I'm in a bit of a personal musical renaissance at the moment and am actively seeking out new music after having listened to the same albums for years, effectively playing them out.

One of the areas I'm interested in exploring is LGBT artists out there making good music, especially because it seems like so many have entered the scene in recent years. Let me know if you have any recommendations! I'm open to any genre.

For a class I have to compose soundtracks and music, and I have no experience whatsoever.
Okay, I played classical guitar for a decade but I never was good at music theory and can barely read notes.

My issue is that I come up with a tune, and I need to dump that information to a recording medium as soon as possible. Translating that tune into a short term memory and playing it out on my guitar doesn't work, as I'll end up forgetting it nearly instantly. The one instrument that I can play is whistling, but that's kinda hard to do for long.

I'm looking for a more intuitive way to input notes into a computer.
I was thinking of some kind of pitch slider that continuously plays a note (limited to notes, no microtones) that I can control with an external input device like a knob or potmeter / by moving my mouse up and down, and then hit a button to input that sound, moving on to the next note. No delays inbetween, just immediately starts playing a new note.

Like the computer whistling a note for me, and me adjusting the pitch and length.

I can move my mouse quite precisely & can adjust pitch pretty easily when whistling, it's just that translating music from head to an instrument will never be as intuitive as something like whistling.

It's not supposed to be perfect, on-point music, just enough to record the vague idea and process it later. It also should be super minimalistic, I'd preferably only have the slider, the play/pause button, the confirm note button and a "save to file" button.

I'm not sure where I can even start finding something remotely related to this. I've looked around and tried a bunch of music software, but it's all either complicated or unintuitive.

Anyone know something like this?

Edit: As this website puts it;

Intuitive music composition requires that you hear the musicality of the music as you are composing it. Which means that you have no choice but to compose by playing.

and

You cannot intuitively compose music by entering note data into a software application.

Note: if this topic is better served in ~music than ~tech feel free to move it!

If I wanted to buy Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns, I have the following options:

From Amazon

• 256 kbps VBR MP3 ($11.49)

From 7digital

• 320 kbps MP3 + 256 kbps MP3 ($12.99) (I'm assuming it's 320 CBR/256 VBR)
• 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC ($16.49)

From HDTracks

• 24-bit/48kHz FLAC ($19.98)

From Qobuz, which appears to be a different mastering of the album:

• "CD Quality" FLAC ($14.49)
• 24-bit/48kHz FLAC ($16.49)
• 24-bit/48kHz FLAC ($10.99 with subscription to their $250/year service)

Does paying more for the higher fidelity actually matter? I suspect that this is just a form of price discrimination preying on my want to have an "objectively" better product, because I'm assuming there's a ceiling for audio quality that I can actually notice and the lowest encoding available here probably hits that. I also don't have any special listening hardware.

I understand the value of FLAC as a lossless archival encoding (I used to rip all my CDs to FLAC for this purpose, and I've been downloading my Bandcamp purchases in FLAC all the same), but for albums I can't get through that service it appears that the format has a high premium put on it. Bandcamp lets me pay the same price no matter the format, but every other store seems to stratify out their offerings based on encoding alone. A Thousand Suns costs nearly double on HDTracks what it does on Amazon's MP3 store, for example, despite the fact that I'm getting the exact same music, just compressed in a different way.

As such, is paying more for FLAC unnecessary? Is high-fidelity FLAC in particular (the 24-bit/48kHz options) snake oil?

Furthermore, Qobuz seems to offer a different mastering of the album, which seems like it actually could be significant, but it's hard to know. Is this (and the various other "remasters" out there) a valid thing, or is it just a way to try to get me to pay more unnecessarily?

(Note: I'm using this specific album simply because it was a good example I could find with lots of different stratified options -- I'm not interested in the particulars of this album specifically but more in the general idea of audio compression across all music).

I'm working on an application that allows a user to view playlists belonging to a particular radio show and stream/download/favourite the tracks in them. It has 4 core entities: User, Show, Playlist and Track.

• Each show has multiple playlists (one-to-many)
• Each playlist has multiple tracks (one-to-many)

To be able to reference a playlist belonging to a particular show. I gave those playlists the same uuid as the show they belong to. A few questions though.

1. Is this the right/best way to associate data?
2. As a track could potentially belong to multiple playlists, I can't take the same approach as I do for (show/playlist) How would be best to handle this? Ideally I would like to have a single "Track" table containing all tracks for all playlists.

For any experienced database designers out there, how would you structure this data? What would you consider in designing the schema and why? If I did go with 4 tables only, presumably there would be performance implications given the potential amount of data in any one of those tables, particularly tracks. If that is the case, how best to structure this kind of thing with performance in mind? Thanks in advance for any help :)

For reference, in case it's of importance, I'm using sqlite3.

Being cooped up inside has made me realize how much time I spend in front of screens, for work and for play. I think it would be healthy for me to try to find something that's not screen related to do but remain socially distant, and I think learning to play an instrument would be a good candidate.

The problem is, I don't know which one to learn. When I was in middle/early high school I played the drum set, but having moved out on my own I certainly don't have the space for that anymore. I also thought about the recorder, since people play cool medieval music on it, but I'd rather not subject my neighbors to the shrill monstrosity that is someone learning to play recorder. I like the type of music that can be played on a guitar, but ideally I'd like something physically smaller, and perhaps a little more interesting. Also, for social distancing's sake, it would be ideal if it was an instrument where it is possible to teach oneself how to play.

Am I overcomplicating things and should just learn guitar? Are there any instruments that hit inexpensive, self teachable, small, and can be used in music in ways similar to a guitar?

I just saw this parody of "We Didn't Start The Fire" on Reddit. It might be a parody song, but it's also a potted history of LGBT activism in the USA for the past 60 years.

We Didn't Start The Fire parody - Sherry Vine

Inspired by the @culturedleftfoot post.

Try providing links, and, if you feel that your country is too big for this exercise to make sense, feel free to limit your choices to your region, state, city or even neighborhood!

Definition of Homeland (adapted from Wikipedia):

A homeland is the concept of the place where a cultural, national, or racial identity had formed. It can also mean the country of nationality, the place in which somebody grew up or lived for a long enough period that shaped his or her cultural identity, the place in which one's ancestors live for generations, or the place that one regard it as home.

EDIT: The problem has been solved. @Sill identified the problem here and @cfabbro found a work-around here. Crisis averted!

I listen to some internet radio stations on my computer, but a couple of them aren't working any more: they appear to play, but there's no sound coming from my computer's speakers.

It is only two stations. I've tested other internet radio stations I listen to, and they still work: I can hear them. I can play and hear YouTube videos. I can stream Spotify on my computer. I can play and hear my music files stored on my computer's hard drive. So I know my speakers work. I know Chrome works as a music player for other sources, including other internet radio stations. It's just these two radio stations.

One of them is this radio station. Also this radio station. I know their digital streams are working, because I can listen to them via an internet radio app on my phone. So I know their digital signals are being sent out. But, while my phone app can play them, my computer browser can't play them.

I've tested both non-working stations in Chrome and Internet Explorer. They both don't work in Chrome, but this station also doesn't work in IE.

I'm using Chrome 80.0.3987.122. And I'm running Windows 7.

This problem only started a couple of days ago.

What's going on? How do I fix this?

Hello everyone! I wasn't sure where to post this, so into ~misc it goes.

I'm currently looking into auditioning for a professional musical theatre production. Now, being a baritone (E2-C5) would kind of put me at a disadvantage as most musical theatre roles are for tenors, but I found a musical soliciting online auditions for baritones. Usually with musical theatre, they don't really care about your voice type; they care more about your vocal range. "If you can sing it, you're more likely to get the role."

Anyways, my passagio (or vocal break) is around E4 and the audition (and therefore the musical) is requiring me to sing a G#4. I know that I'd be able to sing it because a) my range can do it and b) I've belted probably incorrectly an A4. I've never really had to use my chest mix range before, so would anyone have any tips?