Music and Houdini
any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Today is about music. As I look back on my previous posts I was amazed how much music I have passed through already.
Today is an offbeat post I think. I enjoy music and have found I listen even more amidst the pandemic. It is certainly easier to listen than ever before. My Newsletter tickles my mind to think of songs that fit my posts. In no time the music I've shared has become a pretty big list. Today I will tie together some ideas and release a music library to all of you.
Some might see this as a case of writer’s block and that may be true. My constant refrain is this is the most wonderful time to be alive. Technology has opened new doors that people could have never foreseen. In the old economy, we went to the printers and made copies of stuff that was important. Then we put it in hanging folders and stored it on our desks and shelves. If it was really important, someone microfilmed it. If you needed to find it you reserved a film reader and searched for it. If we wanted to share it with someone we mailed it after copying it on some monstrous machine for office copying.
This was an improvement over times past. In the Middle Ages, monks copied important documents with inkwells, perhaps on animal skins. A couple of thousand years previous and people were carving images of presumably important stuff into cave walls.
One of my favorite ways to describe how technology has changed our lives is that it removes the friction from doing a task. Nowadays we reach into our pockets and scan important document with our phones and store it in our cloud. If we are paranoid, when we get home we might transfer it to our files and delete the original. The point is one of us possesses the equivalent power of perhaps 1000 or 10000 people when it comes to managing information. This is true in so many aspects of our lives. One of my sons had a college roommate whose father managed a farm of 10,000+ acres. That’s a lot of corn and soybeans! This is the greatest age to be alive.
When I began this writing journey I was filled with anxiety about what I would write about. Since I had never blogged before I did not understand the intricacy of sharing links, music, and videos. I decided early that a picture at the top, decent links to learn more, and music at the end would be my starting structure. For those along from the start, you know I’ve refined (and shortened) these posts THANK GOD. I even used to keep track loosely of how much time I was spending on this new hobby. Yikes, maybe I need therapy. I also post less frequently which is easier on me and you. Sometimes I’m still guilty of getting off-topic (like now) but I think things are tightening up.
The list of songs I like, have posted, or plan to link to a post shortly has grown fast. Tonight I decided to share the list so far. It is a tribute to how easy things are to do these days with a keyboard in front of us that such a thing is possible. Today the two simple tools I play with are going to be Substack (this website) and Google Sheets (Google’s free version of Microsoft Excel). Today we are going to make something with the two of them that I hope is useful, fun, and free!
When I finish writing a draft I just add the name of the post and the music I linked in there. I wanted an easy way to handle all of the links I have sent out. I used Google Sheets instead of Microsoft Excel. My reasons were simple, Google Sheets is always free, automatically upgrades and I don’t need to be fiddling to make it work on my phone or a laptop, or another device. It just works. It cannot do all of the unusually advanced functions that Excel can do but I don’t need that as I am not building a Profit and Loss (P&L) statement.
My spreadsheet helps me keep track of my Posts, Music, and Subscribers. If this Newsletter gets successful I might have to rethink it but for now, I spend PERHAPS 2-3 minutes or less making sure my spreadsheet is mostly accurate after scheduling a post. For those of us who grew up with spreadsheets, we all know that over time we keep tweaking them. I have done that with mine and added handy stuff to keep mine useful and add stuff faster.
Today, I decided to link my playlist to Substack and make it live. If you wanted to do this with Microsoft Excel, you would have to hire someone and it would be hard to keep running. Everything Google builds is envisioned to work in a browser and ANYTHING ELSE is an afterthought. It makes doing what seems like cool stuff VERY EASY to do. Today is a perfect example. This post will have a way to SEE AND PLAY all of the music I’ve linked to in the past while keeping all my bookkeeping private. If you like my playlist (doubtful), you can bookmark it as it will update as I post more. I doubt very many will be interested as that is what makes it a personal playlist I guess.
Tonight’s music will be a bonus with 160+ songs including songs for future posts. I imagine that if things go according to plan that means about 300+ songs by the end of the year across 200+ posts. I hope I don’t run out of ideas. I am sure that YouTube will not run out of music!
Here’s a single song about magic which I humbly propose would be how an average person who might be at retirement age might view this. If your taste favors old rock and roll, this one is pretty good also.
If you want to check out the music library so far, give the button a try. The PLAY and OPEN links will let you open any previously released post or any song I’ve included in a post or will pretty soon. Send me a comment about what you think of it. By the way, if you try it, the back button should get you back to the post I think. If you like my music, bookmark the little spreadsheet and you’ll even know music lies ahead in future posts!
Now it is time for a psych test. This is the honor system. If you gave the button a try, enjoy this song as the mantra for this post. For those that bother, I include even the songs I have not yet linked to a post. Take a listen to some of the music of another gift to the world from Buffalo NY named Spyro Gyra.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Since my posts jump around a bit, I decided to add a note about what my next post is about. Tomorrow (Friday), I am starting an occasional feature called Friday Flashback. I will highlight an old post that I thought was pretty good and pre-dates many of you. It is tough enough to keep up with the posts you subscribe to. The regular schedule TUE/THU/SAT is still the plan though.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
by Arthur C. Clarke
Another fun post! Thanks for sharing your music list Mark!