Metacentricities

I mentioned that now and again I’d have a guest blogger. A friend of mine has a new passion, and here are the details.

By Julie Melrose

There are many things I envisioned doing in my lifetime. Buying used sousaphones for musicians in New Orleans was never one of them. But the floodwaters of Katrina changed the course of many lives, albeit some much more directly than others. So here I am in New England, almost two years later, giving myself a crash course in purchasing used low brass instruments—including those strange, clumsy tubas that curl like giant shiny snails around the bodies of the street and club musicians of The Crescent City.

Like the person you meet and instantly cannot imagine not having known, I entered the Tipitina’s Music Co-op by cyberspace a couple of months ago on a quick errand, and seem to have settled in for the long haul to see what I can do to help NOLA’s returning working musicians—although I do not recall ever making a conscious decision to do so.

I discovered the Co-op’s musical instrument recycling program through a simple internet search, while looking for a place that would fix up my late father’s old decrepit trumpet and give it to a musician who had lost one in Katrina.

My father was an ardent jazz fan who spent many happy hours listening to live music in New Orleans, and recordings of that music back at home in Massachusetts. When my mother and I scattered his ashes in the woods in spring of 2005, we did it NOLA jazz funeral style, playing slow brass band processional music on the way to the site my father had chosen, and a jubilant version of “When The Saints Go Marching In” on the way back to the car.

I was glad my father had not witnessed the destruction of New Orleans, but felt quite sure that had he been alive when NOLA’s levees were breached, he would have sent his trumpet to the Gulf Coast along with his financial donation.

So when the desire to carry out my father’s intentions grew bigger than my need to hang onto everything material that had belonged to him, I took that old musty case out of my closet and searched the web until I found a place in New Orleans that would accept donations of “musical instruments in any condition.” 


That place was the Co-op, located above the original uptown Tipitina’s nightclub. The workers’ cooperative is a shoestring-funded program of the nonprofit Tipitina’s Foundation (www.tipitinasfoundation.org), the mission of which is to restore the musical culture of New Orleans. It is doing so primarily by replacing the thousands of school band instruments that were lost or ruined in the flood, and by providing office facilities, community resource referrals, recycled instruments and music business skills training to working musicians returning to the region.


The Co-op’s instrument recycling program collects donated musical instruments in playable or reparable condition, has them repaired (often with labor donated by instrument technicians), and recycles them to working musicians in need of instruments to go back to work. Musicians who receive replacement instruments and skills training through the Co-op show an average 28% increase in music-related income, according to a City of New Orleans economic study.



Musical instrument recycling is a concept that just makes sense, and not only in New Orleans. Throughout the U.S., thousands of musical instruments end up in landfills when owners decide against expending money on repairing them.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of instruments sitting idle in closets, basements and attics—which isn’t good for either people or instruments, since instruments deteriorate with lack of use, and richen when they are played regularly. Many of these surplus instruments were played in school band and orchestra programs, or as part of adolescent creative exploration, and have outlasted their owners’ musical interests.


As I have talked with people as a volunteer instrument collector for the Co-op, I have found that many feel guilty about having these unplayed instruments, and are delighted to learn about a place where they are truly needed and will be put to good use.


Putting recycled instruments in the hands of NOLA musicians has a surprisingly wide ripple effect. Because the economy of New Orleans is largely built on tourism, and the tourist industry there is largely built on musical entertainment, restoring the unique musical culture of New Orleans—upon which crucial aspects of U.S. and world musical culture were built—also restores the economic well-being of New Orleans, as well as helping to restore the emotional and spiritual well-being of its returning residents.


With the reduction in landfill deposits, the savings of the energy and materials needed to produce new musical instruments, the creative and employment boost to New Orleans musicians, the charitable giving opportunity offered to instrument owners, the economic benefits of rebuilding tourism in a devastated region, and the restoration of a crucial part of U.S. musical culture, the Co-op instrument recycling program is truly a multi-dimensional version of a “win-win” situation.


Smaller instruments like clarinets, flutes and trumpets have proven comparatively easy to procure. But even low-end large low brass instruments cost several thousand dollars each when purchased new, and are generally owned by organizations rather than individuals. If there are people who have extra sousaphones sitting around in the back of their closets, the Co-op hasn’t found them yet!

So these days, as I sit at my desk in the course of my other work, I find my attention wandering to web sites where one might find used sousaphones, and putting together donors’ groups of kind souls willing to make modest contributions toward rescuing these precious forgotten giants from auction houses for a worthy cause.

The first collective sousaphone purchase was recently made by the seven members of what I fondly refer to as The Ladies’ Sewing Circle & Sousaphone Society (with a bow to a classic women’s movement T-shirt with a slightly less benign slogan). It went to a second-generation NOLA entertainer. One member of the Society dedicated her donation to her niece, a brave young woman who is learning to play the tuba. Donations ranged in size from $10 to $60, and each was essential to the happy outcome.

The second sousaphone purchase followed shortly thereafter, with the instrument going to a woman street musician whose apartment was looted after she had to evacuate.

Donations are now being sought for the third and fourth group sousaphone purchases, since two suitable fixer-uppers will be available only a couple of days from now. With donated shipping and professional instrument restoration already in place, acquiring the actual instruments (at an anticipated cost of under $700) is the only missing link in giving two NOLA musicians the tools they need to return to employment.

Please contact me at girlbanjoistsrule@yahoo.com if you are interested in making a modest contribution toward an upcoming sousaphone purchase, or would like more information about the musical instrument recycling program of the Tipitina’s Music Co-op. All financial and used instrument donations are fully tax deductible, with a “thank you” letter on Tipitina’s Foundation letterhead documenting your donation.

The shipping address for donations of used musical instruments in reparable condition is:

Mark Fowler

Tipitina’s Music Co-op

501 Napoleon Avenue

New Orleans, LA 70115

Co-op manager Mark Fowler can be reached by email at mfowler@tipitinas.com, or by phone at (504) 891-0580. As this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival miraculously kicks off two weekends of festivities, I thank you in advance for helping to restore the unique musical culture of New Orleans.

Technorati Tags: music, neworleans

I was reading the story about the amazing "Red Rain" that happened in India in 2001 that people think might be alien life. I then remembered Peter Gabriel’s song, "Red Rain", that was on his album "So", which was released in 1986!

Anyway, in case it hasn’t sunk in, depending on further research, we are about as close to proving the existence of life outside of the earth as we’ve ever been. 

technorati tags: redrain, kerala, alien, life, petergabriel,

I am someone who tends to think that conspiracy theories are sometimes just silly, and generally, gross oversimplifications of a very complex reality. A couple of stories from EFF that came across my e-desk that have made me think up my own conspiracy theory, and it’s not pretty. Here’s the basic information. Clear Channel (yes, those people) was granted a patent by the USPTO for "System and method of creating digital recordings of live performances." EFF says:

OK, so stick with me for a bit. For a while now, a lot of people have been flabbergasted by the patents that the USPTO has granted, particularly that they have granted patents that allow companies to own business processes that often have clear prior art, and that allow them to have control over the creative innovations of others, in ways that are pretty nonsensical. This one is a great example. This patent means that any musician and venue that records then burns a concert CD for sale after the concert has to use their technologies, or be sued for infringement of their patent. Right, this is completely nonsensical, and clearly violates the right of musicians to control their own creative product. I (and many others) had ascribed the actions of the patent office over the last few years as a combination of caving to corporate interests, and ineptitude. I’m starting to let go of the ineptitude - I think they are doing this on purpose.

Corporations of all stripes are in an incessant battle to expand their control of content and its delivery. Also from EFF is the story that the RIAA now says that it doesn’t think that copying a CD that you bought onto your iPod is fair use. That’s right. Further, it turns out that there is an increasing effort to change the rules of internet traffic, and set priorities, and charge more for certain kinds of traffic (limiting, for instance, Skype traffic) or from certain origins (e.g. corporate traffic gets higher priority than, say, this blog.) I’ve always considered these sorts of things to be basically issues of corporations, as is their mission, to continually increase their profits.

But the recent events and wholehearted cooperation of companies like Google, MSN, Yahoo and others to happily censor content in China (which I had also ascribed to the profit motive), as well as the emerging picture of increased controls and limits on the creation and dissemination of creative content, is making me think a lot about what this is all about. I hate to wonder whether or not there is a connection between all of this stuff and the fact that we have one of the most power-hungry and controlling governments in history.

The whole RIAA/MPAA thing had, for a while, made me think that alternatives to the dissemination of music and movies would have to happen - creators would realize that these organizations don’t work in their interest, and start their own companies and distribution methods. This has begun to happen, but the problem is that if the technology is locked down using things like Microsoft’s Trusted Computing which could ultimately control what you can see and hear from your computer and other technology (there are all sorts of controls being built into the new generation of DVD players, that use blue lasers), then it is possible that alternative avenues will be squeezed or locked out. It seems that technology companies have been jumping overthemselves lately to cater to controlling interests, whether it be our government in spying, China in censorship, or hardware and software manufacturers with imbedded DRM.

So, it all adds up to, at best a nasty mess, at worst, complete control of not only how we can use content we own, but complete control of content creation, delivery, and viewing. That’s the conspiracy theory. It’s probably either silly, or a gross oversimplification of a complex reality. It does strengthen my already growing luddite tendencies, though. If they want to control me through technology, I’ll let go of the technology. We can’t get too attached.

technorati tags: patents, eff, clearchannel, recording, music, concerts, technology, government, control, corporations

I came across this website pretty much by accident. As I mentioned a while ago, in one of my old blog posts on intellectual property, there is a nascent movement of musicians and the like, trying to create an alternative to the recording industry. I found another website that is part of this, but unlike the other sites, this site has a broad range of genres.

It’s called Magnatune, and if you care about the future of music, and your ability to listen to music however, and wherever you like buy something there. Here’s why:

• You can listen to the full songs or albums on the site for free
• You can download an album, in a variety of formats (MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) completely free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) - that means, you can put it on your iPod, or Zen Micro, or whatever, you can make as many copies as you like, burn as many CDs as you like, without restriction or control.
• The artists get 50% of the price of the album
• You can choose how much to pay for the album (really, no kidding!)
• You can send a link for the download of the album to 3 friends, for free.

I love their motto "we’re not evil." It’s true, they are not, they are exactly the kind of record company that we (and the musicians) need. If we let the present record companies continue, we’ll be spending $20 per album, and will have very limited ability to listen to it however, wherever, and whenever we want - they will have the control.

There is some very nice music on this site. I haven’t explored the range of genres, and it’s true, there isn’t anyone famous on it yet - but there is no risk - you can listen to the whole album for free, and decide for yourself whether you want to buy it. So go, listen, and buy (if you can.)