So for some reason, I turned up the little Rel T-Zero while playing some Dvorak the other night. It's usually on 9:00 - 10:00 for jazz, dance, rock and pop. It could take 10:00. Since classical music doesn't have loud bass, I turned it up to 3:00. (Maximum is about 4:00.)
Everything became fuller, the sound-staging was clearer, and the damn violins stopped being so shrill.
The LS-50's start to fall off after 80Hz, being 6dB down at 47Hz. 3dB is neither here nor there, but 6dB is noticeable. I've set the crossover for the T-Zero at 120 Hz. If that sounds bad, it amounts to the range between the open sixth-string E of a guitar and the 5th string B-flat. Four notes in the key of F - and not the popular ones.
Most of the lower end of the big orchestral instruments get some help from the subwoofer (all the open strings of a double-bass are below 120Hz). As I found when experimenting with the EQ on the Katana, the sub-harmonics make a difference, so all the notes from A below middle-C down will get thickened out as well. Why the violins stop being so shrill, I'm not sure, but it happens.
Older recordings, especially analogue recordings that are subsequently digitised, respond to this well. Modern recordings have more bass in the original signal, so the subwoofer doesn't need to be as loud.
Well worth experimenting, should you have a subwoofer and older recordings of orchestral music.
Friday, 20 October 2023
Tuesday, 17 October 2023
iPhone SE vs Fuji X-E4
Take a look at these photos.
The first is from the X-E4. The colours are rich, the details and sharpness are out of this world, one can zoom in and get all the details. But the sky is blown out. That might be me being incompetent, but I don't think so. That's what happened with film, and Fuji are all about making digital photos feel like film. So the sky blows out.
The second you will have guessed is from the iPhone SE. The detail is almost all there, the colour is almost all there, but it doesn't have the presence of the Fuji photo. It does have, however, a detailed sky with clouds and blue bits. I've noticed this before: my iPhone camera seems to be good at not getting blown out by skies, and I'm thinking that's because the iPhone is a way more powerful computer than the Fuji, and the camera software can identify and treats skies differently to the rest of the photograph.
Thing is, call me old-fashioned, but I find the iPhone picture almost unrealistic. That's not how I saw the scene, as I was concentrating on the loco, not the background. I don't want all that background in such detail - it's a distraction. I deliberately have my lens at f4 (f8 equivalent 35mm) to blur the background for that reason. The iPhone gives me detail all the way back. (There's probably an app for that, but I don't have it.)
I didn't do these consciously as an A-B comparison. So maybe if I had filled the iPhone frame with loco to the same extent that the Fuji frame, the iPhone would have blown out the sky.
Beyond that, there is something about iPhone photos, or at least those from the SE. They just don't have the weight or the depth of a real camera, and I grant that's partly because the Fuji has about four times as many pixels. I hadn't been able to see it quite so well before.
The first is from the X-E4. The colours are rich, the details and sharpness are out of this world, one can zoom in and get all the details. But the sky is blown out. That might be me being incompetent, but I don't think so. That's what happened with film, and Fuji are all about making digital photos feel like film. So the sky blows out.
The second you will have guessed is from the iPhone SE. The detail is almost all there, the colour is almost all there, but it doesn't have the presence of the Fuji photo. It does have, however, a detailed sky with clouds and blue bits. I've noticed this before: my iPhone camera seems to be good at not getting blown out by skies, and I'm thinking that's because the iPhone is a way more powerful computer than the Fuji, and the camera software can identify and treats skies differently to the rest of the photograph.
Thing is, call me old-fashioned, but I find the iPhone picture almost unrealistic. That's not how I saw the scene, as I was concentrating on the loco, not the background. I don't want all that background in such detail - it's a distraction. I deliberately have my lens at f4 (f8 equivalent 35mm) to blur the background for that reason. The iPhone gives me detail all the way back. (There's probably an app for that, but I don't have it.)
I didn't do these consciously as an A-B comparison. So maybe if I had filled the iPhone frame with loco to the same extent that the Fuji frame, the iPhone would have blown out the sky.
Beyond that, there is something about iPhone photos, or at least those from the SE. They just don't have the weight or the depth of a real camera, and I grant that's partly because the Fuji has about four times as many pixels. I hadn't been able to see it quite so well before.
Friday, 13 October 2023
How Good Times Make Weak Leaders
Remember that saying Good times elect weak leaders; weak leaders make bad times; bad times elect strong leaders; strong leaders make good times? Let's start by discussing good and bad times.
These apply to the personal and professional lives of the upper managers, administrators and policy-makers (to include the elected legislators) of the major social, media, cultural, State, political and business institutions. Ordinary people can be suffering financial crises, unemployment, dramatic changes in the labour market, and all sorts of other stuff, or of course none of that, and it doesn't count. As long as the upper-middle class (roughly) is having a cushy time, those are "good times". In the UK, that was from the passing of the Maastricht Treaty to the end of 2015: The Second Belle Epoque. Their professional lives were easy, their dominant assumptions about society, culture and economics were unchallenged. China and Russia were behaving themselves, and EU made travel easy, and legislation even easier - all one did was tweak whatever Brussels threw out.
Your kids can't afford a place of their own, that's just the economy. A journalist's kids can't afford a place of their own, that's a serious flaw in the housing market.
If life gets too hard for the Rest of Us, we will start to object, misbehave, go on strike, and make the lives of the UMC (upper managerial class) difficult. That gives them an incentive to make sure that life isn't too hard for the common people.
We can complain about the economy all we like, but one thing we must not do is question the UMC's assumptions about the society, political institutions, and culture. That is perceived not as a threat to their survival - that would be mere economics - but their vision of themselves as Good People who deserve their privilege as a reward for their Goodness. The form that Goodness takes can vary from decade to decade, but since about 1990 it has been about having Broadly-Left social views and ideals. Before that, it was about having Broadly-Right ideals. Challenge whatever is their claim to moral superiority and you threaten them with the disintegration of their identities. In Good Times, the UMC is complaisant and herd-like, and jolly comfortable that is too.
Let's turn to what leaders are. A 'leader' in this discussion is someone who gets to set policy in a particular institution, so that following that policy protects us from sanctions imposed by that institution. A strong leader can bring people along with them, and isn't scared of imposing sanctions: a weak leader is unconvincing, and won't impose sanctions. (Yes, this applies to street gangs as well as Governments.) `Leadership' is contextual: someone can lead in one institution, and follow in another.
Leaders depend on holding an institutional position, and one gets to be a leader by occupying one of those positions. Having got there, it's up to the incumbent to do something, or collapse exhausted by the climb up the greasy pole.
Most of the rest of the people in the institution will follow a strong leader - though some will resist - or they will goof off if they spot a weak role occupant - though some will throw themselves behind policies they see advantage in.
Where do the strong leaders come from in the bad times? They were there all the time, but they weren't attracted by the jobs in politics, the upper reaches of public administration, and other high-profile institutional roles. In the good times there is too much go-along-to-get-along. Too many third-class people. Too much consensus. So the strong people go to where their qualities of character can be useful, or they find a lucrative niche somewhere and enjoy the decline.
Where do the weak leaders come from in the good times? They were there all the time as well. They didn't want the jobs when times were tough, and they wouldn't have been chosen anyway. But when times are good, suddenly good chaps who go along with other good chaps are exactly what seem to be needed. Strong-minded people are all very useful, but they can be a nuisance. In good times, we need co-operation, not conflict. Weak people love co-operating. There's nothing wrong with co-operating, as long as it's with people who share your goals. 'Co-operating' with people whose goals conflict with yours is called 'giving in'.
It's possible for one institution to have strong leaders, while another has weak ones, at the same time. Think of Sweden in 2020: a weak Government of consensus-driven politicians who fortunately were not in charge of public health policy. Anders Tegnell was, and he turned out to be nobody's go-along guy. The Swedes were the only country who did not succumb to the hysteria.
One way weak leaders damage their institutions is failing to fight back against strongly-led activist groups advancing avant-garde goals that threaten the current aims and values of the institution.
Weak leaders can be distracted by internal disputes and high-profile non-issues. This is what happened to the British Parliament between 2016-2021 (Brexit) and the US Government between 2016 and 2020 (the wonderfully named 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'). It's no co-incidence that various avant-garde activist groups made so much progress with their causes during that time, or that the UK and USA Blobs started taking on lives of their own.
How do the required strong leaders get back into the institutions when they are needed? In the UK, it's not by coup or vigorous campaigning. it's by a slower process in which the people who select and elect the candidates for key positions decide that the current lot are a bit wet, and some drier people are needed. A major donor to an activist organisation decides it no longer advances his various goals (it may have become a liability to their social standing or business interests, for instance) and withdraws their money. A Board of Governors decides the last CEO got on perhaps too well with everyone, and now they need someone who can focus on the business needs. These decisions will be made against the backdrop of what the various people sense to be a prevailing sentiment amongst the public - whatever that 'public' might be.
That mechanism relies on the general population containing a range of views on almost everything: this is why enforced consensus is a liability. A variety of views is needed, so that when the time demands this or that view, there will be people ready to explain, publicise and propose ways of implementing it. If everyone thinks, or makes a show of thinking, the same, when circumstances demand a response outside the permitted range, that society will fall victim to those circumstances. This is all basic On Liberty.
The idea that society consists of homogeneous 'Generations' is an artefact of the media and academic obsession with certain institutions, that are able to impose the appearance of a high level of conformity on the behaviour and opinions of the staff. As soon as the institutional control slips, so does the conformity.
These apply to the personal and professional lives of the upper managers, administrators and policy-makers (to include the elected legislators) of the major social, media, cultural, State, political and business institutions. Ordinary people can be suffering financial crises, unemployment, dramatic changes in the labour market, and all sorts of other stuff, or of course none of that, and it doesn't count. As long as the upper-middle class (roughly) is having a cushy time, those are "good times". In the UK, that was from the passing of the Maastricht Treaty to the end of 2015: The Second Belle Epoque. Their professional lives were easy, their dominant assumptions about society, culture and economics were unchallenged. China and Russia were behaving themselves, and EU made travel easy, and legislation even easier - all one did was tweak whatever Brussels threw out.
Your kids can't afford a place of their own, that's just the economy. A journalist's kids can't afford a place of their own, that's a serious flaw in the housing market.
If life gets too hard for the Rest of Us, we will start to object, misbehave, go on strike, and make the lives of the UMC (upper managerial class) difficult. That gives them an incentive to make sure that life isn't too hard for the common people.
We can complain about the economy all we like, but one thing we must not do is question the UMC's assumptions about the society, political institutions, and culture. That is perceived not as a threat to their survival - that would be mere economics - but their vision of themselves as Good People who deserve their privilege as a reward for their Goodness. The form that Goodness takes can vary from decade to decade, but since about 1990 it has been about having Broadly-Left social views and ideals. Before that, it was about having Broadly-Right ideals. Challenge whatever is their claim to moral superiority and you threaten them with the disintegration of their identities. In Good Times, the UMC is complaisant and herd-like, and jolly comfortable that is too.
Let's turn to what leaders are. A 'leader' in this discussion is someone who gets to set policy in a particular institution, so that following that policy protects us from sanctions imposed by that institution. A strong leader can bring people along with them, and isn't scared of imposing sanctions: a weak leader is unconvincing, and won't impose sanctions. (Yes, this applies to street gangs as well as Governments.) `Leadership' is contextual: someone can lead in one institution, and follow in another.
Leaders depend on holding an institutional position, and one gets to be a leader by occupying one of those positions. Having got there, it's up to the incumbent to do something, or collapse exhausted by the climb up the greasy pole.
Most of the rest of the people in the institution will follow a strong leader - though some will resist - or they will goof off if they spot a weak role occupant - though some will throw themselves behind policies they see advantage in.
Where do the strong leaders come from in the bad times? They were there all the time, but they weren't attracted by the jobs in politics, the upper reaches of public administration, and other high-profile institutional roles. In the good times there is too much go-along-to-get-along. Too many third-class people. Too much consensus. So the strong people go to where their qualities of character can be useful, or they find a lucrative niche somewhere and enjoy the decline.
Where do the weak leaders come from in the good times? They were there all the time as well. They didn't want the jobs when times were tough, and they wouldn't have been chosen anyway. But when times are good, suddenly good chaps who go along with other good chaps are exactly what seem to be needed. Strong-minded people are all very useful, but they can be a nuisance. In good times, we need co-operation, not conflict. Weak people love co-operating. There's nothing wrong with co-operating, as long as it's with people who share your goals. 'Co-operating' with people whose goals conflict with yours is called 'giving in'.
It's possible for one institution to have strong leaders, while another has weak ones, at the same time. Think of Sweden in 2020: a weak Government of consensus-driven politicians who fortunately were not in charge of public health policy. Anders Tegnell was, and he turned out to be nobody's go-along guy. The Swedes were the only country who did not succumb to the hysteria.
One way weak leaders damage their institutions is failing to fight back against strongly-led activist groups advancing avant-garde goals that threaten the current aims and values of the institution.
Weak leaders can be distracted by internal disputes and high-profile non-issues. This is what happened to the British Parliament between 2016-2021 (Brexit) and the US Government between 2016 and 2020 (the wonderfully named 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'). It's no co-incidence that various avant-garde activist groups made so much progress with their causes during that time, or that the UK and USA Blobs started taking on lives of their own.
How do the required strong leaders get back into the institutions when they are needed? In the UK, it's not by coup or vigorous campaigning. it's by a slower process in which the people who select and elect the candidates for key positions decide that the current lot are a bit wet, and some drier people are needed. A major donor to an activist organisation decides it no longer advances his various goals (it may have become a liability to their social standing or business interests, for instance) and withdraws their money. A Board of Governors decides the last CEO got on perhaps too well with everyone, and now they need someone who can focus on the business needs. These decisions will be made against the backdrop of what the various people sense to be a prevailing sentiment amongst the public - whatever that 'public' might be.
That mechanism relies on the general population containing a range of views on almost everything: this is why enforced consensus is a liability. A variety of views is needed, so that when the time demands this or that view, there will be people ready to explain, publicise and propose ways of implementing it. If everyone thinks, or makes a show of thinking, the same, when circumstances demand a response outside the permitted range, that society will fall victim to those circumstances. This is all basic On Liberty.
The idea that society consists of homogeneous 'Generations' is an artefact of the media and academic obsession with certain institutions, that are able to impose the appearance of a high level of conformity on the behaviour and opinions of the staff. As soon as the institutional control slips, so does the conformity.
Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Fresh Local Fish
The hut with the sign has fresh fish, the converted container is where they serve the cooked stuff. It's about a ten minute walk from Dungeness Station. Worth every step. There's a reason there was a crowd.
Friday, 6 October 2023
Into The Sun - Away From The Sun
My grandfather, who was a mainstay of the Sheffield Photographic Society back in the day, used to say that one should never shoot into the sun. All sorts of bad things would happen: blown-out skies, over-dark shadows and the like. However, sometimes it works.
Tuesday, 3 October 2023
The Hill Garden and Pergola, Hampstead Heath
Get off the 210 bus at the Inverforth House stop. The house itself
is privately-owned, and the Garden and Pergola are at the back of it, but outside its walls. Walk down a path at the end of the House's walls and after no more than thirty yards is on your right is a gate that opens into the Hill Garden. Walk too fast and you'll go right by it. If you reach a path at the bottom of the incline, you've gone too far. The path will take you to the lower terrace of the garden, and on the left is a small building with a spiral staircase that leads to the upper terrace.
It's well-worth the visit, though on the day Sis and I went, they were repairing something and had closed the Pergola itself because of "safety".
is privately-owned, and the Garden and Pergola are at the back of it, but outside its walls. Walk down a path at the end of the House's walls and after no more than thirty yards is on your right is a gate that opens into the Hill Garden. Walk too fast and you'll go right by it. If you reach a path at the bottom of the incline, you've gone too far. The path will take you to the lower terrace of the garden, and on the left is a small building with a spiral staircase that leads to the upper terrace.
It's well-worth the visit, though on the day Sis and I went, they were repairing something and had closed the Pergola itself because of "safety".
We think the last photo is of is four yew trees grafted onto a common trunk and then left to grow and be shaped over, you know, fifty years or something. Gardens like this need the long view.
Friday, 29 September 2023
What is Jazz (Again): Laufey, Adam Neely, Andy Edwards
What is jazz, and why does it matter? Can we define jazz in such a way that it does matter if something is or is not jazz?
That's effectively what the National Endowment for the Arts did back in the 1970's when it decided that jazz was America's Classical Music, and started handing out grants and awards. Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis locked the NEA into a definition of jazz as a) swing, b) blues, c) improvisation, d) in a pre-1965 style. Here's the list of NEA Jazz Master Fellows since it started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEA_Jazz_Masters. All great players, all started before 1965, which includes Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, who are avant-garde. Nope, there aren't many white names on the list, but then that's probably statistically representative of jazz musicians.
So maybe jazz is whatever the NEA says it is, and they have the money and publicity to prove it. In the same way the teachers at Berklee, Juilliard and all the other jazz schools get to say what jazz is, because they set the syllabus and award the credentials for a "degree in jazz". Both institutions adopt the Crouch-Marsalis definition.
Never argue with institutional doctrine: nobody is going to give up their income and status over a point of logic or a matter of fact. Change the subject: hit 'em where they ain't.
Let's do that. Because the heck with institutions.
For Adam Neely, well-trained graduate of Berklee, jazz is a well-defined cultural practice, gate-kept by academics, the NEA, and some music industry figures. For Andy Edwards, West Midlands drumming legend and epic You Tube ranter, jazz is about creativity and technical accomplishment in the service of freedom and experiment. Which is why he fights for the word.
Sir Karl Popper told us not to fight over words. Fight for your right to party, but not over whether to call it a party.
The party is individual improvisation while playing as a member of a band, within self-imposed limits that might be about chord progressions, modal changes, tunes, or the style of a genre. That genre might be the Blues, Hard Bop, Be Bop, Cool, Modal, Time No Changes, Flamenco, or whatever else (even ghastly chord-scale).
It's about developing your own voice, and being able to find others whose voices fit with yours; it's about producing music that (some) people appreciate and want to hear, without turning into a hack. The material doesn't need to be original, but the expression needs to be sincere: a tribute band can do this, if they love the music they are playing.
Between (about) 1930 and (about) 1966, nobody partied as hard as a handful of men who gave us some of the most sublime, hip, and swing-ing-est music ever played. From Louis Armstrong through Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, to name a few. It was the chosen music of the misfit, the hip, and people who wanted to stay up late drinking. It was a fabulous moment, but it passed, as all fabulous moments must do. And we have it on record.
Does it matter what "jazz" is? If you're after that sweet NEA moolah, or the recognition of a bunch of old guys and academics, or playing at venues or for records labels which are snobby about these things, then yes. Otherwise NO, it does not. If you're a professional musician, what matters is making money and enjoying what you're being paid to do. If you're an amateur, what matters is that you can have a good time playing with some people who aren't totally weird. And if you're a, uh, home musician, what matters is that you get out of playing whatever it is you want to get out of it.
That's effectively what the National Endowment for the Arts did back in the 1970's when it decided that jazz was America's Classical Music, and started handing out grants and awards. Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis locked the NEA into a definition of jazz as a) swing, b) blues, c) improvisation, d) in a pre-1965 style. Here's the list of NEA Jazz Master Fellows since it started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEA_Jazz_Masters. All great players, all started before 1965, which includes Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, who are avant-garde. Nope, there aren't many white names on the list, but then that's probably statistically representative of jazz musicians.
So maybe jazz is whatever the NEA says it is, and they have the money and publicity to prove it. In the same way the teachers at Berklee, Juilliard and all the other jazz schools get to say what jazz is, because they set the syllabus and award the credentials for a "degree in jazz". Both institutions adopt the Crouch-Marsalis definition.
Never argue with institutional doctrine: nobody is going to give up their income and status over a point of logic or a matter of fact. Change the subject: hit 'em where they ain't.
Let's do that. Because the heck with institutions.
For Adam Neely, well-trained graduate of Berklee, jazz is a well-defined cultural practice, gate-kept by academics, the NEA, and some music industry figures. For Andy Edwards, West Midlands drumming legend and epic You Tube ranter, jazz is about creativity and technical accomplishment in the service of freedom and experiment. Which is why he fights for the word.
Sir Karl Popper told us not to fight over words. Fight for your right to party, but not over whether to call it a party.
The party is individual improvisation while playing as a member of a band, within self-imposed limits that might be about chord progressions, modal changes, tunes, or the style of a genre. That genre might be the Blues, Hard Bop, Be Bop, Cool, Modal, Time No Changes, Flamenco, or whatever else (even ghastly chord-scale).
It's about developing your own voice, and being able to find others whose voices fit with yours; it's about producing music that (some) people appreciate and want to hear, without turning into a hack. The material doesn't need to be original, but the expression needs to be sincere: a tribute band can do this, if they love the music they are playing.
Between (about) 1930 and (about) 1966, nobody partied as hard as a handful of men who gave us some of the most sublime, hip, and swing-ing-est music ever played. From Louis Armstrong through Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, to name a few. It was the chosen music of the misfit, the hip, and people who wanted to stay up late drinking. It was a fabulous moment, but it passed, as all fabulous moments must do. And we have it on record.
Does it matter what "jazz" is? If you're after that sweet NEA moolah, or the recognition of a bunch of old guys and academics, or playing at venues or for records labels which are snobby about these things, then yes. Otherwise NO, it does not. If you're a professional musician, what matters is making money and enjoying what you're being paid to do. If you're an amateur, what matters is that you can have a good time playing with some people who aren't totally weird. And if you're a, uh, home musician, what matters is that you get out of playing whatever it is you want to get out of it.
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