MarshWorks

I sent out about 30 emails so far mentioning my YouTube video, and the response has been very positive but also shows some interesting viral distribution... I got 100 views in the first two days. My goal is 1000 views, which will mean that quite a few more people than everyone I know will have seen it. And it already led to a media interview (Actually an venue director for an upcoming concert forwarded the link to the local paper).

Gus Thomson at the Auburn Journal gave a pretty good description of what I'm doing:

NEW AND OLD

“Some Like It Hot” is the classic movie being shown at the State Theater this coming Thursday but the opening act – violin player Jason Marsh should provide some heat of his own when he plays live before the Billy Wilder comedy lights up the screen.

Marsh will be combining high-tech know-how and old-fashioned musical smarts in the theater atrium during a pre-movie celebration from 5:45 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. The movie starts at 7 p.m.

... Marsh plans to provide a multi-faceted musical performance that will see him turning on and off sound loops he creates as he plays – essentially backing himself with his own instrument. The fiddle itself is a classic – a century old violin probably made in Germany – but the score will be pure 21st century computer magic. Marsh, a Christian Valley resident and Berklee College of Music degree holder, switched from the life of a pro jazz player to Apple employee in the early 1990s. Marsh, who now is guiding a startup working on software for hospitals, will be melding sounds as diverse as Stephane Grappelli and Jimi Hendrix into some atmospheric soundscapes.

Thanks Gus!

I've posted my first YouTube of my violin playing here.

It's a fairly simple rendition of the Irish tune "Girl That Broke My Heart", but with my typical improvisation, and now with my full digital violin setup. This setup includes a computer running a music program specifically designed for live performance (Ableton Live) and a footpedal to control it. The goal is to perform complex arrangements with multiple parts, all live, without 'cheating' and using pre-recorded tracks.

I first got inspired to do this by seeing Imogen Heap doing a live rendition of Just For Now, not doing just a standard "Looper" rendition, but actively bringing in prior parts and removing them in a sophisticated arrangement.

I'll post the details of my digital violin setup sometime.

But for now, just enjoy my venture into YouTube. Forward it to your friends, and we'll see how high we can get the viewings up to!

All's well here. We were never in danger, and got some interesting photography from a distance. The photos show the smoke and falling ash at our house, and then we drove closer and up a hill to get a better view.

Flickr Photo set here

The Fire today was about 3 miles away, directly South, and the only concern was the wind that was blowing directly from the south. But the fire was out very quick.

Here's the Map

I've completed a new set showing my favorite pictures from this winter.

click to see slideshowYou can see it in my custom slideshow viewer here, but you may need to be a bit patient as some the images take about 10 seconds to load. I keep the number pretty small, so hopefully they will be worth the wait.

I've included a sequence of four images from Donner Summit that I found particularly interesting, not only for the images themselves but also for the way nature created them.

                        This shows an amazing ice formation used for four of the shots in this set.  These were taken at Donner Summit, California, the day after a warmish storm. Rain had fallen on top of the snow and frozen into a fascinating layer of ice, which remained behind while the snow melted underneath it.
To show this, here I have put my fingers under the ice but on top of the snow (this thin layer of ice is floating an inch or two above the snow below it).

For the these shots, a friend suggested I use the macro on her Digital Rebel and use the lens cap as a background instead of my fingers.

The depth of field was impossible, or course, but the rainbow effects were particularly satisfying.

Okay, TED rocks. Go to ted.com to find amazing people doing amazing things, search out your own passions, and get inspired. No other way to describe it.

If you like thinking about radical ways of expanding computer-human interaction, you'll dig this video too. I certainly do.

I've been enjoying the video at ted.com. Here is a cool one that reminds me of experimentations I did a few years ago with a projector and camera tracking colored objects and shadows, in my case for simple interactive children's games. What I enjoyed about my experimentations is that it gave me full-body input mechanism, which is particularly suited to young children who like to move.

Anyway, check it out:

This Friday, January 23 at 7PM, my brother Jon (keyboards), and I (violin), are performing for 30 minutes before a Placer Nature Center lecture on the Environmental Legacy of the Gold Rush.

Information can be found at http://www.4thfridaylecture.org/environmental-legacy-gold-rush.html.

We're going to play pieces from: Pat Metheny (modern jazz), Darol Anger (new-age/fiddle), Jean-luc Ponty (jazz-rock violin), traditional Irish and Bluegress tunes, and Liz Story (new-age piano).

You can see more information about our music in prior blog entries by clicking on the "Music" category to the right.

We're also playing in two months at for another lecture: http://www.4thfridaylecture.org/hydrogen-economy.html.

Hope to see you there!

My friend Stephanie Bloom told me about the Gray Lodge Wildlife Refuge about a year ago, and these photos are the result of my second trip there. About 2 hours North of Sacramento, near the Central Valley town of Gridley, the Gray Lodge Wildlife Refuge provides a over-wintering site for many thousands of waterfowl.

The whole family was loaded with cameras, and a few of these shots were taken by my son, Denali Marsh.

I've uploaded these photos to Flickr, but I have a new revision of my custom Flex/Flash Photo Viewer that hopefully will provide the optimal experience: Gray Lodge Photo Viewer. Be sure to click the full screen icon on the bottom right.

I keep tweaking the viewer: this rev includes the following features: new simpler cleaner buttons, optimal auto-size picker: image loading based on the viewer screen size (smaller images will load faster), new option (in the Options window) to limit the image auto-size picker to download to "Large" instead of "Original", cross-fades, ability to "sign in" to see restricted family-only photos (although there are none in this set), as well as various bug fixes. The 'Help' feature is not done yet...

Let me know your favorite photo!

-UPDATE-

I updated the prior link to my latest version. It's got a number of improvements in the user interface.

I've finally created my own photoviewer! It is similar to Flickr's and Picassa's but with a few features that fairly serious photographers are interested in. I've built it in Adobe Flex/Flash, and I'll post the code as soon as I clean it up a bit and finish with a few more features.

I've yet to write up a bit of 'help' for the application, which will include credits for code I've incorporated from other sources, which I'll try to get to soon.

There's lots to do to improve the photoviewer, such as animations and more.

I'll be adding longer descriptions, including Journal entries from our adventures.

Click to see my "Minimal Alaska" set in my custom photoviewer - this is about 55 of my favorite photos from Alaska.

Obviously this is a work-in-progress!... enjoy the current version and check back to see improvements and other photo sets! You can comment below as well.

-UPDATE 1/26/09-

Updated to my latest version of the photo viewer.

I've been hiking, backpacking, and camping in Alaska with my family - wife Melissa, daughter Summer(10) and son Denali (13) - for the last three weeks.

I've been doing much photo editing, and will create blogs for our adventures with photos, but it is taking a bit of time to get through all the photos!

Meanwhile, here's a first impression: there's life everywhere. Even in the icewater, the glacial ice, and the rocks.

On the trail up Eagle River Valley our very first day in Alaska, we came across this awesome tree’s mouth, and our young hobbits, Summer and Denali, just had to stand inside it.

How that we’re home, and we look closer at this picture, we’ve discovered how often very important details can go unnoticed.....

...we hadn’t realized that the trees in Alaska are awake!

More posts on the way soon!