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since this thing got bumped -- he was actually slated to perform at coachella last year but canceled like a couple weeks beforehand because of "personal issues." kind of a bummer

you downloaded the Unity Web Player and everything? because the player is really cool and makes big 3D graphics run on machines you wouldn't think they could run on!

I'll be releasing a mobile version of this in the future, so maybe you'll be able to play that

something important to note about music theory is that it doesn't automatically make you "better" at music -- music theory is a method of deconstructing music to figure out what makes things sound the way they do. it isn't something you necessarily learn in order to make music; rather, it's something that helps you talk about music in a language other than "it sounds happy" or "it sounds like sabrepulse."

I find that too often people think of music theory as just a skill that you can put on a checklist of things that make people musicians. people can write great music without knowing the theory behind it, but what the theory does is let you recontextualize what you're doing. so instead of talking about just "sounds" you start talking about "notes" and "chords" and "rhythms." once you're able to hear the theory behind the music you listen to, it gets way easier to take those principles and apply them to your own music.

so if I were to advise you on how to go about studying it, I'd say learn about a specific thing like key signatures or whatever, and then listen to music that you like and try to deconstruct it in terms of that thing you studied. so if you studied something like inverted chords, listen to a piece of music and try to spot when you hear inverted chords. and more generally, try listening to the rhythms and listening to how certain tones are arranged against other tones, and figure out why you like or dislike a piece of music by describing it in terms of music theory, rather than describing it by referencing genre or other songs. saying that you dislike something because "it sounds bad" is way less constructive than saying you dislike it because there isn't enough harmonic variation (but it's WAY less pretentious too).

last thing: don't get caught up on notation, i.e. the way people transcribe music. stuff like grand staffs and treble clefs and bass clefs and stuff like that. a lot of people like to talk about music theory in terms of notation, but it's important to realize that a piece of music can be interpreted any number of ways, of which notation is but one. it's important to know, yes, but just know that it's just a visual representation of what is an aural experience.

yeah, as a guy who frequents a lot of clubs in SD, boa's pretty much got it.

think of it this way: imagine the bro-iest, douche-iest dude you've ever met. he doesn't even care about music, really. now imagine that you have to convince him that your music is cool SIMPLY BY PLAYING IT. you have five seconds.

oh btw all his friends are drunk and not really listening to you

if the answer to "could I do that?" is no, then you have a LOT of work to do.

and I'm not saying this to disparage clubs or anything, because I like dance music, but it's a pretty brutal scene. as far as they're concerned, you're just another DJ, and if you can't get people buying drinks in like 10 miinutes, you're done, and they'll get their resident DJ to cover your slot in 10 seconds

EDIT: I don't think that anyone's ever really done an LSDJ-only club set, honestly. LSDJ + DAW, sure, but never just LSDJ.

my girlfriend added another good point -- clubs don't really "bill" artists in the way that venues do. if you're playing a club to get your name out there, you'll have to play a LOT of gigs just to get your name in 10 pt. font at the bottom of a flyer. clubs only really advertise headliners, and everyone else isn't really worth advertising because again, the average club goer doesn't really care about music, and again, you're just another DJ to them.

xiwi's always been very prompt and super helpful when I e-mailed, so I wouldn't worry too much about it!

you can just grab a couple programmable LED strips and put those into a tube: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/12027

if you're looking for more programmability (I'm sorry) this kickstarter project got funded a couple months ago and looks to be in good shape: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/740 … reinvented

then just grab a bunch of translucent or transparent (depending on your effect) tubes and throw the LEDs in, hook them up to an arduino, power them and then do whatever you want! that's how I'd approach it anyway

EDIT: they look pretty sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXX5xsy1sA#t=41