Hello World

 

Welcome to Shane's Journal

This blog will contain weekly notes on projects, progress, ideas, lessons, and reflections of Shane Ross. 

Lessons and reflections may yield ideas. Ideas may progress into projects. Projects may never end.

Dr. Stephen Wilson once said that nothing is science until it is written down. Here is a toast to the beginning of becoming science.

A personal website was created which begins the ground work for structuring and publishing ideas which have been harbored. The website is hosted at shanimus.com. The website, along with the channels and projects which are linked there will continue to be developed as progress is realized.

Projects:

  Rockafairy

Rockafairy is an organization which aims to provide every budding musician with a musical instrument.

Currently we are investigating forming a non-profit organization to contain our activity of purchasing inexpensive used instruments and making them ready and available to local public programs.

This idea spawned thanks to a housemate who bestowed onto us a bass, guitar, and guitar amp which were neglected, not used, among their kids. They passed these assets along with a condition, pass these along to someone who wants them. Those assets found loving homes within a week, after being cleaned, restrung, and tuned. By the next week three more guitars appeared from pawn shops and classifieds. Each was priced under $100 and only required strings, cleaning, and tuning to make great instruments for anyone interested in learning the guitar. The three guitars were dropped off at the local music shop, Tom's Guitars of Medford, Oregon where they were asked to be made available to anyone who wanted a guitar but could not afford one. The idea resonated with the shop keeper who has participated similar programs. They recommended that the program be solicited to local youth programs and support agencies.

  DoDilly

DoDilly is a social network of musicians who publish, share, and mix audio samples. 

Lets make publishing an eight or sixteen bar lick nearly as easy as posting a tweet. Let's also allow that content can be followed and mixed in with other samples to form songs. Those licks and songs will be digitally marked, referencing the originally contributors and everyone who engaged with it.

There are a lot of bass licks, some guitar licks, and not enough drum tracks on this computer. It would be great to collaborate with other musicians in a space where one can freely listen to licks, get inspired, and play along on their own time, while also expanding their inspiration on others content. It's post-covid and musicians need a space to jam.

  CommonJunk

CommonJunk is a social network of things which may be shared among communities.

What if we could reflect on the journey each item has in its lifetime, every project it contributed to, every steward that used it, every time it broke and was fixed. What if its not about the item at all, but how much value that asset was able to create. 

In some cases, things that are not always used do not need to be sitting on a shelf or in a garage. Rather, they should be made available to the nearest need for that item. Say a community lawn mower, a shared drill, a circulating set of legos, a beginners instrument. This ideology optimizes the value that asset provides to its local community and reduces the communities consumption of consumer goods. 

Each item would be registered by its steward and given a profile of its history, quarks, and utility. Upon registration each asset would receive a QR code sticker which links to its profile. Members of the community can query the local commonjunk network for tools and assets, sending reception requests to the stewards. Stewards may accept these requests and pass on the asset to the new steward.  Stewards would be encouraged to update the profile and foster broken assets.

Ideas: 

  Local Battery Bank

Similar to redbox or a bottledrop can recycling machine, this version exchanges rechargeable batteries. Members would begin by purchasing the batteries from the machine and can return them for a freshly charged cell.

Reflections:

It is refreshing and encouraging to have documented here. Dreams don't work unless you do.

Foot Notes:

"Shanimus" is a common, and endeared, introductory address by familiar peers. Other introductory addresses include Shanthew, Shanathan, Shanaynay, and Ross.  

There is a lot more to tuning an instrument than simply making sure an open string reads <note> on the tuner. Adjusting the truss rod sets the level of the neck, which should be straight. Adjusting the height of the saddles in the bridge defines the height of the action, which should be just above where the string rattles on any frets. And finally, adjusting the intonation of the saddles (length of the strings) so that the 12th fret octave is the same as the open note. 

should is a subjective preference.