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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Palette. I'm

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Speaker 1: an editor here How Stuff Works and sitting next to

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Speaker 1: me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Chris, I

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Speaker 1: have a question for you. Okay, are you ready to rock? No? No, sorry, um,

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Speaker 1: I have nowhere to go now I'll make a note

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Speaker 1: of it. Okay, So we wanted to talk today about

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Speaker 1: technology and how it's playing an increasingly important role in

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Speaker 1: music education and learning to play musical instruments, and how

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Speaker 1: you can actually learn to play certain musical instruments using

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Speaker 1: simple programs or or hardware. And I know what you're thinking.

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Speaker 1: Actually I don't know what you're thinking, but you might

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Speaker 1: be thinking that, Yeah, you know, I gotta get your

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Speaker 1: our hero. But I don't see how that's gonna make

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Speaker 1: me pick up a guitar and start playing. But you'd

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Speaker 1: be dead wrong. Well maybe not dead wrong, well you'd

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Speaker 1: be you'd be seriously hurt wrong. Actually, you know, guitar

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Speaker 1: guitar Hero and rock band have inspired some people to

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Speaker 1: start playing the real instrument. Now we should go ahead

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Speaker 1: and point out, of course, that guitar hero and the

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Speaker 1: guitars in rock band they don't really give you a

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Speaker 1: feel for what playing a real guitar is like, not

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Speaker 1: at all. Really, No, it's true. I'm sorry, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, you know, it's the in

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Speaker 1: the in the interests of simplifying it into a game mechanic,

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Speaker 1: you know, having five buttons and a strumming button of

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Speaker 1: some sort, that's not the same as you know, having

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Speaker 1: you know, a strained guitar. It's just not gonna it's

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Speaker 1: not going to be nearly the same kind of effect

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Speaker 1: that you would have if you're playing a real musical instrument. Now,

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Speaker 1: guitar hero and rock band, at least the guitar parts

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Speaker 1: there their rhythm games um and uh, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of useful for drumming, you know, the drum part

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Speaker 1: in the in guitar hero and rock band or the

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Speaker 1: guitar heroes that have the rock bands world tour um

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Speaker 1: that you know, obviously is a rhythm situation, and the

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Speaker 1: microphones are actually you know, singing trying to hit the pitch,

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Speaker 1: but the guitars for those of you who haven't tried it,

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Speaker 1: basically ask you to press a certain button for a

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Speaker 1: certain note at a certain time. That's what the strumbar

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Speaker 1: is for, um. But you're not really learning how to

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Speaker 1: hit a certain pitch or any music theory or how

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Speaker 1: to play chords or any of that. Yeah. Yeah, for chords,

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Speaker 1: you're just play pressing multiple buttons at the same time

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Speaker 1: while you hit a strong bar. But that's not the same,

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Speaker 1: you know. Obviously that's a far cry from actually learning

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Speaker 1: how to play chords on the guitar. But the nice

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Speaker 1: thing is, I mean, a lot of us have that

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Speaker 1: inner rock star that's just dying to get out, you know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, and and we maybe didn't have the opportunity

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Speaker 1: or the desire when we were younger to pick up

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Speaker 1: a musical instrument. Um, and maybe we don't have the

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Speaker 1: time to really to vote to learning a musical instrument.

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Speaker 1: But these games gave us the opportunity to, you know,

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Speaker 1: pretend like we're rock gods and just you thrash out

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Speaker 1: a blistering guitar solo and make us feel great. And

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Speaker 1: then some of us take that feeling and say, you

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Speaker 1: know what, maybe this is worthwhile. Maybe I should make

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Speaker 1: time to actually pick up a musical instrument and learn

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Speaker 1: how to play it for real, zies. That's true. That's true. UM,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't seen how the guitar parts work in

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Speaker 1: these games, Essentially, the dots representing certain notes come down

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Speaker 1: the screen and it looks like they're coming down a

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Speaker 1: fret board prob a guitar. That's the long uh, the

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Speaker 1: long part of the neck where you can actually see

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Speaker 1: the lines across that and the strings, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: go across that and the notes are coming down what

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Speaker 1: would be the strings and you're supposed to play you know,

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Speaker 1: red or green at a certain time. Well, somebody has

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Speaker 1: actually put that into practice and helping you learn how

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Speaker 1: to play UM an instrument. And uh, we have an

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Speaker 1: article on their own website that Dave Russ wrote called

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Speaker 1: how Piano Wizard works. Yeah, and UM the Music Wizard

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Speaker 1: group UM actually has put this into practice. Now, this

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Speaker 1: is a program for your computer and you plug in

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Speaker 1: a USB keyboard and UM it's a little different because

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Speaker 1: there are a series of stickers. UM actually edited that

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Speaker 1: article and then went out and bought the program. And

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Speaker 1: it is very cool because you placed the certain stickers

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Speaker 1: on the keyboard, so you have there a lot more

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Speaker 1: than just a five and guitar hero there's it represents

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Speaker 1: the entire octave UH, including half steps UM. So there

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Speaker 1: are a variety of variety of colors that go there,

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Speaker 1: but UM each represents a note. So when you're on

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Speaker 1: the easiest level of Piano Wizard UH, the notes come

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Speaker 1: down from the top of the screen and you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to hit SAYT beige and then blue and then red,

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Speaker 1: and they correspond to the notes in a chord, for example,

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Speaker 1: the one, three, and five UM. Gradually, as you go

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Speaker 1: the songs get more complex, and then you can switch

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Speaker 1: into a different mode where instead of the notes coming

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Speaker 1: down from the top of the screen, they're scrolling from

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Speaker 1: left or right, but they're still multicolored. And then in

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Speaker 1: the third step they become actual notes, the notes that

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Speaker 1: you might see on a piece of music. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: in the last stage, they become black and white notes.

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Speaker 1: So suddenly you've gone from the colored dots coming down

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Speaker 1: from the top of the screen to reading black and

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Speaker 1: white music as it scrolls left or right on your keyboard,

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Speaker 1: and you're learning the actual notes where they appear on

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Speaker 1: the music and where that belongs on the keyboard. So

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Speaker 1: really it's sort of it's almost subversive in the way

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Speaker 1: that you're just picking up on it from having, you know,

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Speaker 1: having the practice, and at the same time you're getting

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Speaker 1: used to how your hands fit on the keyboard. Um.

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Speaker 1: And it's a pretty nifty idea there. They also have

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Speaker 1: something called a Guitar Wizard UM which is sort of

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Speaker 1: a similar thing, although it uses the Fisher Price I

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Speaker 1: can play guitar uh instead of a USB keyboard to

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Speaker 1: hook up to it. So I'm so hard not to

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Speaker 1: laugh now. Yes, but if you learn guitar, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm just imagining a toddler smashing a Fisher Price guitar

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Speaker 1: on a stage. Well, that part of it's not in

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Speaker 1: the game totally should be, I tell you, end every

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Speaker 1: every like major Monster set. Yeah, but that's the funny

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Speaker 1: thing that Guitar Hero and rock Band and Piano Wizard,

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Speaker 1: which is actually a learning tool, are not that far

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Speaker 1: apart in the very basic methodology, and it's teaching kids

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Speaker 1: and even some older people who learn how to play

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Speaker 1: other instruments how to play the piano. Yeah, that's uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a very good point and of course,

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Speaker 1: like we were talking about earlier, with rock band, you

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Speaker 1: can or even you know, Guitar Hero World Tour that

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Speaker 1: has the drums instruments right when you when you add

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Speaker 1: the drum kid in there, you actually are learning kind

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Speaker 1: of the rudimentary uh steps into learning to play the drums.

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Speaker 1: Now I happen to be sitting with a drum god,

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Speaker 1: Chris Pallette here right. You may not know, but he's

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Speaker 1: he's a drummer. Um well, I think they know now

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Speaker 1: now they do. Yeah, yeah, he uh, he's he's one

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Speaker 1: of those rock gods that we all adore and idolize,

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Speaker 1: including myself. Yeah, I got up in noon today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: nice crack of dune. And uh So I have a

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Speaker 1: question for you, Chris, as as an actual drummer who

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Speaker 1: has used real drum kits, what's your opinion on things

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Speaker 1: like rock band and even say electric drum kits that

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Speaker 1: are you know that that synthesize the drum sound. Well,

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Speaker 1: they've I've been a drummer now for twenty eight years,

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Speaker 1: and uh when I started learning how to play the

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Speaker 1: drums in the nineteen eighties, um electronic drum kits were

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Speaker 1: just starting to become very popular. And for those of

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Speaker 1: you who are in your thirties or maybe older or

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Speaker 1: even I guess late twenties, you might remember those hexagonal

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Speaker 1: uh new wave electronic drum kits like people used to

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Speaker 1: use that sounded awful. Yeah, yeah, well they were. The

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Speaker 1: whole point of that was to be different. You didn't

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Speaker 1: want them to sound like acoustic drums and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: professional drummers, a lot of them at the time, uh,

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Speaker 1: sort of had a lot of disdain for these these kits. Now, UM,

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Speaker 1: the machines and rock band and UM, guitar Hero are

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Speaker 1: pretty scaled down from that, um, you know, because they

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Speaker 1: still make electronic drum kids. And as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: you can believe it's the guitar Hero version that can

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Speaker 1: be used with an Elysis drum kit. UM, and essentially

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Speaker 1: you could just use that when instead. Um. But the

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Speaker 1: electronic drums can be very, very sophisticated. They're essentially just

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Speaker 1: what they call the trigger pad um, which is a

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Speaker 1: surface that responds to the stick hitting it or your

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Speaker 1: hands hitting it. There are versions of acoustic drums you

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Speaker 1: can play, you know, hand drums if you will. Yeah, essentially, um,

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Speaker 1: they have different spots to play, you know, a rim

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Speaker 1: shot or the center of the drum, so it represents

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Speaker 1: different parts of the drum like you would play with

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Speaker 1: your hands. Um. But uh, you know, actually these are

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Speaker 1: they they're sensitive to the amount of pressure with which

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Speaker 1: the stick hits the drum um. And uh. The other

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Speaker 1: part has a brain, which is basically a big electronic

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Speaker 1: computer that stores all the sounds in it. So the

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Speaker 1: nifty thing about an electronic drum kit is you can

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Speaker 1: have a variety of different drum kits stored, you know,

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Speaker 1: with the We talked about Ray Kurzweil a long time

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Speaker 1: ago in one of our other podcasts and his work

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Speaker 1: in electronic music and how electronic instruments didn't really sound

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Speaker 1: like real instruments until his company did work with that. Well, um,

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Speaker 1: that's sort of the way it is for electronic drums

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Speaker 1: now too. I mean a long time ago people didn't

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Speaker 1: talk about how realistic electronic drums might sound. But now

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Speaker 1: you can have all kinds of things in there, and

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Speaker 1: you might even have things like Latin percussion or sound effects,

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Speaker 1: cowbells and things you don't have to carry around. I'm

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Speaker 1: not making it. I'm not gonna do the cowbell reference

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Speaker 1: just okay all right, because you know we could all

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Speaker 1: this podcast could use more cowbell, Yes it could, but

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to necessarily carry around all that stuff

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Speaker 1: with you. What what you might be surprised to know,

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Speaker 1: we call toys, Um, you know all those extra instruments. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you wouldn't have to carry this with you.

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Speaker 1: So there's an advantage to to do in that. And

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Speaker 1: if you don't plug it into an amplifier, you can

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Speaker 1: use it as a practice pad kit. Sure, um, but

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Speaker 1: the stuff that they have with the games, it is

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Speaker 1: a little bit more scaled down. Um. But that's really

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Speaker 1: all you need to to to learn basic drumming. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know if you have your your bass drum

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Speaker 1: pedal and your snare drum, that's you know the foundation

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Speaker 1: of most rock songs right there. Yeah, you could do

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Speaker 1: most of the Dave Clark five just with those. So uh,

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Speaker 1: when I was at CS I got to stop at

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Speaker 1: the roller booth, which was pretty amazing. Now, Roland they

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Speaker 1: make sound cards for computers, but they also make lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of different um music equipment. Yeah, you're not

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Speaker 1: just you know, not just music, all sorts of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But the two things they had that were getting a

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Speaker 1: lot of attention. Actually I guess three they had. They

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Speaker 1: had some guitar stuff which was getting a little attention.

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Speaker 1: They had some keyboard stuff as in pianos that was

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Speaker 1: getting some attention. But why got the most were their

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Speaker 1: drum kits. And they had a lot of electronic drum

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Speaker 1: kits there, and some of them were really really impressive,

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Speaker 1: like the uh, let's see as if I get this right,

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Speaker 1: the t D Dash twenty s which has has a

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Speaker 1: high hat, has three symbols and six drum pads, so

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty big electronic drum kit. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: know when you think, okay, so rock band that that

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Speaker 1: basic kit has the four pads and then the the

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Speaker 1: the kickpadis you know the kick pedal. Um this one

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Speaker 1: had has many more than that. But the neat thing

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Speaker 1: that Roland's doing is that they've got this software, this

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Speaker 1: tutoring software that kind of mimics the rock band approach

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Speaker 1: where that's one of the modes you can use. It

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Speaker 1: has multiple but because so many people have gotten used

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Speaker 1: to rock band, Roland has decided to act on this

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Speaker 1: and they have this software where you can learn to

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Speaker 1: play drums by kind of following along with songs and

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Speaker 1: and acting off of visual cues like you would in

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Speaker 1: rock band, to learn to play the drums for certain songs.

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Speaker 1: And then you eventually progress very much the same way

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Speaker 1: that the piano program you were talking about, UM kind

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Speaker 1: of similar. You know, you get each step is a

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Speaker 1: little bit more challenging and and you have to rely

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Speaker 1: more on your memory and about how this works, UM

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Speaker 1: until you get to the point where you're actually just

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Speaker 1: playing the drums. And uh, that was really neat. It

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Speaker 1: was also kind of interesting to see all these executives

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Speaker 1: in suits and ties, uh, all with these headphones on,

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Speaker 1: just rocking out. I talked with the one of the

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Speaker 1: representatives from Roland and she told me that some of

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Speaker 1: these guys would come in, sit down and be there

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Speaker 1: for forty five minutes playing on electric drum kit, and

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Speaker 1: then maybe they'd even come back later in the day

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Speaker 1: to play some more. Because it was just it was so,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's that whole rock band thing, an idea

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Speaker 1: of hey man, I can I could be a musician too,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and it's interesting that we see technology now

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Speaker 1: kind of catering to that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean even

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Speaker 1: even your beloved Apple is catering to that. That's true. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In the newest version of I Life, which is I

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Speaker 1: Life oh nine. Um, they've updated Garage Band yet again.

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Speaker 1: And as someone who plays melodic instruments a little bit, um,

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Speaker 1: Garage Band is really nifty, uh, really nifty beginner's tool kit.

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Speaker 1: I mean we're not talking. You're not writing high high

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Speaker 1: end notation stuff like you would see and something like Sabellius. Um.

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Speaker 1: You're not um putting down tracks like you might in

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Speaker 1: pro tools if you're going to record an album, but

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to, uh to create a demo or

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Speaker 1: learn how or just write a song, write the basics

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Speaker 1: of a song so you could take it back to

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Speaker 1: your band or even just hey, fool around with it. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, Garage Band is a pretty nifty uh, pretty

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Speaker 1: nifty piece of software. But they've had a sort of

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Speaker 1: a new feature to the two thousand nine version of it,

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Speaker 1: and it's um it's a learned along with the prose

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Speaker 1: of thing. And they've got some big name people, yeah

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Speaker 1: like Sting Yes who will teach you how to play

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Speaker 1: Roxanne on the guitar and uh. Other people include um,

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Speaker 1: Sarah McLaughlin, Fallout Boy, Nora Jones, Colby k a Um,

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Speaker 1: Sarah Burrellis, ben Folds Yep, yep, John Fogerty, and One Republic.

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Speaker 1: I'm just sad that ben Folds teach teaches you how

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Speaker 1: to play Brick instead of any Waits any ways, is

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Speaker 1: my favorite ben Folds song For those of you listening

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Speaker 1: who want who are just curious, that's all right. My

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Speaker 1: my trivia with ben Folds goes back to my high

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Speaker 1: school days. Speaking of high school band, when I marched

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Speaker 1: next to the drummer for ben Folds five, Darren Jesse.

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Speaker 1: See if you're just one drummer spot off from playing

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Speaker 1: for the ben Folds five, if you had just stood

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Speaker 1: a little to the left. Um. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: these programs are letting you actually learn from the pros.

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Speaker 1: They show you how to play these songs and then

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm not granted, it's not as interactive. You

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Speaker 1: can't they're not gonna stop and say no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I said, see major, Yeah, that's that's not gonna happen.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting that it's an interesting approach and in

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Speaker 1: an in an era where music programs are getting cut

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Speaker 1: back in schools. Um, it's nice to see that there

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Speaker 1: are some other things that you can do to bolster

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Speaker 1: your kids education or your own education. There's no reason why,

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Speaker 1: uh we as adults can't look back on that and go,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I've always wanted to learn how to

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Speaker 1: play guitar. Yeah, and and these kinds of things can

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Speaker 1: help you do that. Uh, you know, bolster your love

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Speaker 1: for music, share it with other people. I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: no reason why you can't get garage band and lay

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Speaker 1: down something and play it behind your podcast as you

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Speaker 1: create your podcast. You know, you know you're the copyright holder.

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Speaker 1: I think I think we need to get a house

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Speaker 1: stuff for its band together the go we've got We've

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Speaker 1: got some pretty talented musicians. I am not one of them.

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Speaker 1: I play two instruments, the penny whistle and the Appalachian

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Speaker 1: dulcimer because you know that's the kind of rock god

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Speaker 1: I am so uh but hopefully other people play better instruments.

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Speaker 1: They would make a much better band. But uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's so interesting that you can get this kind of

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Speaker 1: stuff and if you really do have the drive and

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Speaker 1: the energy for it, I mean, go for it, guys.

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Speaker 1: I mean this stuff is out there and there's there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of programs out on the internet now that

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Speaker 1: are they're free, their shareware and their freeware programs that

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Speaker 1: you can look at to learn things like keyboards and stuff. Now,

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Speaker 1: granted they won't be as sophisticated as the ones we've

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Speaker 1: been talking about, but it might be a nice place

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Speaker 1: to start, that's true. And um, you know, there are

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Speaker 1: all kinds of other opportunities out there there. Chord charts,

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Speaker 1: plenty of those out out there for those of you

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Speaker 1: who are learning to play streamed instruments, and uh, all

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Speaker 1: kinds of other references, even uh how stuff works podcasts. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you're interested in catching up in the

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Speaker 1: latest music stuff stuff from the side, it's an excellent podcast.

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Speaker 1: Highly recommend it. Well, this was a good conversation. And

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Speaker 1: and before we go, I would like to once again

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Speaker 1: refer to our listener mail. I'm just gonna keep doing

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Speaker 1: it that way. You know that, right, Okay, So this

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Speaker 1: one comes from Brendan Davey, and now Brendan rights to

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Speaker 1: give us a clarification on our Fishing and Farming podcast.

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Speaker 1: I remember that, right, I do too, So he says

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Speaker 1: in your podcast on Fishing and Farming, you said that

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Speaker 1: before clicking on a link to check the bottom left

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Speaker 1: of your screen to see the U r L of

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Speaker 1: the link. However, you can use HTML to make the

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Speaker 1: link look like it's going somewhere else. For example, a

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Speaker 1: link says click here, and when you put your mouth

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Speaker 1: on it, the bottom left says it's going to Google.

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Speaker 1: When you click on it, it actually takes you to Yahoo.

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Speaker 1: And so the only way to prevent farming is to

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Speaker 1: type into the website yourself, like, type in the address

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Speaker 1: of the website. Um, thanks Brendan, that is true that

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Speaker 1: you can spoof u r l's like that. It's it's

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Speaker 1: actually called hyperlink spoofing sometimes web spoofing. However, you did

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Speaker 1: say that the only way to guarantee was to type

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Speaker 1: in the address yourself. I'm sad to say that's not

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Speaker 1: true either. Um, there is really no guarantee if someone

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Speaker 1: has committed a d n S cash poisoning attack. It

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Speaker 1: is possible to create a man in the middle attack

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Speaker 1: where you type in a U r L and you

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Speaker 1: know that it's a legitimate U r L and you

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Speaker 1: hit enter, it can get intercepted and sent to a

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Speaker 1: farming site. So it's possible even taking the biggest precaution

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Speaker 1: we can say, which is type out you're the the

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Speaker 1: U r L. Even that can can backfire on you. However,

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Speaker 1: I should also point out that those kind of attacks

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Speaker 1: are not common and they usually only affect certain I

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Speaker 1: S P s. Uh. You know, it's not like it's

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Speaker 1: a web wide attack, thank goodness. But it is possible,

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Speaker 1: and it is usually. It's the kind of thing that

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Speaker 1: would happen very seldom, and it's also the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that would probably be discovered fairly quickly. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the sort of thing where, yeah, it can happen,

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Speaker 1: but someone's gonna find out about it fast, they're going

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Speaker 1: to react. Uh. So it's not something to really stay

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Speaker 1: up nights worrying about. But we should point out, in

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Speaker 1: the interest of full disclosure, that it is possible. True,

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Speaker 1: But yes, you're right. The best way to do that

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Speaker 1: is to type it in yourself, and that's your your

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Speaker 1: best chance of getting when you're really trying to go.

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Speaker 1: So thanks very much, Brendan, And if you want to

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Speaker 1: email us, you can send an email to podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. If you want to learn

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Speaker 1: more about music and technology, well check out our website,

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Um, and we'll talk to

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Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands

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Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Let

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Speaker 1: us know what you think. Send an email to podcast

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by

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Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you