Posted on | August 8, 2020 | 2 Comments
- The free imperial march loops, samples and sounds listed here have been kindly uploaded by other users. If you use any of these imperial march loops please leave your comments. Read the loops section of the help area and our terms and conditions for more information on how you can use the loops.
- Star Wars 'The Imperial March Theme' using Garage Band Apps on an iPad and an iPad Mini LOL #starwarsfever.
So I’ve spent the past day researching, which involves viewing a lot of old YouTube videos. When I’m watching YouTube videos for my own amusement (rather than research), my preferences are fireworks, “storm chasing” and rare old Beatles sessions. Somehow, the algorithm for “suggested” videos popped up this interesting performance:
This fascinates me, because (a) how does someone so young discover an old Buddy Holly song? and (b) the arrangement is so simple. Besides her ukulele, the only instrumentation is a Takamine guitar and a Suzuki Omnichord, a 1980s-era electronic autoharp. New models sell for about $270, but the instrument is scarcely more sophisticated than many children’s toys you could buy for around $100 nowadays. The audio mix was done with Garageband software, and the video was recorded on her iPhone, edited with VideoLeap software. Even the microphone — a Shure 545S Series 2 Unidyne III — is rather cheap, less than $100 on Amazon.
It's your own little inside joke whenever your Grandmother calls and David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' plays or you get a ring from the boss set to the 'Imperial March.' Thanks to the power of.
My friend John Hoge worked as a recording engineer in Nashville back in the day, and can tell you what it would have cost to book studio time in the era of analog tape recording. Circa 1981, when I was chasing the rock-and-roll dream, the cheapest 8-track studio in Atlanta charged $25 an hour, at a time when minimum wage was $3.35 an hour. In other words, you’d have to work an 8-hour day at minimum wage to earn enough for one hour in the studio, and a full week’s wages wouldn’t pay for an eight-hour session. By the late 1980s, you could buy a 4-track cassette recorder for about $450 — about two-days’ pay[*], at minimum wage — but the audio quality was low (e.g., tape hiss) and it wasn’t until the late 1990s, by which time I’d outgrown my rock-and-roll dream, that home digital recording equipment became something affordable to the masses.
[* — see note below about this egregiously wrong estimate.]
Young people, in addition to their lack of knowledge of classic Buddy Holly tunes, generally have no idea how cheap technology has revolutionized so many things that we now take for granted.
Back in 1957, Buddy Holly had to travel to Clovis, New Mexico, to record in Norman Petty‘s studio, where “Everyday” was recorded as the B-side of “Peggy Sue.” You couldn’t just program a synthesizer (or use an Omnichord) for your backup track, either. You had to have an actual band to accompany you, or else pay studio musicians at union scale. Because the equipment needed for recording — what Marx would call “the means of production” — was so expensive, getting access to studio time usually required the support of a manager or a record company. Young musicians would generally spend years playing bar gigs and such before they could hope to get a shot at a recording contract. By the time the Beatles signed with EMI in 1962, they had been together five years, played every dance hall in northern England and done four stints as a house band in bars in Hamburg, Germany.
What the advent of cheap high-quality recording technology has done is to topple the barriers between musical talent and the audience. You don’t need a manager or an agent, you don’t need a record company, a studio, a producer, a contract — no lawyers, no paperwork, nothing — to be able to record a song, produce a video and upload it to YouTube where, potentially, you could become an instant superstar.
Allison Young has about 50,000 subscribers on YouTube, and her most popular video has gotten nearly 400,000 views:
Wow — “Till There Was You,” a song which was a hit for Anita Bryant in 1959, the year I was born! Think of all the old songs that might be remade for YouTube by young performers. If I could persuade Allison Young to sign a contract, I’d help her find those songs (because I know them all), but such is the nature of technology that Ms. Young probably doesn’t think my knowledge as a would-be A&R man could be helpful to her. This is something else about technology. Because everybody can look up anything on Wikipedia, young people have little respect for the possession of actual knowledge. So I reckon my career as a latter-day Colonel Parker will never happen. Sigh.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! One of the commenters points out a math error:
“$450 / $5.15 (min wage in 1997) is 87 hours of labor ( 2 weeks of pay).”
Thanks. I actually can do basic math, I just didn’t bother to do it, and so my estimate was disastrously wrong.
Comments
- A Musical Interlude | 357 Magnum
August 8th, 2020 @ 1:54 pm[…] Something different. A Musical Interlude from The Other McCain. […]
- Sunday Linkage « Bacon Time !!!!!!
August 9th, 2020 @ 2:28 am
THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD
This spot rotates to honor those who link us in shameless obedience to Rule 2 of 'How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog.'
HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!
Search
Recent Posts
Click here to manage your email subscription options.
RSS reader subscription
MEMEORANDUM
Recent Comments
- on Night Of The Digital Long Knives
- on Can I Get a ‘Roll Tide,’ Please?
- on Rule 5 Sunday: Rep. Lauren Boebert
- on Night Of The Digital Long Knives
- on Real Life Is Not Twitter or a Video Game
THE AMAZING GONZO FEED
Blog-Fu Ninja Masters
ADVERTISEMENT
Axis of Fedorables
AMAZING SAVINGS NOW!
Imperial March Garageband Download
Archives
Imperial March Garageband
- May 2021 (40)
- April 2021 (58)
- March 2021 (73)
- February 2021 (57)
- January 2021 (71)
- December 2020 (77)
- November 2020 (81)
- October 2020 (84)
- September 2020 (94)
- August 2020 (75)
- July 2020 (68)
- June 2020 (83)
- May 2020 (77)
- April 2020 (65)
- March 2020 (85)
- February 2020 (94)
- January 2020 (95)
- December 2019 (88)
- November 2019 (60)
- October 2019 (113)
- September 2019 (92)
- August 2019 (91)
- July 2019 (88)
- June 2019 (80)
- May 2019 (74)
- April 2019 (97)
- March 2019 (100)
- February 2019 (85)
- January 2019 (93)
- December 2018 (90)
- November 2018 (83)
- October 2018 (96)
- September 2018 (79)
- August 2018 (107)
- July 2018 (98)
- June 2018 (86)
- May 2018 (78)
- April 2018 (78)
- March 2018 (97)
- February 2018 (61)
- January 2018 (70)
- December 2017 (62)
- November 2017 (68)
- October 2017 (67)
- September 2017 (70)
- August 2017 (68)
- July 2017 (52)
- June 2017 (60)
- May 2017 (56)
- April 2017 (80)
- March 2017 (80)
- February 2017 (102)
- January 2017 (104)
- December 2016 (65)
- November 2016 (86)
- October 2016 (77)
- September 2016 (81)
- August 2016 (66)
- July 2016 (83)
- June 2016 (81)
- May 2016 (65)
- April 2016 (64)
- March 2016 (81)
- February 2016 (74)
- January 2016 (66)
- December 2015 (64)
- November 2015 (85)
- October 2015 (71)
- September 2015 (80)
- August 2015 (67)
- July 2015 (79)
- June 2015 (69)
- May 2015 (72)
- April 2015 (94)
- March 2015 (122)
- February 2015 (71)
- January 2015 (93)
- December 2014 (99)
- November 2014 (67)
- October 2014 (109)
- September 2014 (87)
- August 2014 (106)
- July 2014 (132)
- June 2014 (154)
- May 2014 (126)
- April 2014 (145)
- March 2014 (144)
- February 2014 (142)
- January 2014 (185)
- December 2013 (192)
- November 2013 (174)
- October 2013 (175)
- September 2013 (181)
- August 2013 (172)
- July 2013 (147)
- June 2013 (135)
- May 2013 (128)
- April 2013 (105)
- March 2013 (162)
- February 2013 (191)
- January 2013 (206)
- December 2012 (190)
- November 2012 (176)
- October 2012 (240)
- September 2012 (206)
- August 2012 (235)
- July 2012 (223)
- June 2012 (161)
- May 2012 (230)
- April 2012 (269)
- March 2012 (282)
- February 2012 (247)
- January 2012 (267)
- December 2011 (285)
- November 2011 (300)
- October 2011 (302)
- September 2011 (297)
- August 2011 (288)
- July 2011 (297)
- June 2011 (245)
- May 2011 (260)
- April 2011 (344)
- March 2011 (293)
- February 2011 (201)
- January 2011 (263)
- December 2010 (265)
- November 2010 (266)
- October 2010 (305)
- September 2010 (280)
- August 2010 (272)
- July 2010 (230)
- June 2010 (244)
- May 2010 (256)
- April 2010 (222)
- March 2010 (271)
- February 2010 (286)
- January 2010 (229)
- December 2009 (21)
- October 2009 (1)