The night was hosted by producer Jeron Moore, whose reverence for the iconic compositions of Koji Kondo and simple, personal delivery ably complimented an eclectic crowd composed of twenty-something cosplayers, jeans-clad parents and their brood and formally attired music fans. Conductor Susie Seiter -– a name many will likely recognize from her work on the 25th Anniversary CD -– led a choir and orchestra composed of regional musicians in an overture to set the mood as in-game clips from across the breadth of the series’ history played on a monitor above the stage.

After a brief interlude wherein Moore explained the significance of the symphony’s title, a reference to the three Golden Goddesses of Zelda lore, the music and accompanying visuals focused on the origin and mythology of Hyrule. From there, and most certainly unsurprisingly, the first movement delved further into fan-favorite Ocarina of Time. The musical swell as a 64-bit Link rode Epona across the fields of Hyrule was the first of many truly breathtaking moments of the night’s performance.

Image: Z.

The symphony’s second moment, a Wind Waker suite, was a personal highlight from a game that’s cell-shaded style originally turned off many Zeldapurists. Its lushly layered strings and punctuating brass hits not only evoked the strong classical elements of the soundtrack, but also channeled every bit of the whimsy of its folksier, sea shanty leanings.

After a brief intermission we were refreshed by “The Great Fairy’s Fountain Theme” before proceeding into the darker sounds of the Twilight Princess movement. With a heavy focus on the interplay of darkness and light, both in the musical selection and the video, and a performance that highlighted theretofore-unnoticed (at least by me) hints of Mussorgsky’s “A Night on Bald Mountain,” it surely marked the symphony’s more intense moments.

This contrasted nicely against the fourth and final movement, a florid reinterpretation of selections from 16-bit classic A Link to the Past. This old school goodness extended into the first encore, which gave some love to one of the series’ portable iterations, Link’s Awakening. After thunderous applause a thankful conductor relented and presented a second encore, returning again to Ocarina of Time‘s “Gerudo Valley.” After another round of applause Moore and Seiter agreed to one more encore, and chose to close on a selection that fans had been begging for, Majora’s Mask.

While not every major title in the Legend of Zelda franchise was afforded its own movement, this performance of Symphony of the Goddesses did an excellent job in highlighting pivotal musical moments from throughout the series. These familiar instrumental soundscapes are sure to bring back memories of your 8-bit youth or spur you to revisit your favorite moments in more contemporary fare like Skyward Sword, but even those whose experience with Zelda games is minimal — my wife has, by her own admission, only played The Adventure of Link –- can’t help but get caught up in the power of these anthemic selections.

This was certainly no typical night at the symphony, what with its scores of casually attired listeners and musical subject matter. And similarly there was an obvious lack of the classical reservation one might expect; folks clapped and hollered and, as so often we do in the Deep South, wooh-ed at the slightest provocation, but, in a symphony that explored such comical tropes as Cucco attacks and falling down holes, it did little to dull an amazing musical experience. In fact, save the dreadful live camerawork that was interspersed amid the backing video clips -– which managed to capture an awful lot of spit valve-cleaning and brow-wiping –- The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses was an utterly flawless presentation.

GeekDad HipTrax Logo by Dave Banks

As the weather warms up the new music just comes rolling in! In this episode we spotlight a trio of fantastic new songs from three of our longtime favorites.

Get your geek on with:

“Mountain Fortress Delta VII” by The OneUps

The newly released Nerdapalooza 2011 Recordings album contains no fewer than three dozen amazing live performance tracks from last year’s festival. Of course you can keep up with all the earth-shattering developments concerning this year’s event over at the official site.

“Never Fall (feat. Kirby Krackle)” by Sci-Fried

That rowdy geek rock crew Sci-Fried is currently finishing up a new album. Co-Op Mode is a collaborative effort featuring special guests like Warp 11, Insane Ian and Kirby Krackle’s Kyle Stevens. And congratulations to Sci-Fried guitarist Chuck Silver, who just participated in an epic team-up of his own. In the form of marriage!

“Let Your Geek Flag Fly” by John Anealio

What started out as a fun word game within the hallowed halls of the new GeekDad Community became the latest single from geek rock troubadour John Anealio. John will be sharing a stage with fellow musical dorks of note Paul & Storm at next month’s Nerdtacular event in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Want to hear more? Subscribe to the GeekDad podcast in iTunes (see the button on the sidebar), or directly through the RSS feed. You can also download GeekDad HipTrax #88 via this link.

The HipTrax theme song was created by Snake Eyes. In the event of a robot uprising, I’m pretty sure he’s got my back.

This article, by Z, was originally published on Wednesday.

GeekDad HipTrax Logo by Dave Banks

As the weather warms up the new music just comes rolling in! In this episode we spotlight a trio of fantastic new songs from three of our longtime favorites.

Get your geek on with:

“Mountain Fortress Delta VII” by The OneUps

The newly released Nerdapalooza 2011 Recordings album contains no fewer than three dozen amazing live performance tracks from last year’s festival. Of course you can keep up with all the earth-shattering developments concerning this year’s event over at the official site.

“Never Fall (feat. Kirby Krackle)” by Sci-Fried

That rowdy geek rock crew Sci-Fried is currently finishing up a new album. Co-Op Mode is a collaborative effort featuring special guests like Warp 11, Insane Ian and Kirby Krackle’s Kyle Stevens. And congratulations to Sci-Fried guitarist Chuck Silver, who just participated in an epic team-up of his own. In the form of marriage!

“Let Your Geek Flag Fly” by John Anealio

What started out as a fun word game within the hallowed halls of the new GeekDad Community became the latest single from geek rock troubadour John Anealio. John will be sharing a stage with fellow musical dorks of note Paul & Storm at next month’s Nerdtacular event in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Want to hear more? Subscribe to the GeekDad podcast in iTunes (see the button on the sidebar), or directly through the RSS feed. You can also download GeekDad HipTrax #88 via this link.

The HipTrax theme song was created by Snake Eyes. In the event of a robot uprising, I’m pretty sure he’s got my back.

The standard answer here is pretty easy. Because of the provisions of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), any site that collects personal information cannot offer services to customers under 13 years of age. As a result, almost any popular web site has clear terms of service that state that nobody under 13 can have an account — notably Facebook, Google, and iTunes.

Not that most people pay close attention to that.

So, of all the possible accounts, iTunes makes me the most nervous — all digital music does — a consequence of growing up when an album collection was a tangible thing. I live in constant fear that I’m going to suddenly and irrevocably delete my whole music library.

For my son, it’s the logical place to start giving him some ownership of his own digital life because that is where he has made the greatest investment (for my daughter it a was a Nook attached to her own B&N account, but that’s another post).

Until now, Bubba has used Home Share to move songs from my library to his (aging, highly restricted) white iMac. From there he has synched the songs, first to iPods, then to his hand-me-down iPhone.

I was worried that in the process of creating the new account I would: delete his existing library forcing him to reload everything, delete my library forcing me to jump off a high building, break his computer, break my computer, and destroy the internet. I admit, the music stuff makes my jumpy.

Setting up the account had a few twists and turns, but we got it done. We used his school email and my credit card to create the account, and pretty quickly got his computer iTunes and his iPhone switched over to the new account and synched. The songs he had imported via Home Share from my library didn’t disappear, and the internet didn’t break.

He knows that I will see any purchases he makes on my credit card statement, but the whole move is premised on trust that he will use this access wisely.

One minor headache — his older model iMac is not compatible with OSX Lion, so no iCloud on his desktop. A pain because he wanted access to the calendar that I keep of his sporting events. Our workaround — the shared calendars do appear on his iPhone, so he just tracks that info there.

A couple of months into the arrangement, I still feel pretty good about it. I expected to be peppered with requests for permission to buy music. Not so much. He mostly listens to Pandora. Instead he’s used the account to acquire quite a few free apps. This flies under my radar because I’m not being charged anything. And there are plenty of free apps that could help him to avoid restrictions or controls that I have set up (limited calls and texts, for example).

So I still have to ask him to turn over the phone from time to time, so I can have a look at the apps. Not ideal, but part of the process.

Do you have thoughts about the age at which you will begin turning over the digital controls to your kids?

If you’re not familiar with the music of Mista Cookie Jar, a.k.a. C.J. Pizarro, he calls it “Urban-Island-Funky-Rock-N-Roll for the Inner Child.” His

GeekDad HipTrax Logo by Dave Banks

GeekDad HipTrax is back with another episode dedicated to giving you a whole lot of music with a nigh unbelievable price tag! Check out awesome (and thriftily priced) jams like:

“This Sword” by the modrats

York, South Carolina’s the modrats bring a healthy dose of punk to the ever-expanding world of geek rock. Their latest, Huzzah!, is a 15-track powerhouse of nerd hymns about everything from gaming to high fantasy that’s available for whatever you’d care to pay.

“Con Rave Two Step” by Ultraklystron

Karl Olson’s newest collection of anime- and fandom-inspired rhymes is dubbed Animatic after the traditional storyboarding process used in animation. It is available as a 22-track free download, or you can elect to pick up the deluxe 38-track editionfor a mere $9.

“Escape from L.A.” by Shrimps

John Carpenter, the son of a music professor, composed the minimalist scores for many of his own films out of necessity. Netlabel Pterodactyl Squad recently paid homage to many of these phenomenally atmospheric lo-fi creations with their free-to-download chiptune album It’s All in the Reflexes – A John Carpenter Tribute.

Want to hear more? Subscribe to the GeekDad podcast in iTunes (see the button on the sidebar), or directly through the RSS feed. You can also download GeekDad HipTrax #87 via this link.

The HipTrax theme song was created by Snake Eyes. His honey-dipped tracks are cheap at twice the price.

This article, by Z, was originally published on Wednesday.

I think this is the song my wife will be muttering quietly, over and over to herself when they discover her, smoking gun in hand, rocking back and forth near my body. In other words, she can’t stand it when I sing it to the little one anymore. I can’t fault her. I’ll totally understand when she finally snaps.

I blame it all on musical toys, of course.

You see, I have two bad habits that gang up on my wife and kids. Spontaneous interruptive singing and Song-Stuck-in-My-Head syndrome. These curses, mixed with musical children’s toys, make for a lethal cocktail for anyone’s sanity. I’ll explain.

Spontaneous Interruptive Singing

I’m just a puppet. I can’t control it. No matter how much a werewolf hates and swears at the moon he’s just going to get damned hairy when it’s full. Likewise, when someone utters some words that are part of some lyrics, it sets me off singing. I cannot hear someone say “…I think to myself…” without the powerful urge to break into the worst Louis Armstrong impression of What A Wonderful World. Here are some real-life examples with the family:

We’re installing curtains and Lizzie says, “Can you raise—” and I cut in with, “♫ YOU RAISE ME UUUUP, SO I CAN STAND ON MOUNTAINS! ♫” (For some reason I always sing this one in a “Kermit goes rock-opera” voice)

Or, I tell Cody that we can’t see a movie at midnight on opening night and he says, “Awww—” and I immediate break in with, “♫ AWWWWWW FREAK OUT! ♫” (And follow with a vocalized disco guitar)

They all love it. … Really? I got away with that? Wow. I can’t believe my computer didn’t explode from sarcasm overload. Anyways. The songs I erupt with aren’t even necessarily songs that I love. They’re the most uncontrollable when I DON’T like them!

Song-Stuck-in-My-Head Syndrome

Again. The songs I DO NOT like are the ones most likely to set themselves on loop in my head and then smash the controls. The worst thing is, since I don’t like them I’m not really familiar, so it’ll just be one or two lyrics repeating over and over and over and, you get the idea. Don’t look at me like that! I know I’m not the only one. Remember that time you heard some terrible song somewhere and then, as you unlocked your car, for a split-second you asked yourself absentmindedly, “Why can I still hear that crappy song?” BECAUSE YOU WERE JUST SINGING, HUMMING OR WHISTLING IT TO YOURSELF!

The True Villain: Children’s Toys

I love kids and I love music. But some how the two don’t add up to love when the button is pressed on any brightly-colored piece of plastic we just bought for our children. Ugh! Awful. Push-button awfulness. Given to a child who likes to push buttons as much as the heart likes to pump blood. Yay.

One day my two curses kicked in and I was singing The Wheels on the Bus. Lucas absolutely LOVED it. He kept shouting “Again! Again!” Lizzie, who’d heard his toys sing it a bazillion times already, did not love it and resisted shouting what she wanted to. Cody and Max were “plugged” in, and so were immune to my musical stylings.

This continued for a month or two. I even kept if fresh for the lad by inventing new lyrics of things on the bus. A little beat boxing, too. But as you can see in the picture of him covering his ears at the beginning of this post, even the little one has his limits.

The End Is Near

Recently, I’m seeing signs that the end might be near, for my wife’s sanity and for my life. We were driving and Lizzie mentioned, “Does the car seem to drive funny? Maybe the wheels…” She must have heard my deep intake of breath, as I filled my lungs with song, because her pointer finger was instantly poised like a dagger right below my right nostril as she hissed, “DON’T.”

The wheels on the bus no longer go round and round unless she’s is in another part of town.

–

The Friends on the Facebook go…
LOL, LOL, LOL! The Friends on the Facebook go LOL, all through the Wall.

Instructional Diagrams
I can’t think of a way to work “Instructional Diagrams” into a song. But you’ll love ‘em.
 

GeekDad HipTrax Logo by Dave Banks

GeekDad HipTrax is back with another episode dedicated to giving you a whole lot of music with a nigh unbelievable price tag! Check out awesome (and thriftily priced) jams like:

“This Sword” by the modrats

York, South Carolina’s the modrats bring a healthy dose of punk to the ever-expanding world of geek rock. Their latest, Huzzah!, is a 15-track powerhouse of nerd hymns about everything from gaming to high fantasy that’s available for whatever you’d care to pay.

“Con Rave Two Step” by Ultraklystron

Karl Olson’s newest collection of anime- and fandom-inspired rhymes is dubbed Animatic after the traditional storyboarding process used in animation. It is available as a 22-track free download, or you can elect to pick up the deluxe 38-track editionfor a mere $9.

“Escape from L.A.” by Shrimps

John Carpenter, the son of a music professor, composed the minimalist scores for many of his own films out of necessity. Netlabel Pterodactyl Squad recently paid homage to many of these phenomenally atmospheric lo-fi creations with their free-to-download chiptune album It’s All in the Reflexes – A John Carpenter Tribute.

Want to hear more? Subscribe to the GeekDad podcast in iTunes (see the button on the sidebar), or directly through the RSS feed. You can also download GeekDad HipTrax #87 via this link.

The HipTrax theme song was created by Snake Eyes. His honey-dipped tracks are cheap at twice the price.