[Ascap Tells Artists It's Cutting Their Payments]

Venue owners let artists who are going to perform, sign a waiver so the venue owner doesn't have to pay the license fees for copyrighted music - the artists promise they won't play any copyrighted music.

Ascap says **** you, pay anyway - we all know they are still going to play copyrighted music.

Is a bit like a cop fining you for speeding when you step into your car, no? We all know you are going to exceed the speed limit, now don't we?

In my book, that's not legit. Probably also according to Dutch law, come to think of it.

Thanks.

Speaking personally, payment evasion may always be my own preferred option where there's a chance of getting away with it - like getting away with speeding when there's no cop around. But maybe a better analogy would be the requirement, speeding or not, to have a valid license - plus the fact that a waiver wouldn't save you there either.

Personal opinions aside, the law is the law, and we just have to deal with it one way or another.

The law requires a licence for the use of music, and we know that it will be copyrighted music because all music is under copyright law, so that can't be what the waiver is for. I think the argument was that they would be playing only their own original music and not 'covers' - and yet copyright still applies to both categories.

Any waiver would have to come from ASCAP, not from the performers, who might not even be ASCAP members.

If they were ASCAP members, and the venue had paid it's licence, and the artists filed their performance repertoire appropriately, then they would eventually receive some share of monies collected.

That's how it works - theoretically - and I do have legitimate questions about how PROs' distribution formulae eventually shake out in our direction - but, given the long struggle to put our protections in place together with the constant battle to maintain them, the constant pressure to undermine those rights sometimes smells akin to some kind of mealy-mouthed quisling union-busting cloaked in a seductively innocent ideology of 'free'.

Why aren't these people working with ASCAP to make something happen?

Why don't the venues just get a licence?

It is hard for me to imagine that Dutch law would be any different from any other EU member.

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[Ascap Tells Artists It's Cutting Their Payments]

Techdirt does have a definite point of view regarding copyright, patent, trademark and similar legal concepts. They make no attempt to present opposing views themselves, though such views appear quite regularly in the comments. I haven’t found them to fabricate, but it’s probably fair to say they are not “objective” in a journalist’s sense.

I had never been aware of them at all prior to your post and my only reading of their stuff is through your links.

But I did find them to fabricate, enough to signal questions about credibility.

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[Ascap Tells Artists It's Cutting Their Payments]

Sorry, but if I let people sign waivers, ASCAP should not be at liberty to bluntly ignore that. They may *assume* people play covers anyway, but until that's established, they cannot simply dictate law.

Sorry Rob, I'm not quite clear what you're saying here.

Help me make sense of it, please.

.

[Ascap Tells Artists It's Cutting Their Payments]

I don't necessarily agree with TechDirt's rabble-rousing opinions, Randy.

They claim:

1. that ASCAP is aggressively closing venues.

2. that ASCAP overpays large acts at the expense of small acts.

3. that ASCAP is attacking groups like Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge -- who “help artists find more ways to take control over their own careers”.

4. that ASCAP is cutting back on payments to many of its artists:

5. that ASCAP is bringing in more money than ever.

For #5 – bringing in money is their job, it’s what they’re supposed to do, and doing it well is good. Bringing in money by leaning on venues to pay their licence for use is a policy pursued by collection agencies in other territories. And the complaints in those territories echo #1, also.

Personally, I don’t see any problem with expecting premises to pay for their music use. It’s a simple cost of business like everything else. It’s not a huge amount, after all – contrary to what TechDirt want you to believe - and yet people still expect it to be free. The small open-mic venues don’t want to pay anything, of course. Too cheap even to pay their performers. They would sooner claim they have been forced to close and lay the blame at ASCAP’s door. I’m not convinced that view is just. I feel that TechDirt are trying to manipulate my opinion. As if they have their own agenda and objective reporting is not on it.

For point #4, ASCAP are quoted as saying “because of the fiscal climate, less money was available this year for the award program”. So at face value the cut-back applies only to some ‘award program’, while TechDirt are still keen to tell us without any further substantiation that ‘many of its artists’ are affected.

Point #3 – I remember your own chosen preference for ‘Creative Commons’ licensing – and I remember presuming you had made that choice based on ethical ideals of some sort – which is why I regret having to say this - but, to be perfectly honest, I see it all as a bit of a con.

In the UK, whenever you make any kind of purchase as a consumer the transaction falls automatically under the law of contract much as the situation whereby when you write a new song it automatically falls under the laws of copyright. For a consumer already protected by common law, this means that the only times you are offered any kind of guarantee document is when rights are being removed from you. If you tried to purchase a brand-new car in the UK, for example, and were to refuse the accompanying “guarantee” papers, they would flatly refuse to sell it to you. They don’t want you to have your full entitlement under law. It’s cheaper and better, for them, to restrict your protections.

Same with copyright. The law allows you to do whatever you choose with your work. You’re not prevented from anything and your work is protected. These other initiatives aren’t giving you anything extra that you don’t already have. Like the consumer guarantees, their only purpose is to take rights from you. So where they claim to “help artists find more ways to take control over their own careers”, you know it’s a bald-faced lie.

If I was at all attracted to conspiracy theories, I would be tempted to suspect Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge of colluding in a campaign to undermine copyright.

Point #2 subsumes some very legitimate and contentious issues.

TechDirt don’t even begin to address those.

Appears not to understand what they are.

And I’m even more convinced they’re trying to manipulate my opinion by talking bollocks.

Sorry.

But there are issues at point #2.

.

[What Age Were You When You Wrote Your First Lyric ...]

I don't remember how old I was - no idea whatsoever.

But I know how old I was when I first wrote a song-lyric with which I was perfectly happy and proud.

54 years old.

Finally I know how to do it.

I am a late bloomer.

Or just slow.

.

[Chord Progressions]

Do you play all of these with your left hand only, or move the 3 to your right to open up the chord?

Oh, I'm just focussed on identifying the 1-3-5-7 in the context of the scale I am looking at as a thinking exercise - chord generation.

Plus - in that answer - my intention was to clarify (if there was ambiguity) that it was NOT about voicing "all seven notes of the major scale, stacked up in thirds".

So in that context it wouldn't really matter - you are just as likely to find me stabbing at the keyboard with 2 fingers from each hand.

If I was trying to voice the chord for real, I would be choosing to look for the shell-voicing of just the 3rd and the 7th, and maybe picking a third note for colour - depending on the direction it was heading.

So I might voice it upwards: 7-9-3; or 7-3-6; probably with two fingers from my right hand and one from my left.

If I was working on searching for a melody with fingers of my right hand, I would be finding the 3rd and 7th with two fingers of my left hand.

But then, not being an instrumentalist, I don't need to worry much about technique.

As singer, writer, and tyro arranger, all I need is a productive way of making sense that I can use to interpret chord changes.

Two thankfully slim but helpful little starting volumes:

"How To Create Jazz Chord Progressions" by Chuck Marohnic

"Jazz/Rock Voicings for the Contemporary Keyboard Player" by Dan Haerle

They may be more use in terms of specific voicing suggestions.

[Chord Progressions]

Am I correct that rather than starting with a triad and adding to it, you’re looking at chords in a major key as being derived from all seven notes of the major scale, stacked up in thirds?

Yes – I am looking at chords as being derived from scale-tones.

(Where else are we going to get the notes from, right?)

But we’re not using all seven notes to express the chord.

We’re just using four fingers for the first four notes: 1-3-5-7.

And being aware of what those other notes might be if we wanted to go there

In spelling out those extensions we are giving clear notice that, should you choose to include a 9th in your version of a III chord, it needs to be flattened, same for the 13th.

So the I chord in the key of C major is "C-E-G-B-D-F-A"

I view the I chord as I Major7: C-E-G-B.

But I know the rest of those notes are there if I ever want to use ‘em.

wrote it as a 7th chord, but noted all the alterations that would be required to keep the notes of a 13th chord in the scale.

Yes.

You then recognize a chord as major if has a major 3rd, a perfect 5th and a major 7th

minor if it has a minor 3rd, a perfect 5th and a minor 7th.

leaves V (which has a major 3rd but a minor 7th)

and VII (which lacks a perfect 5th) as neither fish nor fowl.

It makes sense — the 3rd and the 7th are the only notes in a chord we call major or minor, rather than flatted, sharped, diminished or augmented, so they must both be major to have a major and both be minor to have a minor.

The dominant seventh fits neither, so you consider it a type of its own.

That’s about the size of it.

Except that the 5th carries much less significance.

The 3rd and the 7th are the characteristic defining chord tones

I tend to think of everything as beginning with a triad — the common ones, with a perfect 5th, have their character determined by the 3rd: major, minor or suspended (replacing the 3rd with a 4th), while the less common diminished and augmented are off by themselves. The (unqualified, hence minor) 7th note added to a major or minor chord seems to me not to change the character of the underlying triad so much as to lead...

That’s the important bit, I think.

Chord progressions do their thing through voice-leading.

Moving around round the cycle of fifths in the normal world of regular functional harmony – the same one described by Hariosa – we can see this voice-leading job is done by the 3rd and the 7th

That’s why it just seems a lot handier using a concept embracing the 7th as fundamental, rather than the simple triad.

Having a concept which also illuminates upper extensions at the same time introduces extra potential to our palette in the way of extra passing-tones available to expand our voice-leading with yet other intervening chords or substitutions.

For progressions, I would argue that these qualities serve to make the approach more productive than sticking with triadic thinking.

(I’m guessing that you think of a 6th as a 13th with the 7th, 9th and 11th omitted?)

I think of it as a 13th because, in terms of the model of stacking thirds through the scale, that’s what number that note counts itself as by the time I reach it.

But I might still prefer to voice it as a 6th, with no 5th, and a dropped 7th : 7-3-6.

.

[Chord Progressions]

The whole point was not about equivalence, that was established a page back - only about ubiquity

That’s part of our mistake, I think.

My thinking was the absolute opposite.

To slightly rephrase from that same page back: Perhaps we might ask the question: "ubiquitous amongst whom?" – and it then became self-evident (to me, at least) that one bundle of ideas played the Major role in Rob’s universe while another slightly different perspective was Dominant on planet Lazz.

Different contexts; different ubiquities.

But in terms of Coises’ question about relative utility, I didn’t see equivalence established.

Neither do I see incompatibility or contradiction: I see development and growth.

A way to gain access to more rooms in the same house.

The same house of regular functional harmony.

So we seem to be having different conversations.

Why are there differing perspectives?

Does it matter?

Thanks.

Good questions.

Why are there differing perspectives?

Inventions in response to need.

Different musical environments have their own characteristic demands and expectations.

Ways of thinking which are the most sensitive to, and appropriate, for the problem-context.

Survival of the hippest.

Does it matter?

Only if a person is interested.

Only if it solves problems for them.

What matters is understanding them both and how it affects musicians when they communicate surely?

Matters to me.

So can we explore both ways of looking at this?

What a novel idea!

(You’re wasted here, John. Wasted.)

Can I try to move forward by addressing Coise's specific questions to me ?

I know Andrew (King Retro) might still be interested.

.

[Chord Progressions]

I see. That explains a lot.

Please Rob, I would welcome correction if my assumption is mistaken.

(nothing too kinky, mind)

.

[Chord Progressions]

is all meat to the grist as my gran would have said

Yes.

Meat to the grill.

Mist to the great.

I'm sure I knew your gran.

Rather well.

.

[Chord Progressions]

For any innocent by-standers who are scratching their heads and wondering what happened here and what bearing or relevance old jazz and blues and be-bop bollocks might conceivably have on the world of rock'n'roll.........

And subsequent to having heard Coises' music.....

You might find the following enjoyable and illuminating:

Donald Fagen talking with Warren Bernhardt about PEG

PART ONE

PART TWO

Same guys talking about JOSIE

PART ONE

PART TWO

[Chord Progressions]

Also more specialist websites on music theory like Dolmetsch use triads as a starting point when discussing chords - like so many others.

Probably right - I am sure there must be a whole herd of others who continue the same way.

Music educators today, however, on the whole, generally don't do that anymore.

There does remain today, and it may even continue into the future, a huge chasm between the classical academies for orchestral studies and those other, more recent, institutions which prepare musicians for working as professionals in other broader areas of popular music. Outside of pure composition, classical instrumental specialists have little if any need for deep theory other than some retro-active functional analysis. For a non-classical jobbing musician, however, who needs to survive on wits in a variety of different environments, it is theory as praxis which becomes absolutely essential, rather than the highly trained motor-reflexes which enable your classical geezer to stay in the game by being able to read fly-shit. He doesn't need to know why in order to play his note while our contemporary jobbing dude has to have practical theoretical understanding in order to find the note to play.

In that modern world, chords have four notes.

That's where we start.

There is neither contradiction nor incompatibility.

Back to sources.

Do we have to ?

I always feel weird about the alleged need for sources in these contexts as it seems to me that ideas and perspectives stand on their own merits and demonstrable worth above and beyond any proposed 'he said, she said' back-and-forth of referencing. I only listed some books on my shelves so you would see there were actually other places where you can find this stuff discussed and that it isn't something I am inventing out of thin air and just making up on the fly. Interestingly - on thumbing through them once more last night - I find in truth I have no one single volume which really codifies the system definitively and formally - rather, these are books I have on arranging and orchestration and voicings and such which all rest implicitly on the assumption that the reader already knows the theory. Seems a reasonable taken-for-granted assumption, after all. because, as I said earlier, it's pretty basic and fundamental knowledge as a way of thinking amongst players. The only place I find it codified complete in one place is the two loose-leaf files where I have stored all my notes from each private lesson that I have bought.

I am not familiar with yours, indeed.

I wouldn't have expected you to be.

I have no reason to have ever thought of you as a student of music theory.

Mwuha is the sound you make when you laugh disdainfully.

Ok

I tend to snort.

And indeed, the introduction of EB in a context which I understood to be 'books on music theory (which I have read)' was something I found amusingly snortworthy.

Sorry.

.

[Chord Progressions]

I think you are taking different perspectives on chordal theory.

I think it has always been quite explicit.

Perspectives were (are) exactly the subject we had reached under this topic of 'how to create chord progressions'.

Of those two perspectives which we had got around to intimating in only the vaguest terms, I wanted to offer some thoughts about relative usefulness and I harbour hope that some of the misunderstandings will begin to evaporate and stop interfering with the view.

It’s not clear to me that either system is a more useful way of thinking than the other...

I think it depends entirely on what we want, where we’re aiming, and what makes us happy.

If we want to explore other possibilities beyond the land of triads which I presumed your “standard guitar chord nomenclature” phrase was describing, beyond folk, in a harmonic sense, like ideas about how to create a chord progression, for instance, then we simply gain more mileage from the established and very practical ways of making sense that have been put together by those guys who went before in the strictly non-classical arena.

When you and I were growing, opportunities for tapping into this body of accumulated knowledge and understanding didn’t exist anywhere outside of the active gigging musician’s community. Today, you can go to school to find out. There’s no need to re-invent any wheels.

There’s no requirement or obligation for anyone to explore those perspectives of course – but I would say again that, in terms of thinking about how to create progressions, they can be useful big-time.

One first big bit of usefulness is clarity - being unambiguous about key centre.

Take an Em chord as example – a nice popular guitar chord.

Slap two fingers on the neck – strum E A E A C E – and voila !!

But what sort of Em are we looking at ?

That may sound like a severely dumb question – especially if you’re bass player whose job it is to groove around the root and 5th of whatever chord is flying by, or if you’re the enthusiastic minimalist guitarist sticking with the simple triads….. but if you are someone else called onto a gig where you have to be able to fake your way through a chart and interpret appropriate note choices of your own, then it is very useful to know which chord function we’re dealing with.

Most of the time, I imagine, we would be easily tempted to interpret the appropriate scale tones for Em as E F# G A B C# D and presume it is the II chord in the key of D. However…… if it turns out that our Em is functioning instead as the III chord of C, that C# and F# could have caused some unfortunate and avoidable ugliness.

Spelled out carefully as Emin7, with the b9 & b13 in parenthesis, the tonality is made very explicit.

C Major.

There are times when the clarity of Em7^(b9)(b13) proves more useful than Em

NB - It doesn’t mean you have to squeeze all those notes into a chord.

It’s just telling you where you’re at, what’s going on, and what to look out for.

Like life – you have to use your own judgement about how to ‘voice’ it.

And often – even while being aware of what else is out there – a simple triad can be the right choice.

When I sent along a tune to be considered for a gig by one of our friends here, Joe Roxhythe, he voiced concern about the modifications and alterations in our chord spellings (Alt. chords, #9s, #11s, etc.). The tones being indicated by those spellings, however, were all contained in the melody – they are already being sung and so there is absolutely no need to repeat them, to ‘double’ them. The chord spelling on the lead-sheet tells us what’s going on. And the job of the supporting instruments is to support that melody. Joe understood, and his band renders it in simple triads as some kind of as rag-time bluegrass.

In a more jazzoid context, where the song normally lives, using the broader vocabulary allowed to players in that context, the voicing choices will get made differently.

But whichever style or idiom, we’ve got interpretation being made from the same package of information contained in the chord spelling. The differences in perspective are about how to make the best sense of the intention.

Another big core of usefulness consequent upon seeing chords as being derived from scale tones – the process commonly known as chord-generation – alternate scale tones stacked in thirds, as Coises says – is that it enables you to recognize that a chord sequence which moves from our Emi7 to Ami7^b13, followed by Dmi7 and on to G7, for example, it is still all happening in C Major.

Whatever stylistic genre you might work with, if ever you’re in a position where you’re expected to be able to invent you own part, your own contribution to the whole, a pretty common experience outside the classical arena, that perspective is going to be pretty damn useful I reckon.

Break - Off to work.

.

[Chord Progressions]

No issue really. You just seemed to doubt my sources ('just about any book I've ever read on music theory') - if you mwuha the EB as a compendium of modern knowledge - I really wouldn't know what would satisfy you.

Wow - you never struck me before as the sort of guy who would accept the Encyclopedia Britannica as unquestionable authority on everything.

I think we would have reasonable grounds not to consider it "a book on music theory", at least.

5 years or so ago, 'Nature' magazine held a blind peer review of some articles from EB and Wiki - they found an equal number of serious errors (such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts) from each, and a whole series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements shared amongst both. From the sample of articles used in the review Wikipedia had 162 problems and EB had 123, which they averaged out as 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 mistakes per article for Wiki.

I can imagine and sympathise with the challenges of writing and editing a definitive encyclopedia article - but we still have to keep critical faculties switched on.

What I stated simply - which still appears to be true - is that we obviously read different books on music theory.

For my personal journey to figure an understanding, I have tended to depend on books by guys like Dick Grove, justly famous for his own music school in LA; David Baker, Chair of the Jazz Studies Department at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music; and Dan Haerle, Jazz Studies Division of the College of Music at the University of North Texas. I have also been lucky enough to get a couple of private workshops with Baker. I think they all know their stuff.

You are of course quite welcome to question and critically evaluate any of my sources but, honestly, it seems faintly ludicrous to feel I am expected to defend and justify the type of theoretical underpinnings accepted as basic standards amongst musicians and educators everywhere apart from strictly classical academies - even though those ideas seem to come as a big surprise to you and others.

One clear significant difference in perspectives appears to be that you and the EB are sticking with triads - whereas us other lot build a chord with four notes.

The implications, the consequences, of this difference are quite profound, very illuminating, and highly useful for a musician to understand.

But I wouldn't expect to find it in EB.

What does mwuha mean ?

.

[Chord Progressions]

'The system of diatonic triads is the basis of tonal harmony in music.'

That's not Wikipedia, that's the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Alright !!

Maybe I should book the Encyclopedia Britannica to play piano on my next gig.

What is it exactly you're taking issue with, Rob?

.

[Coises n Lazz's MP3 issue]

Which player is that? Windows Media Player?

Can't find a way of answering.

Doesn't look like anything to do with me.

Google Chrome is still running and showing your address while the track plays.

I imagined the player was something to do with you.

Is that possible ?

Which Windows XP

Professional version 2002

does it say is the player, and what version number?

Windows Media Player version 11.0.5721.5268

.

[Chord Progressions]

Am I correct that rather than starting with a triad and adding to it, you’re looking at chords in a major key as being derived from all seven notes of the major scale, stacked up in thirds?.... VII m7^{(b5)(b9)(b13)}. ….. neither fish nor fowl.

You certainly got the size of it well enough to find the deliberate mistake of inconsistency with my spelling of the VII chord. Noticing the alteration which would be required to make it conform to the others, may help you consider the role of the diminished.

Interesting ‘fish nor fowl’ comment about the VII as a questionable species. Have you ever noticed those vestigial scales on the foot and leg of the chicken ? An ambiguous moment on the evolutionary path. The VII (diminished) often works as a passing chord. The metaphor becomes more apposite.

I am formulating answers to all your questions.

The inadequacies in my attempts to explain are profound.

Give me a little longer.

I do have a few things to say regarding usefulness …………….

[Coises n Lazz's MP3 issue]

What happens when you click this link?

http://www.coises.com/recordings

The expected result is that you should see a list of mp3 files (and one folder).

Yes - worked as you predicted.

If you get that, what happens when you click on one of the mp3 files?

It opens the player

Did you get the box at the bottom and the downloaded m3u file?

I didn't notice any box.

Downloading via Google Chrome before has always prompted a large animated arrow pointing down to the bottom at the left side of my screen nudging my attention towards the clickable button through which one can "manage" the file - and I guess that must be this 'box' we're looking for.

But, in our case, that didn't happen

I couldn't have missed it.

Mind you - neither would I have expected it.

Because I had not chosen to download.

I had chosen "play".

And yet it had downloaded.

Had downloaded several of the blighters in fact.

One for each time I'd clicked on the player in frustrated attempts to get it to do what it said on the box.

What operating system are you running, and what is your default media player for mp3 files and for m3u playlists?

Windows XP

I have elected no default player.

.

[Chord Progressions]

It does seem clear, however, that just about any book I've ever read on music theory uses triads as a starting point. I think it's therefore safe to say your approach is the more common one.

Perhaps we might ask the question: "more common amongst whom?"

We've obviously been using different libraries and reading different books.

The system I use and would recommend, if anyone is interested, on grounds of its greater clarity and practical efficacy as well as its widespread international adoption as lingua franca amongst professionals, is not something I have invented all alone as an eccentric - of course not. It is nothing more than the standard conventions of modern harmony and theory for popular music which began to be codified by jazz & blues players in the '40s & '50s and by the '80 & '90s had become core curriculum for non-classical music education all around the world. It is pretty basic and fundamental shit and kinda hard to dismiss, I would suggest, just because there is a huge volume of home hobbyist guitar strummers for whom it has no perceived relevance and amongst whom another different approach might be considered more common.

The alleged incompatibility is just an illusion.

This is not to say that there aren't other subsequent innovations in systems and methods for organising notes but, in my experience, these are a lot easier to comprehend and handle once those basics are under the belt.

Those basics are an enormous help in figuring how to create progressions.

.

[Excellent Accordion Playing]

And at the more youthful and all-encompassing modern end of the European spectrum we have the irrepressible Uwe Steger

He not only cuts the classical accordion repertoire with huge aplomb and unconcealed emjoyment:

He also gets out there on the extremes of tekno-logical innovation and electrickery:

[Excellent Accordion Playing]

Then there is the Argentinean contingent with the bandoneon.

Here's one special guy rehearsing a new tune at home with his kids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnAtfaqlOQ

And another, more famous, now dead, specialist tango geezer,

Astor Piazzola - "Death Of An Angel":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvEkpJl2aM4

[Excellent Accordion Playing]

You should also maybe check out the fiery folkloric Bulgar whos fingers have allegedly been clocked in at 20 notes per second.

I thought only saxophone players were allowed to do that.

If you have a taste for the wild and crazy and fantastic, then you might like traditional Bulgarian celebratory music.

Hope so:

[Excellent Accordion Playing]

Pretty amazing really

Absolutely!

And about time we honoured the great accordion players of the world.

Someone here (Maz?) a while back expressed the general popular distaste for accordion.

And indeed the stomach-steinway provokes much merriment in many places.

As in:

Q: "What do you call a couple of dozen accordians at the bottom of the ocean?"

A: "A start."

But squeeze-boxes come in many shapes and sizes and varieties, and the degree of grooviness depends on who is playing.

The instrument played by the young man in the clip above is officially a classical Russian unit called the bajan.

The funky end of the spectrum can be represented by the "King of Zydeco".

He's dead now.

In this clip he is a young man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdk5nq-iBk

[Coises n Lazz's MP3 issue]

Do you want me to split off the mp3 issue related posts into a new topic? (helps keep this topic on topic!)

Thanks John.

And apologies to everyone for getting parenthetical and off-topic.

Normal service will resume....

I do have Quicktime installed - amongst others.

Each of the pushy little bleeders regular requests preferential default status.

But I say no no no.

At the very least the m3u file should be downloaded to your system

That's clever.

How did you do that ?

I hope there might be a more graceful solution somehow because what the punter wants is just to click the mouse and have it work.

Instant gratification with no interfering complication.

With your own tracks, John, I recall that they not only played but sneakily downloaded themselves automatically to do so.

Now both of you have insinuated yourselves onto my hard drive.

How impertinent !

We should be getting Coises to put the site-link in his signature.

.

[Coises n Lazz's MP3 issue]

If you have the patience to help me figure this out... what happens if you click directly on this link?

http://www.coises.com/songs/clown.m3u

A little bit of weirdness happens.

I'm using Google Chrome and what happens is that another tab makes its presence known very briefly, in a flash, and is gone.

Leaving me back here again reading your post.

.