Submitted by Will Sanchez via facebook:
CatSynth 4th Anniversary
Another year has past since we started this site four years ago. Thanks to everyone who already wished us a happy anniversary, and to the folks at the Cat Blogosphere for their shout-out today.
And just as we have with previous anniversaries, we are celebrating with statistics of questionable import.
Over the past four years, we have written 1220 posts, and readers have contributed 6699 comments. We have received 293,916 visits. This comes out to about 5.5 comments per post, and about 43 visits for every one comment left. We also have about 270 “catsynth pic” or “catsynth video” posts. Make of these numbers what you will.
In terms of tags and categories, there are not really any surprises. These top terms do reflect what the site continues to be about:
| Cats (cat) | 704 |
| Synthesizers | 449 |
| Luna | 277 |
| Music | 246 |
| Art | 190 |
| weekend cat blogging | 183 |
| WCB | 181 |
| San Francisco | 160 |
| Personal | 153 |
| News | 151 |
| Wordless Wednesday | 147 |
| Reviews | 134 |
| Photography | 132 |
| Modernism | 91 |
| Highways | 82 |
| Art | 74 |
| analog | 74 |
| video | 74 |
| cats on tuesday | 70 |
| electronic music | 62 |
| synth | 62 |
| performance | 55 |
| carnival of the cats | 45 |
| Travel | 45 |
| black cat | 44 |
We now turn to stats specific to the past year. The top five days for visits since July 19, 2009 are:
| November 6, 2009 | 1036 |
| April 18, 2010 | 859 |
| May 11, 2010 | 808 |
| October 15, 2009 | 787 |
| March 22, 2010 | 780 |
Hmm, November 6, 2009. Who knew our post on Reconnaissance Fly and Noertker’s Moxie at the SIMM Series would get so much attention 🙂
The posts that received the most comments over the past year:
And the top commenters over the past year:
| kitty | 203 |
| Mickey | 143 |
| CatSynth | 96 |
| Gattina | 75 |
| SandyCarlson | 51 |
| Sukhmandir Kaur | 50 |
| Robin from Israel | 38 |
| Beth @ 990 Square | 37 |
| Katz (And Other) Tales | 32 |
| cindy | 31 |
| AVCr8teur | 30 |
| jams o donnell | 47 |
| Carver | 26 |
| Sniffie and the Florida Furkids | 23 |
| Beth F | 23 |
| Cats of Wildcat Woods | 22 |
| Ms. Latina | 20 |
| Snowcatcher | 19 |
| Digital Flower | 18 |
| Susan Adcox | 18 |
| Cafe Au Lait | 17 |
| The Chair Speaks | 16 |
| Harry Spotter | 16 |
| Jewelgirls Katz | 15 |
| Judi | 15 |
| Nikita Cat | 15 |
| jason | 12 |
These are the stats that change the most from year to year, as we welcome new readers and others fade away for any number of reasons. One interesting thing to note is our two top commenters (who have retained those spots for the last two years running) are both from Canada.
Our Facebook page gives us a new source of questionable stats to reflect upon. We have received about 30 contributions (pictures or videos). The city with the most declared CatSynth fans is New York. The countries with the most fans (after the United States) are Canada, the United Kingdom, and Finland. These are all plausible, but I am a bit skeptical of Facebook’s data gathering and presentation tools.
Thanks to everyone who has read and supported us, wherever you happen to be, and we’ll look forward to more over the next year…
Weekend Cat Blogging #267
Between the Outsound Festival and other things going on here at CatSynth, we barely had time to squeeze in Weekend Cat Blogging.
I returned home briefly last night between various events to rest for a moment and of course to spend a few minutes Luna. With camera already in hand and made a few photos of Luna near our favorite glass-and-metal table. It caught a bit of blue in the reflection, and inspired me to make this image with everything but the blue reduced to grayscale:
Later that evening, I encountered some feline themed art:
This is a moment from a 3D film/video by Kerry Laitala that was screened last night at SOMArts. I did not see the kitten featured on the exhibition website, though. I will have a review of the full event at SOMArts soon.
Aside from brief excursions in photography and visual art, the last few days have been dominated by music. For each of the groups I am working with, wehave compositions that we print on paper and then read during rehearsals and performances. It is a lot of work.
But is sheet music tasty?
On the subject of tasty treats, our friends Kashim, Othello, Salome and Astrid are hosting special edition of WCB dedicated to Sher, who passed away unexpectedly two years ago. In addition to being a dedicated and supportive member of Weekend Cat Blogging, she was also a food blogger who published many recipes which I have used over the last few years. We will go back to the archives and try some more as soon as things calm down a bit and we have time for luxuries like well-prepared home-cooked meals.
Weekend Cat Blogging #267: In honor of Sher is hosted by Kashim, Othello, Salome and Astrid at PaulChens Foodblog?!.
The Carnival of the Cats will be up today at When Cats Attack!.
And the Friday Ark is at the modulator
CatSynth at the Outsound Music Summit
Starting tomorrow, and throughout next week, I will be involved in the Outsound Music Summit here in San Francisco. In addition to participating as a performing artist, CatSynth is an official community media sponsor of the festival! I will attending (almost) all of the events, providing some live updates via Twitter, and of course more detailed reviews here on the blog. For those who wish to follow along, you can join us on Twitter @CatSynth, or subscribe to our feed, or simply check back in to the site periodically.
Please visit the Outsound Music Summit site for more info. You can find a detailed schedule of all the programs, and ticketing information for those who will be in the Bay Area next week.
In terms of participating in the events themselves, I will be at the Touch the Gear Expo on Sunday. I am not yet sure the exact list of gear I will present, but it will almost certainly include the Monome, the Kaoss Pad and the Evolver.
On Saturday (that’s tomorrow), I will be performing with Reconnaissance Fly live on KFJC Radio. The performance is listed as 4PM U.S. Pacific Time, and is available online.
Finally, on Friday, July 23, I will be performing at the summit, both with Reconnaissance Fly and the Cornelius Cardew Choir.
Polly Moller’s collected and adapted spoetry texts form the basis for a new “spong cycle” — a song cycle based on spoetry. Entitled “Flower Futures”, this otherworldly ten-movement work shifts constantly in imagery and sound. Movements feature free improvisation, graphic scores, and full scored music, each with a spoem as its basis. Reconnaissance Fly, consisting of Moller plus Amar Chaudhary (keyboards and electronics) and Tim Walters (bass guitar and electronics) will perform “Flower Futures” along with special guest concussionist Moe! Staiano.
The Cornelius Cardew Choir is a SF Bay Area-based vocal performance ensemble. Situated at the intersection of community & experimental music, these professional, amateur, & novice singers work collectively to turn ideas into sonic action. The Choir’s set will include “Genesis” for twelve improvisers by Polly Moller, with the composer herself portraying the New Universe.
It is going to be a busy week…
CatSynth Video: Kitten Synthesizer Reverb
From AMagicWhistle on YouTube, via matrixsynth:
Kitten, DIY analog synthesizer, and spring reverb.
Here is another featuring the kitten:
and one featuring just the synthesizer:
“10 Step sequencer, seven audio oscillators, filter, LFO, blinky lights”
Wordless Wednesday: 4517 (Parking)
Work completed: Flora Davis, For Luna
The piece I had commissioned from artist Flora Davis was completed in late June:
The metal surfaces of each box are glued and covered in a protective layer, and the sides are finished with a metallic paint.
The piece now also has a title: For Luna. It seems appropriate, as both Davis and I have cats named Luna. And of course it is a nice tribute.
You can see previous articles documenting the progress here and here.
It was exciting to see it complete and take it home. The final step will be to display the artwork. Combined with the companion cat painting Zeus, the five boxes can be arranged in any number of ways. Here are but a few examples:
I have yet to settle on a final arrangement.
R.I.P. Tali
Some sad news from this weekend, via matrixsynth. Tali, the feline companion of carbon111 passed away over the weekend:
We featured Tali’s CatSynth pics many times over the past couple of years, and she will be missed. I send carbon111 my deepest sympathies.
You can read kind words for Tali (aka “Circle Cat”) at Harmony Central and matrixsynth.
I did not know before reading carbon111’s post that Tali was named for Taliesin.
Outsound Presents Conduct Your Own Orchestra Night
Last Thursday, I participated in another round of “Outsound Music Presents Conduct Your Own Orchestra Night”. I played iPhone and Kaoss Pad in the “orchestra” along with Tom Bickley (recorder), John Hanes (percussion), Simon Hanes (bass), Carlos Jennings (synthesizers), Bob Marsh (guitar), Marianne McDonand (harp), Ann O’Rourke (percussion), and Rent Romus (saxophone). The event was organized by Matt Davignon.
I also signed up once again for one of the slots as a conductor. I used my graphical symbols, giving different symbols to different musicians throughout the course of the 10-minute piece. Each performer interpreted the assigned symbols as he or she saw fit, while listening to what others were doing. Ann O’Rourke had her metal cat-shaped CD holder again, which as perfect for the “cat” symbol. I also added a lot of direct pitch instructions to this performance, i.e., having specific musicians play a “C” or an “E” for a period of time, to build up unisons and harmonies and provide more variety to the texture. I was actually quite happy with the range of sounds and musical phrasing that resulted.
John Hanes conducted a rather minimal piece, where everyone was instructed to play only the pitch “F” (if one had a pitch-capable instrument) and eighth notes. Within this He built of a minimal texture with a fair amount of dynamic range by having people enter and exit on his cue. For his piece, Tom Bickley gave us the basic concept of choosing a number between 5 and 10, and then repeat a pattern of counting up to that number and sounding a short staccato note The results was a sparse pointed texture, with various clusterings and the different performers moved in and out of phase. In the middle of his piece, Bob Marsh added his voice and words, and gradually moved away from the stage towards the back of the room as the piece drew to a close.
One issue that has become apparent is that my iPhone has performed far worse as a musical instrument since I upgraded to OS 4.0. It runs slow and some applications quit unexpectedly – this did happen once when I was cued for a solo note, leading to a somewhat amusing but somewhat embarrassing moment. Fortunately, for a small and friendly show like this it is easy to laugh off.
Weekend Cat Blogging #266 and Photo Hunt: Free
For Weekend Cat Blogging #266, we present some photos of Luna relaxing in the dining area.
A contrast of colors, texture and shape.
This is also perhaps one of our weaker attempts to fit the Photo Hunt theme this weekend, which is free. Relaxing in a favorite spot is a fine way to spend free time.
Weekend Cat Blogging #266 is being hosted by LB and Breadchick at The Sour Dough. It also marks the approximate 5th anniversary since WCB was started by a group of mostly food bloggers who set aside a day on the weekend to blog about cats.
The Photo Hunt is hosted as always by tnchick. This week’s theme is free.
The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted by Nikita Cat.
And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.