straight through to the 3.5mm (1/8″) headphones / line out socket.  In other words, it will behave just like a pretty decent stereo mic!  So, one trip to Radioshack later, I had a male-to-male stereo cable for connecting the headphones socket to the microphone input on my laptop.

So at this point I could record fairly decent stereo audio directly using any simple recording software.  The next step was to see if I could find some good looping software… I tried out SooperLooper which looked very promising and is Free Software (free as in freedom, not just price), but I found the interface very confusing and poorly documented, despite only needing to do basic looping.  From 1996 until a few weeks ago, I was an IT professional, so if I struggled, it’s likely that less technically minded people would too.  Plus it only runs on Linux and MacOS X, which rules out anyone with Windows.  To be fair, I do believe that SooperLooper has a bright future – with a few tweaks and some comprehensive documentation, most of the difficulties could be eliminated.  But for now it isn’t quite right for what I need.

Then I looked very briefly at other Free Software loopers: Kluppe, and FreeWheeling, but neither had enough polish, and trying to progress as a musician is hard enough without the distractions of trying to help fix software bugs.

Finally I realised Audacity, the superb cross-platform sound editor, could do everything I wanted, and actually do it surprisingly well!  So, here’s a first stab at explaining how to emulate a loop pedal with Audacity.  (Later I may collaborate with Chris to produce an instruction video on this…)

1. Download and install Audacity – it’s Free Software (as I said above, Free refers to freedom not just price, which is much cooler than freeware) and it works on Linux, Windows, and MacOS X.
2. Ensure your computer can record audio via some kind of microphone (ideally a decent external one as explained above, but a built-in mic will do) or line in.
3. (Obviously) ensure your computer can play back audio to you.  When you add new layers onto the loop, you will be playing along with the existing layers.   If you’re using an acoustic instrument with mic, and want to avoid including sound from the existing layers getting mixed in with the new layer being recorded, one cheap trick is to use headphones instead of an amp/speakers.  This is what I do because I can’t lug an amp around on my travels.
4. Start up Audacity, click the red Record button, and check that it’s correctly recording sound from your mic or line in.  You should see a waveform appear, then hit Stop, and Play to check it’s working.
5. Click the cross in the newly recorded track to discard it.
6. (Optional but recommended) Record a count-in track.  This could simply be you saying “a-one, a-two, a one-two-three-four”, or four clicks from the metronome app on your phone, or whatever.  Leave a few seconds of silence before clicking the Stop button to stop the recording.
7. (Optional but recommended) Click “Audio Track” at the top left of the new waveform, click “Name…”, and enter something like “count in” as the new track name.  Optionally click the up arrow at the bottom left of the new waveform to shrink it vertically, if you want to save screen space.
8. Click the Record button, then record your first loop layer after the count in, then stop recording soon after (it doesn’t matter exactly when).  Chris Howes recommends that if you are using the looper as a practice tool to improve your internal pulse and groove, your first layer should contain as many of the subdivisions of whatever meter you’re playing in.  So if you’re in 4/4, consider starting with a chopping or comping pattern which covers all the eighth or sixteenth notes.  Then the bass line can come later and lock in with these nicely.
9. (Optional but recommended) Rename the track you just recorded, as in step 7.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 to record additional layers (you can also skip this for now and do it later).
11. Select the portion of audio across all tracks which corresponds to the loop you want, i.e. omitting the initial count-in and any trailing silence or noise.  To do this, drag the mouse from the left-most point within the second waveform (track) from the top (remember the top one was your count-in track) where the loop starts, and then drag to the right-most point where the loop ends in the bottom (i.e. most recently recorded) loop layer.  You should now see the desired loop region in all tracks but the count-in track turn a darker color.
12. Now hold down Shift and click the Play button, and you should hear your loop.  If the start or end isn’t quite right, move the mouse over either boundary, and drag it left or right, then stop playback and start it again to check that you got the right loop region.
13. When you’re happy, click Edit > Play Region > Lock to avoid accidentally changing the loop region.  (If you want to change it later, you’ll have to unlock it first, then repeat steps 12 and 13.)
14. Carry on recording new layers at will.  Existing layers can be muted, changed in volume, panned left/right, deleted, and edited in a zillion other cunning ways, because Audacity is primarily a sound editor, not a looper.
15. (Advanced usage – entirely optional) If you want to temporarily focus on practising a smaller portion of the loop, for example you can’t quite nail the Cherokee bridge or those pesky 9th and 10th measures of Countdown above 350bpm, then you can select those measures as in steps 11 and 12, but then click Tracks > Add Label At Selection, and enter a label for this portion.  You’ll see a new label track containing the new labelled region, which can then be used to quickly select this portion for playback.  You’ll probably have to first unlock the play region set in step 13, so instead you might want to have a label for the whole loop too.
16. If you’re happy with the final result and want to keep it for another session, click File > Save Project from the menu or hit Control+S.

That’s it!  It may be a bit more involved than stomping on a couple of pedals, but it’s simpler than the steps above make it look, and it is a hell of a lot more flexible, doesn’t include the stress of having to stomp precisely when you start and finish playing, and doesn’t cost several hundred dollars either (yes, I’m writing this for an American audience, in case you hadn’t already noticed by the spelling and vocabulary above …)  The only downside is that you can’t do all the steps seamlessly for a live performance in the way a looper pedal lets you.

Hope that was useful.  Feel free to leave feedback in the comments!

Despite being sold as a “chromatic” harmonica, it could only manage a rough approximation to three octaves of C major. Also, the holes are in a different place for the top octave, which meant every time I attempted the “do re mi” major scale, I accidentally finished with “… fa sol la ti MI” followed swiftly by a profanity, and consequent howls of laughter from Corinna. It cost very little and sounded progressively worse the more I practiced it, although I only place the blame partially on the harmonica for that. In case you don’t believe me, here’s the proof:

Download audio file (terrible-harmonica-scale.mp3)

(Now seems a good time to mention that if you haven’t already seen Shane singing 5 octaves on the piano, go and watch it immediately.)

Eli followed suit shortly after, although he managed to buy a harmonica which was not only roughly in tune with mine, but even stayed in tune with itself! He also proved to be a quicker and more dedicated student than myself. Nevertheless, by the time we reached Xmas day in Bangkok, we were able to give reasonably credible renditions of the harmonica duet version of Jingle Bells to our unsuspecting families over Skype.

Corinna sensibly eschewed^* such a crude instrument in favour, sorry, favor of something much sweeter – her voice. She also steered us very gently away from the harmonicas towards singing too, although with my range being comparable to Shane’s, and Eli’s “occasionally unstable” falsetto, I’m not sure that was quite as sensible.

Anyway, I digress. We learnt Tim O’Brien’s beautiful song “Foreign Lander”, and figured out some harmony and a bass line, which by the time of the final performance with banjo in Changi airport actually sounded pretty good! If you don’t know the tune, this youtube video has the original version as its soundtrack:

However my jazz tendencies mean that I sometimes get the urge to take something simple and beautiful and do evil corrupt things to it. So when I got back to London I reharmonised it as follows:

Download audio file (Foreign-Lander-reharmonisation.mp3)

(If you know how to play the piano properly, please ignore the fact that I don’t …)

[*] One of the many running themes of the trip was “words you write/understand but never say” – for me ‘eschewed’ falls into this category. ‘Sidewalk’ used to too, but after 25 days with two Americans, I found it magically popping out of my mouth. Eli came up with ‘idyllic’, Corinna with ‘laviscious’ and ‘ephemeral’, and there were several others I will need help remembering …

Unexpected side effect: the cravings to play jazz more often are getting too hard to ignore. If you see me starving on the sidewalk in a few years’ time with a big “will play bop for food” sign then you’ll know how it happened.

Also following hot on the heels of a mad mid-carnival gig, the next monthly installment of Guanabara goodness from my band is on April 4th – come check it out!