biking in switzerland

I once had a dream to visit the land of the most amazing mountains and presumably the land of perfectionism - Switzerland. Recently I fulfilled the dream visiting a one not less amazing girl who lives in Bern.  Except for the mountains what really astonished me though were the developments in the road infrastructure for bikers.
Among some of them were:

 

-bike lanes so wide that TWO BIKERS can bike parallel to each other.

- TWO TRACKS separating bikers turning right or going straight on traffic lights.

- bikers wait not next to, but IN FRONT OF cars on traffic lights,

- one can borrow a bike FOR FREE ( GRATIS ) for  some amount of time

My first musical work

Ladies and gentlemen,
I announce my first musical work:

An arrangement of a pop song for guitar and block flute.
(Melanie in D moll, opus. 1) 

Check it out at
http://soundcloud.com/georgi-dzhambazov/melaniec-northernstar

Enjoy! ... and please comment!

Acoustic return

In the cold gloomy winter days forced to spend substantial amount of time inside 4 walls, I felt enthusiasm to do journeys... I did one in my guitar chord notebook and decided to revive some old acoustic favorite songs.
So check it out... You might know some song and sing along... And please comment!

http://www.youtube.com/user/jorodzhambazov/videos

New useful software for music fans

I decided that it is high time to spread the news about two products that I find very cool. 

1) If you are trying to learn a musical instrument and do not have time/money for lessons by a professional teacher, then ...
why not just use software:
A workgroup lead by a colleague of mine in Fraunhofer Institute in Ilmenau, Germany has created this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVeGLOOTBC4&feature=related

They recently launched a demo. Check it out. Could be useful for you:

http://www2.idmt.fraunhofer.de/de/projekte_themen/s2s/Songs2See_web.htm

 

2) Since the spread of of the idea of services offering online radios with social elements, there has been a plethora of similar ideas:
Part of them are for free  only in USA or a couple of western european countries. These include songza, last.fm, spotify.
Others are still free - my favourite here is jango.com.However they have pretty small range of musical bands and are therefore not yet rich on content.

What is taking, however, an innovative approach is organizing music based on mood. Seems awkward, but is pretty logical - the gloominess of the day or the positive feelings after meeting your old friend influences  a lot the current musical wishlist.
Well they did it! We now have a mood-based online radio:

http://musicovery.com/
Try it out!

Concert Album

I have a christmas present to all music lovers. I summed up all the recordings from interesting concerts which I attended recently into a playlist.

You might note that I like the style world-folk-jazz. Some songs are pretty rare and cannot be found in online media :) 

You can point your browser here:
http://77.78.1.147/jinzora-3.0/

Just select under albums the concert.
for example TheodosiiSpassovBand...
Then press play for the piece you want to listen. It will create for you a m3u file that can be opened with any music player.

 

P.S. I am working on making the song description (metadata) better. 

Enjoy!

BEGLIKA 2011 reflections

podcasts - Livestream make.tv

Beglika is a gorgeous lake in the Rhodopi mountain in Bulgaira.
There takes place one very extraordinary festival.
This is my quick reflection on the festival for creativity and understanding the environment in which I took place this summer.

Browse to the last podcast using the arrows forward and backward on the left and right side of the screen.  Enjoy!

гибел грядуща (гламава главобъсканица)

...Гудел се глас,
глъхнел гудок.
Годявка на гребло и гондола -
гастролираща гостенка гола.
Грамове глъчка.

Гукала гиздава гайда,
галено гъделичкала.
В гизнещи гребени
гаснел грехът.

WACKEN - резюме

Бандите, които си струва да отбележим от тазгодишния 

WACKEN Open Air

Moonsorrow -
Клавир, китара и соло китара - 3те свирят отделни части от хармонията.  
Представям си как народа поведен от Аспарух напредва в безкрайния си поход.
Завършена звукова атмосфера,  разнообразна мелодика, идеална за фон на злокобните пагански заклинания на някакъв странен език.  Като удещане ми напомнят на старите неща на Korozy.

 subway to sally - макар, че от малък слушам класичесла музика и че съм опитвал да свиря на цигулка, никога не съм харесвал скрибуцането на този инструмент. Откакто открих тази банда това се промени. Дисонансните контрапукти на цигулката предават още напрежение  към иначе доста мистичните композиции.  Те бяха последната банда на фестивала и охладиха (нажежиха) емоциите.

Suidakra - идеалната комбинация между мелодиката на паган метъла и напевните скандинавски фолк мотиви. Перфектна група за начинаещи и в 2та стила.  По принцип всички банди, които имат гайди, ми звучат интересно. Може и да съм тенденцеиозен, но  при Суидакра гайдите пасват несъменно добре на концепцията.

Children of Bodom - Като последен хедлайнер, те бяха длъжни да напрявят фурор. На фона на  изливащия се от небето порой, съпътсвани от многоброийни светлнинни ефекти концерта беше титаничен.  С безкомпромисен звук и с типичната за тях мрачна хармония бяха идеалния завършек на мероприятието.

Triosphere - едно от откритията на фестивала. Хеви/траш метъл с женски вокал. По заряд  ми напомнят на Аrch Enemy, но вокала е чист а компоцизиите - по-лирични.

Ensiferum - епично откриване на петъчния ден. Келстко свежо настроение с келтски поли на раета. Думата за тях е епични химни, но в бързо танцувално темпо. Единствената банда от стила, която няма средновековни/класически инструменти.  За сметка на това - клавирите са определящ фактор в хармонията.


Van Canto - след идеята на Тобиас Замет за метъл опера и вес по-нашумелите комбинации на класи§ески оркестър с жица, едва ли можеше да се появи нещо по-оригинално. Ето че ван канто изобретиха метъл акапелата - единственият музикант в бандата е барабаниста - всички останали "просто" пеят. След като чух bards song и fear of the dark на живо се убедих, че няма китара, нито бас, а само вокали :)

skindred - Метъл реге. нямам какво повече да кажа. слушайте ги.

И за десерт - някои песнички, които чухме на вакен:
http://grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Wacken/57551338

My rock radio playlist

Dear friends,
On the occasion of my last day of the first year of the second quarter of one hundred years in my life, I decided it is a good idea to leave something behind me.    
I have compiled a playlist of some of my hard and heavy top favorites.  So if bored at work, on the road or at home, tune in and rediscover the rare rock pearls.
It is easy: click the link below and select play all:
http://grooveshark.com/playlist/Rare+Hard+And+Heavy/56095608

Dream Theater Concert - when my dream and day united

The concert took place in Loreley castle, on a picturesque cliff above Rhein, Germany.
So it was a dream theater in the Loreley's amphitheater.
It was a multisensory show -  cosmic music, subtle effects,  lights, video background-screen, black clouds and ... you name it. 

Total playing time was 1:h 50min
The algorithm for the setlist this year was : pick a piece from each album so far and add some more for the last 3 albums.  And the setlist was:

Under a Glass Moon
These Walls
Forsaken
Endless Sacrifice
drum solo
Ytse Jam
Peruvian Skies
The Great Debate
On the backs of angels
 Caught in a Web
Fatal Tragedy

-----------

The Count of Tuscany

The performance of Jordan Rudess was eye-catching (ear-catching is clear :). He seemed not to be satisfied by gravitation and was systematically tilting and rotating his keyboard sideways, up and down as it was on a movable stand. In the solo of "Endless Sacrifice" he came afront with his groovy ZenRiffer vertical keyboard and dueled with Petrucci. Whether he is comparable to Kevin Moore is an unending discussion, but he is surely one the geekiest keyboard players. It struck me as well how he was operating simultaneously on his manual and a hardware synthesizer in the synesthetic piece "The Great Debate".

On purpose Mike Mangini, the new drummer who replaced Mike Portnoy recently, did a compact but astounding drum solo. Well, I confess - DT's drum-set is the most versatile and complex I've ever seen.   
That was my first progressive metal festival and I was impressed by the high frequency of seeing fans that weared "Rush" T-Shirts. Keeping an eye on the distribution of names on the T-shirts on such events one can track the popularity of bands. Well, seems that the good old canadian classic is still popular, although of course DT-T-Shirts predominated.

podcasts : Sonata Arctica

podcasts - Livestream make.tv

Подкаст втора част е вече факт.
Моля не си пестете коментарите.
До скорошни подкасти - вероятно следвашото издание ще е за Dream Theater поради задаващия се техен концерт :)

podcasts : NEVERMORE

Както беше оповестено тук, третият podcast най-сетне е факт.
С изключително забавяне, което обаче ще е възнаградено: podcast-ът e двоен.
Първа част е посветена на американската power/prog/trash банда NEVERMORE.
Enjoy!

podcasts - Livestream make.tv

podcast radio - следваща серия

След срамно дълъг лапсус, седнах отново да творя.
Миналото лято бях на един от великите немски метъл фестивали RockHard.
Хедлайнери на втората вечер бяха Nevermore, които винаги съм желал да чуя на живо, заради безкомпромисния им звук, както и старите познайници Sonata Arctica.
Инспириран от бандите oще преди да отида на фестивала знаех, че ще посветя подкаст именно на тия 2 банди.
Сега, планирайки посещение на тазгодишното издание на фестивала, реших, че е крайно време да превърна планираното в продукт.
В момента миксирам материала. До 2 дни се очаква да е готов.

Безброй прослушвания и коментари са крайно препоръчителни :):)
ENJOY!

podcasts : Apocalyptica

Второ действие на podcast radio e посветено на апокалиптичните Апокалиптика!

podcasts

Скъпи музикални маниаци,

Инспириран от невероятните концерти, които посещавам напоследък, реших да реализирам една стара идея: podcast radio.

Потопете се в моите наблюдения за бандите, които имам честта да слушам на живо. Първи епизод е посветен на ЕПИЗОД!

(натиснете лявата стрелка zurück веднъж или повече пъти докато стигнете до Епизод)

back to the small Wien

Today I got back to my hometown for the summer holiday after 2 semesters in Germany. So in the middle of the Master Program. Time for retrospectives. But not now. Now I wanted to dump down the stream of events on my way back.

First after 20 minutes sleep I left Bonn for the train. The annoying waiting at the train stations gave me time to think. I came to the conclusion that what makes me not withstand Germany for a long period, is that I do not meet enough bright and positive people. Maybe not that many artists among the ones that I know. Maybe just Bonn is mediocre city. Well, I just I do not stumble upon these lovely extraordinary weirdos in Germany. But anyway - already at the Airport.

Immediately after the plain took off I got asleep and did wake up on the border Romania / Bulgaria, e.g. flying over my hometown of Ruse. It is really cool to recognize familiar places from the map. Danube and its islands are just gorgeous. Surprisingly, I saw that around Sliven they have built wind generators - cool. It was logical to put them near the city with the strongest winds. As usual, I accompanied the first footsteps on BG ground at the airport of Burgas with Епизод - the partiatioc BG rock band.

In Varna I did taste the precious Black Sea beach while waiting for the bus to Ruse.

Being home is great. I feel stil like in a dream. I did break my record for longest stay outside of the homeland. I missed it. I missed the places I have grown in - like my challet at my vineyard.

Well, in the end, what makes the great difference is a full fridge!

photo diary

Since January 2010 I decided to join the efforts of a friend of mine, Nikoleta. It was about keeping track of events and scenes that make our lives colorful. However, instead of words, as an alternative way of expression, we use photos. So cool snapshots of our daily encounters.

We called it photo diary (фото дневник ).
check it out on her blog:
http://d1hanie.blogspot.com/ ... under label фото дневник