Rent a Laptop and Produce Your First Song

Computer technology has come a long way over the past decade or so, even in the area of music production. Technology has advanced so much that artists can collaborate on musical projects from hundreds of miles away. An individual can even make music on a laptop. A computer rental from Orange County is all someone needs to get started. For people who have composer spirits but don’t have the ability to play an instrument, producing their own music has never been easier.

A basic laptop has everything that a person needs to produce a song in terms of memory, but of course the quality can always be better with a top-of-the-line computer. A person can rent a top-notch laptop to produce the song instead of paying hundreds of dollars at once for the right unit.

Generally, the person should find a computer rental in Anaheim that has a good screen size, low mechanical noise, several USB ports and an awesome sound card. The home studio should be soundproof, which means that the person should try to pad the floors, doors and walls as much as possible. A well-skilled producer may be able to doctor the music files if soundproofing is not possible in the environment.

The individual will need editing software. Wavepad is a great program for audio files. The person will need to purchase Mixpad if he or she wants to record singing and then mix it with music. Audacity is a free program that allows the person to record and mix. The beloved Adobe Audition is also available. Any computer rental from Los Angeles should be able execute those programs.
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OCComputerRentals offers students and individuals a computer rental in Los Angeles, pre-installed with everything you need to get started.

The History and Challenges of the Harlem Education System

By Phineas Upham

During the early 1990s, New York City was facing a major problem with a large section of its population. The economic decimation that the 1980s brought to New York changed the city for the worse in a way that non-natives have a hard time grasping. Black Americans felt these strains the hardest. Their communities lost businesses, which meant people lost jobs as more manufacturing and packaging was moved to other parts of the country.

Those who didn’t leave the city were stuck in places like Harlem. By 1993, Harlem was predominately black and most of its residents lived well below the poverty level. As a result, East Harlem was consistently testing in the bottom rungs for math and reading.

By that time, institutionalized racism had largely been abolished but the effects of a segregated New York were still being felt. Overcrowding in the 1930s led to racially segregated schools. As a result, it was difficult for students to find racially mixed high schools and that lack of diversity was not working out to Harlem’s favor.

New York’s response to this challenge has been to open greater numbers of charter schools. This has both negatives and positives. Education quality has gone up, but the statistics behind graduation rates have not improved (or have proven to improve under conditions, such as not counting the number of incarcerated students who drop out of school). Harlem has recently put more emphasis on teaching talent, which is good considering the district was once used as a punishment for teachers that the New York School District wanted out. There are also rumors that Columbia University will seek expansion into the area, citing blight as a factor for eminent domain.

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Phineas Upham is an investor from NYC and SF. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or Twitter page.

A Brief Bio of Man Ray

By Phineas Upham

While Man Ray sought to distance himself from his family’s humble roots in the garment industry, the needlework and tailoring left an unmistakable mark on him as a man and an artist. One can see it in his collages, where the style is not all that different from the kind one might use in elegant pathwork. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1890, the eldest child of two Russian-Jewish immigrants as a Radnitzky, but the family changed its name to “Ray” in response to the anti-Semitism prevalent at that time.

His time at the Brooklyn Boy’s High School gave him the foundation for drafting and art he needed to express himself. He showed promise from a fairly early age, and supplemented his education with frequent visits to local museums. There, he would observe the great masters of his craft and learn from what they’d already done.

He brought his ambitions home, but his parents were not so eager for him to pursue art. After some convincing, they arranged to convert his room into an art studio and gave him 4 years to work on his art. He managed to pioneer that artistic opportunity into a career as a draft artist for several companies in Manhattan.

Ray spent the majority of his career in France, where he produced a variety of media but became most well known for photography. He also produced photograms, which he created by placing objects directly onto light-sensitive materials while exposing those materials to light, which he called “Rayographs” because he felt it was his own medium.

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About the Author: Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or LinkedIn page.

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan: Lifelong Companions

By Samuel Phineas Upham

The story of Helen Keller really begins with Anne Sullivan. Nicknamed “Annie” from a young age, Anne grew up in a poor family. After her mother died, and her father abandoned the family, Anne and her brother were sent to a local almshouse in Massachusetts. When she was eight years old, she contracted trachoma. The disease brought painful infections and partial blindness to the young girl, but surgeries helped to mitigate the symptoms for a time.

Unfortunately for Anne, there was no cure. She remained blind for life. She hoped for prospects outside of being a housemaid, and she found those prospects in the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. She completed her graduate degree at the age of 20, and tried to pursue a career in education.

At the same time, Arthur Keller was searching for someone to tutor his young daughter Helen. Helen was born both deaf and blind, leaving her almost completely language deficient. With Anne’s help, Helen was able to break through that barrier of language and learn to communicate with the world around her.

By age 11, Helen had already written a story. By 22, she had written an autobiography for herself with help from Anne Sullivan. She gave readers a glimpse of her life in the 1908 story The World I Live In, and dabbled a bit in socialism and political activism in 1913.

Keller died just a few weeks shy of her eighty-eighth birthday. Keller’s ashes were placed next to her lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan’s ashes at the Washington National Cathedral.

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About the Author: Samuel Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Samuel Phineas Upham website or Facebook.

Tracing the Origins of “The Bronx”

By Phineas Upham

The native people who inhabited the area we know as New York called The Bronx “Rananchqua”, but that’s not the true etymology of the name. The name actually comes from a Swedish explorer named Jonas Bronck, who was the first recorded settler in the area.

He held land on lease from the Dutch West India Company at the neck of the mainland North of Harlem. He also bought land from locals in the area, which was prior to any conflict that had arisen between the locals and the Dutch. He even named the Harlem River “Bronck’s River”, and both Dutch and English settlers came to call the place “Bronck’s Land.”

There is a definitive article in The Bronx, which is known officially as “The County of Bronx” or “The Borough of the Bronx”. The latter name is the only time when the definitive article is not used. How the usage of that definitive article came into play has to do with the surrounding rivers. It was more convenient to refer to them as “The Bronx River”, and the name stuck.

The Bronx basically went through two periods of history, the first being a period of economic boom prior to the Great Depression. After the Depression, The Bronx saw a surge of unemployment and became a lower-income area. Violent crime and poverty became the norm all throughout 1950 to 1985. Thanks to economic resurgence, and redevelopment in the area, today’s Burough of Bronx is a much safer and culturally richer space.

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Phineas Upham is an investor from NYC and SF. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or Facebook page.

Facts Related to Commonwealth v. Hunt

By Phineas Upham

Commonwealth v. Hunt was a crucial case in labor history, because it set an important precedent that allowed workers the right to unionize. The case, at the time, was heralded as the Magna Carta of trade, helping to set clear legal guidelines for when it was ok to collude with others for higher wages. Prior to this ruling, it was illegal for workers to attempt unionizing.

The entire dispute stemmed from boot makers who were demanding higher wages for their work. A strike held in Boston, by the Journeyman’s Boot Maker Society, had led to an increase in pay of $1.75 per pair of boots manufactured. Seeing progress, the group staged another strike that raised wages to $2.00 per pair.

One particular worker by the name of Jeremiah Horne basically used this strike as a loophole, refusing to pay fines and charging much higher rates for work that went over the allotted time. This kind of thing seems pretty common place to modern day workers, but back then rates were negotiated beforehand. It made it difficult to price projects, and even harder to collect a living wage.

Horne’s escapades eventually landed him in hot water with his boss. The Boston Journeyman Boot Maker Society had levied $7 in fees against Horne, who refused to pay. This dispute was taken to the courts, where they ruled that someone could seek higher wages (even enlisting the help of others to organize a strike) as long as it was not in a way that was deleterious to the local community.

This important ruling essentially made it legal to unionize.

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Phineas Upham is an investor from NYC and SF. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or Twitter page.

How to Play the Acoustic Guitar

Here are the basics and chords you will need to learn if you want o know how to play the acoustic guitar. Start from the beginning and then slowly move onto chords and eventually on to the easy acoustic guitar songs.

Acoustic Guitar Basics:

#1: Types of Acoustic Guitar
#2: Parts of an Acoustic Guitar
#3: Notes on the guitar
#4: Tuning your guitar
#5: Styles of picking
#6: The Slide
#7: The Hammer On
#8: The Pull-Off
#9: The Bend

Acoustic Guitar Chords (Major):

Open Chords
The C Major Chord
The E Major Chord
The A Major Chord
The G Major Chord
The D Major Chord

Acoustic Guitar Chords (Minor):

The E Minor Chord
The A Minor Chord
The D Minor Chord

Easy Acoustic Guitar Songs

If you have managed to learn the basic open chords and can play them relatively comfortably, then its time you tried some easy acoustic guitar songs. I’ve added a few so that you can try some out and once you get a feel for it you can try a few more.  If you find it difficult don’t lose heart, while i call these easy songs, you might not pick up how to play it immediately, just listen to original song and play along, then once you have a feel for the rythym and the tempo then try it out on your own. Trust me, once you get the hang of it, you’ll be hooked.

Jamorama Review

The Jamorama online guitar course comes with 4 very good eBooks, two fun educational games and access to the online  Jamorama forum. With Jamorama, you not only get the main eBook, but also 148 video with exercises etc, one of the nicest features of the video is that it has multiple zoom points so while you see him playing the guitar there is a smaller picture-in-picture of how his fingers are positioned. All very well done and they even teach you how to figure out songs by listening to them.

Other than the video, the other thing that really sets it apart are the jam tracks. After you learn a specific set of chords, there are CD’s with jam tracks so you can play along. No need to practice on your own anymore, just play one of the tracks  and you can play along like you’re part of an actual band.

I  highly recommend this product because I have tried it and found that it took my guitar playing to a higher level.

Company: ‘Jamorama’ by Ben Edwards
Website: www.Jamorama.com
Costs: $39.95 Get 75% OFF By Using Any Link On This Site Only

Matchbox Twenty – Hang

Here’s another easy acoustic guitar song to play, its by one of my alltime favorite bands, Matchbox Twenty. Its an absolutely awesome song and is not that hard to play once you get the melody.

#———————————-PLEASE NOTE———————————#
#This file is the author’s own work and represents their interpretation of the #
#song. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or research. #
#——————————————————————————#

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 97 14:00:40 Romance Standard Time
From: Don Kurelich
Subject: Corrections: Hang by Matchbox 20

Band : Matchbox 20
Song : Hang
Album : Yourself or Someone like you
Tuning : Normal – No Capo
Transcribed by: Steven Batchelder
Corrected by : Don Kurelich

I’m improving on the basic transcription that SB did. It was basicaly
there, but some of the chords were wrong and I’m showing a few
enhancements. These are subtle changes in the basic chords and a
change in strum. The chord differences are noted below and change
only the tone of what’s being played. The strum in the intro and first
verse is using your fingers (i.e. no pick, either your thumb or first
finger). At the second verse he switches to a flat pick.

Chords:
G* G* C* CaddG Em* Em D
E:|–3– –3– –3– —– –3– —– –2–
B:|–3– —– –3– –1– –3– —– –3–
G:|—– —– —– —– —– —– –2–
D:|—– —– –2– –2– –2– –2– —–
A:|–2– –2– –3– –3– –2– –2– —–
E:|–3– –3– —– –3– —– —– —–

(*With finger strum*)

Intro: G* C* (play 2 times)

G* C*
She grabs her magazines, she packs her things and she goes.
Em* D G* C*
She leaves the pictures hangin’ on the wall. She burns all her notes
G* D CaddG
And she knows, she’s been here too few years, to feel this old.

(Switch to flat pick)

G* C*
He smokes his cigarette, he stays outside ’til it’s gone.
Em* D G* C*
If anybody ever had a heart, well, he wouldn’t be alone.
G D CaddG
He knows, she’s been here too few years, to be gone.

D G Am CaddG G Am CaddG
And we always say, it would be good to go away, someday,
Em D
But if there’s nothin’ there to make things change,
CaddG CaddG (hammer-on E)
if it’s the same for you I’ll just hang.

Solo fill: G, CaddG (notice switch to G)

G CaddG
The trouble understand, is she’s got reasons he don’t.
Em D G CaddG
Funny how I couldn’t see it all, ’til she grabbed up her coat,
G D G CaddG
And she goes. She’s been here too few years, to take it all in stride.
G D CaddG
Yeah, but still it’s much too long, to let hurt go (you let her go).

Am G Am CaddG G Am CaddG
And we always say, it would be good to go away, someday,
Em D
Yeah but if there’s nothin’ there to make things change,
CaddG D
if it’s the same for you I’ll just hang, same to you I’ll always hang.
G Am CaddG G Am CaddG
Well I always say, it would be good to go away,
Em D
But if things don’t work out like we think and
Em D
There’s nothing there to ease this achin’, but if
Em D
There’s nothing there to make things change,
CaddG CaddG
If it’s the same for you I’ll just hang.

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