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Sometimes it pays to be on Facebook.  By becoming a friend of Columbia Heights Day (Columbia Heights is the neighborhood where I live), I got invited to an awesome event organized by a new charitable foundation, CHARTS (the Columbia Heights Arts Foundation), which aims to "unite the different communities that live in Columbia Heights through the medium of art -- by extending outreach to all corners of the neighborhood for constructing dialogue on the arts, cultivating talent through community-based art projects, and allowing outlets of expression that are universal in their audience."  Is that not the coolest?  I've got to meet these people!

Check my shows page for details - I'll be performing at CHARTS' inaugural event, the Columbia Height Salon Series.  
 
 
I will be playing at a dessert, poetry, and music night at a home in DC.  Thinking about playing some of my new originals!  Contact me for more information.
 
I love Pandora! 11/14/2009
 
NEW!  Check my Links page for Pandora stations that I have created or subscribe to.

"What is Pandora?" you may ask.  Pandora is the coolest thing in the world.  From a simple perspective, Pandora is an internet radio station that you can customize based on your musical preferences.  To create a station, you tell it one or more songs or artists that you like.  It will play songs with similar musical properties to the songs you have given it, or to songs by the artists you have chosen.  As you listen to the station, you can fine-tune your station by giving the songs that play a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."  It's a great way to get introduced to new music and artists that you haven't heard before.

The awesome thing about Pandora is how it works.  The creator, Tim Westergren, was a computer science student at Stanford and also an indie musician.  Pandora combines principles of artificial intelligence with music theory.  The creators came up with a set of over 200 musical properties, such as vocal style, syncopation, production characteristics, instruments used, etc.  They tested these parameters to come up with the set of parameters that was the most reproducible and worked the best for categorizing music.  Every song in their vast library is given a profile based on this set of musical properties.  They actually have a team of people with music degrees to create a profile for each new song that is added to their library.  So what's unique about Pandora is that the system is actually looking for songs with similar musical properties to the songs that you put in to your station.  

You may be wondering how I know about how Pandora works.  Well, as it turns out I met Tim Westergren at Stanford before he launched Pandora (just once, but I recognized his name later when I was reading about Pandora).  Shortly after Pandora launched, I helped out with a town hall meeting he did for Pandora in DC, and I got to talk with him one on one, and he explained to me the history of Pandora and how it worked.

I should thank Justin Crane for telling me about Pandora in the first place.  A few years ago, I was complaining that I didn't know how to find new music that I liked, and he turned me on to Pandora.  Thanks, Justin!  Through Pandora I have discovered some new artists I really like, such as Jose Gonzalez and Melody Gardot.

On Pandora, I'm currently listening to this.
 
 
Hey! I just saw I'm featured on "Best Buzz - Editorial Picks" on earBuzz! And buddy Elden Kelly's new CD is featured too, under "New Stuff." And Andy Grammer and John West have albums & songs in the top selling CDs/downloads. Way to go!

My page on earBuzz can be found here.

Thanks, Don Kimenker (founder of earBuzz) for supporting indie artists!
 
 

I've been practicing "What the Fire Is" in preparation for recording the piano and vocal tracks this weekend and for the performance May 30.  It's coming along!  I can't wait to share it with you.  Hopefully we'll get a good recording of it this weekend, and I will be able to post it after its debut at Tiny Planet.

 
 

My best friend and producer, Kelly, is engaged to Caeli! Words fail to express my joy, good wishes, and prayers for them.  They will make beautiful music together--and dare we hope...babies???!!!!!!

 
 

I am psyched to finally have a website.  What do you think?  Constructive feedback appreciated.  And...I will send a free CD to the person who writes the best bio for me by the end of May 2009!