I figured that more than complaining about the dearth of random and weird websites, I might ought to contribute something. I almost went to MassArt for new media installations. In those days I was a web monkey with a solid design bent and very orthogonal thinking. I still have a smidgeon of the thinking, we'll see what I have left of my design skills, but my tech skills are hopeless. Back then my tools were freehand, dreamweaver, bbedit, photoshop, flash, Perl, Solaris, mySQL. My last website was done with rudimentary css.

I would like to get right to the design and expression phase, I don't have an inclination to dive into coding. I also don't want to worry about security. I'll throw a few bucks down.

I'm still comfortable in photoshop, but would like a more fun tool. I cannot stand illustrator, and would love to have a vigorous chat with the folks at Adobe who chose to promote it and shelve freehand. Better yet, an even more vigorous chat with the moron at the FTC who approved Adobe's buyout of macromedia. You can bet that will be on the website. Is there any equivalent to freehand? I saw the post about a free, online illustration tool that came through recently, that might be a smidge rudimentary. What about dreamweaver? And how to publish? I don't care to learn about content management, scripting, databases, etc. if I can avoid it.

Bonus if there are AI tools to help.

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.

Is it possible to start an indie literary (web?)zine in this part of history? Do you have any tips on marketing, gaining submissions, the publishing itself, editing and other things involved in the making of a zine?

Your own experiences, speculations and links to articles are welcome!

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?

What creative projects have I been working on? It’s almost a labor to answer that one concisely, hence my lack of participation.

My mind is of never ending creative ideas, some great and some not, most not.. but they don’t ever seem to stop. I also like to be creative, and as a result, have ended up with more “started” projects then I’m willing to count.

So my question to fellow traverses of the tilde-verse is, what are some methods you use to sustain productivity in individual projects when creativity itself inspires starting new projects?

I am considering to start an educative podcast in a couple months (just considering, nothing certain). I want to monetise it with a freemium model where the most elementary thing---the audio---is free or very cheap (e.g. $1 on Patreon), but handouts (non-essential but very useful) are slightly more expensive. It will probably be weekly to begin with, and I mgiht add some extra material if it will be viable financially. I can't really afford pro or prosumer gear at this point, so I'd like to avoid that if possible.

My question is, what are your tips for a totally beginner podcaster like me? Either my case directly, or a more general newbie with little funds tobdedicate to this in the beginning.

So, a little background, my profession is technical writing. I want to write a novel but I'm struggling a little with getting the creative side of my brain going. Technical writing seems to further inhibit my creativity with all its rules.

I'm looking into local writers' workshops but they're all full at the moment. In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone here has any advice for exercises or things I could do to stimulate my creativity and free my mind from all the rules of technical writing. Thoughts?

I have writing, prose and in verses, that I want to start submitting to magazines. I can't decide if I should use a pseudonym or not. My reasons for using one:

• I have problems with my name: it is ideologically loaded, people can tell my dad was a nationalist, which is an ideology I reject and oppose

• I feel like it would somehow good for me to distance myself a bit from my work, don't know why really

• I guess I am intimidated by potential failure a bit, so maybe "getting my feet wet" with a pseudonym could help me get over it.

But I also want to own my work, and feel like using a pseudonym with complete secrecy is a bit... cowardly, if I am totally honest. I consider using a pseudonym which I will publicly own later, but then, is there a point to it?

What do you think about it?