a comparison:

most of you know that i'm in a band, and even more of you know that we are currently finishing up with recording and mixing down our new album. in this process, having done some recording before and having friends/acquaintances that know much more about recording than us (including our current engineer, of course), we have run across some new technologies that are indeed crazy! some would even venture into the words "unfair" or "wrong" (some definitely being me). what i'm talking about mainly are these new pitch correction abilities that we have available to us in recording software (obviously digital recording). these will make anyone, i mean ANYONE, sound as though they can sing in tune. yeah, that includes those that can't sing, but are beautiful, "easily marketable" people that you'll see outselling every artist that actually spent time working on their art as a trade and a way of life. if i recall, there was a time when if you weren't good at something, you wouldn't get to do it as your job...
but here's my comparison: these new technologies, although they can be helpful in a lot of ways, have seemed to hurt us in more. let's take the two forms of entertainment affected by similar issues: modeling/acting and performing music. for a model, the person (product) has to be good as what they do. something we call "raw talent." the look, an attitude or whatever it is that attracts us to these type of people, they've got it. not the next step is to photograph them. this weeds out a lot of people that may have everything else but the ability to show it to a camera. that's just personality, folks. but the fact is with the new technologies, a last step has come into play: editing, which then allows all of the same people that didn't have the raw talent have a chance at taking away from the opportunities that the actual talented products could have had. makeup, is bad enough, but when you're taking a far skinnier body and attaching someone else head to it and then selling that magazine cover?! there is a huge problem! not only that it saturates the market and, therefore, makes it far more difficult for the consumer to weed out the good from the bad. (i believe that the big whigs don't want us to realize it anyway!)
so how does this compare to music? i'm sure you understand the idea of raw talent. i have run into so many great musicians along my journey that i'm flabbergasted at the prospect of most of them never being heard outside of the street corner, or coffee shop that i hear them in. next is connecting with the masses with a live show and/or recording that just does it. the problem comes into play with the recording technology making it impossible to know the good from bad. i don't understand how a musical artist can have an amazing recording and not be able to perform it live... (like they did in the studio?) again, the digital technology has allowed us to be able to spread music at a more rapid rate, but at what quality? and now, i ask, what cost? i know that editing an mixing has always been a large part of the recording process, but that is like makeup. you can sense the raw talent there... it's not someone else body.
until then---

tHoUGhts wHile StaRIng at a WAll

disclaimer: this really has nothing to do with april fool's day. i promise.

an ethical question maybe. scenario: you're at work, and the day is winding down. you have hours before you're off but you are an efficient worker and have your deadlines all caught up. your boss comes in and tells you, "you can leave early today...," as in now.
here's the question: after that moment, you, the non-salaried worker, are stoked because you're leaving early, but should you be? since you are non-salaried, wouldn't that mean that you won't get paid for the time that you're not at work? does the boss do this just to save some money for the company and make him look good? or, since you've still gotten the work done that you had to in that day, and were scheduled to work from 8-5, you should not have to worry about missing a couple of hours and expect pay for a full day (i.e. your boss rules)?

until then---