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Creative Commons License

May 13, 2012 in blog, iPad, recording | No comments

You may remember my composition and experiment – writing, performing, and recording a piece of music entirely on an iPad. The piece is called “You Smiled Because You Knew.”

In the spirit of experimentation, I’ve decided to change the copyright license to be less restrictive by using a Creative Commons license. Instead of the standard “all rights reserved,” you are now free to share it, remix it, make derivative works based on it, and even use it commerically.

  • More about the license here →
  • More about the quote that inspired the title here →
  • To listen to the piece, click here (or use the embedded player above)→

So please go ahead, use it as a soundtrack for a slideshow or a video, sample it, remix it, whatever you’d like to do. If it’s helpful to you, write me a quick email to let me know how you were able to use it!

Enjoy!

CD Release Recap

February 15, 2012 in blog, double-breasted, performance, shows | No comments

What a night!

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the double-breasted CD Release show this past Saturday. The place was packed. I took this pic from my vantage point behind my drums just before we started to play.

Here’s a photo of the setlist.

As you can see, we had a few friends there to perform with us. We had Uton, Chris, and Jodie in the choir, Amelia on violin, and Ken on timpani. Here’s a picture of the whole crew.

 

Photo courtesy of Susan P. via Facebook.

And here’s a photo of Ardith, Kristy, and I at the end of the night.

Photo courtesy of my sister, Amanda via iPhone.

Once again, thanks so much to everyone who made it out to the show to celebrate the release of our new CD, Suit Yourself!

For those who couldn’t make it, you can purchase the CD or MP3s at CD Baby right here.

Enjoy!

A Shift from “The Man” to “The Fan”

January 16, 2012 in blog, double-breasted, recording | No comments

Browsing the Kickstarter blog, I came across this article showing their stats from 2011.

$19M pledged for music.

Wow.

Everyone wants to talk about how the music industry is failing. Everyone wants to talk about how poor the quality of recorded music has become. As music fans, are we actually surprised by this? As the Big Three record labels try to stop the bleeding from decline in sales, they’ve had to cut investment in artists and their recordings.

As the “old way” of doing things continues to spiral downward, I am encouraged by the Kickstarter model. It’s on its way up. And it’s giving anyone with a creative project – not only music – the chance to carry out their vision. For the supporter, it provides a feeling of connectivity, a kind of partnership in the project. The fans are like investors in a business.

And the best part? At the end of the project, you can hold something unique in your hands and know that you were a part of bringing it to fruition.

I am happy that my band, double-breasted, was one of the 11,000 successful Kickstarter projects in 2011. I can’t wait to share the new CD, Suit Yourself, with our fans on February 11th.

Couch Covers – The Numbers

December 29, 2011 in blog, couch covers, solo | No comments

3 rounds of Couch Covers.

15 videos in total.

57 mins 39 secs of music.

3,100 video views (and counting).

With numbers like that, I thought they deserved their own home on the Internet. Drop by and hang out sometime.

http://couchcovers.joshbicknell.com

Couch Covers Website

The Quote Behind the Title: “You Smiled Because You Knew”

November 9, 2011 in blog, iPad | No comments

The title for my piece, “You Smiled Because You Knew” was actually taken from a quote I originally saw on a Tumblr blog – i can read. The quote was set over an image. I loved the combination of the two. The quote was attributed to William Shakespeare.

When I saw you I fell in love
And you smiled because you knew

Beautiful, right?

I made it a favorite on my blog reader and would revisit it every now and again. Then it occurred to me. This quote sounded NOTHING like Shakespeare’s writing. I am by no means a Shakespeare expert, but the language and sentence structure seemed completely out of context. What had happened? Had someone lifted each line separately and put them together in a new way?

I was intrigued.

On to Google. The top hit was actually a Wikipedia entry for a list of common misquotations. Yet, there were many other hits that attached Shakespeare’s name to the quote… like a Top 100 list of Shakespeare quotes to use on Valentine’s Day.

It turns out that this quote actually belongs to poet, journalist, novelist and composer, Arrigo Boito.

I am fascinated by the way such a seemingly obvious error could be so widespread. You might say to me, “There’s a lot of junk and false information on the internet.” Well, yes that’s true. Yet, I wonder if this speaks to something larger.

Today, ideas spread quickly. Copy/paste keyboard shortcuts are easier to recall than friends’ phone numbers. The ideas that are shared are the ideas that win our attention. We share things that we love, even if we don’t bother to check into the validity or accuracy of these things.

It’s easy to quote Shakespeare not only because we love his work, but because he’s given us free access to share and perform it. And how ironic that his works are still among the most performed today.

He’s given credit for beautiful quotes that aren’t even his.

I composed and performed “You Smiled Because You Knew” completely on an iPad. The sounds you hear are samples of real instruments, but the device I used to create the music didn’t require me to actually touch a “real” instrument. Does knowing this fact make the music less credible or authentic?

The piece is free for you to listen to, comment on, download and share. Use the “</>” button in the player below to access the sharing features built into the player. If the player doesn’t appear, click here.