owngig.com

This is from the Owngig weekly newsletter. To recieve this in your inbox every week, simply register on site

Are you just starting out in the world of music? Have no idea how many people like you or would be interested in seeing you live? Keep an eye on Owngig because we’ll be looking to roll out some interesting new developments soon. In the mean time if you have any feedback on what you’d like to see, get in touch here.

This week on the web we’ve been loving…

Ever wanted to be in a music video? Well, assuming you like John Mayer you can be. By using the webcam on your computer, this nifty piece of technical wizardry means that it’s possible to be in the background of the action in his latest video. This is known as augmented reality – which John describes in this video.

On a more historical nature, we found this article from German magazine Der Spiegel fascinating. The article (in English) details one Klaus Quirini who was in 1959 the world’s first DJ. How things have changed and how things were then is very interesting and worth a read, particularly if you’ve ever been clubbing.

This is from the Owngig weekly newsletter. To recieve this in your inbox every Friday, simply register on site.

This week seems to be all about all about unorthodox musical instruments. There are some creative people out there and they’ve been making beautiful music out there. First is the world’s first subway station stairway piano. A very clever Swedish clip on YouTube shows how people can make beautiful music on their way to work.

Closer to home here in Britain, a few electronic musicians have teamed up to produce a solution to a problem that’s been a problem at many electronic gigs over the years – namely that they’re really boring. This writer from past experience can definitely testify to the dullness of watching someone hunched over a laptop. It just doesn’t compare well with a rock gig. So their Eigenharp looks to present a solution by creating an electronic instrument that is both versatile and fun to watch. Have they succeeded? Judge for yourself here.

Finally, and everywhere on the internet, this final video is an example of lip dubbing – where people combine lip syncing and audio dubbing to make a music video. This one – in time to the Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling is certainly one of the most ambitious, using the whole of the campus of the University of Quebec.

This is from the weekly Owngig newsletter. To receive this in your inbox simply register on site

Ok, the title of this first link is a little sweary. But the idea – play two YouTube videos simultaneously and use a crossfader to make your own mini DJ mixes (and record the results) is genius. One for the why didn’t I think of that? file. Marvel at it here – and we apologise if the title of the site offends your sensibilities, just enjoy the music.

Also fitting into the why didn’t I think of that category is this rather simple time lapse video of the US festival Coachella. One weekend’s festival crammed into four minutes. Although if we’re honest we’d like to see this for Glastonbury – the way in the video the area is cleared is very efficient but we’d like to see some of the casualties still floating around as the sun came up.

Finally, fitting into the arty category is this rather crazy project that uses Mexican jumping beans to make music by triggering synth patterns. View this strangeness here, and of course, feel free to bid for him on Owngig.com. You never know…