There are two things I really love – one is music – the other is video games, and I try to combine the two as much as I can (yes, I am that big of a nerd). Lately, I’ve been doing that in two ways – Second Life, and Lord of the Rings Online.

SECOND LIFE

If you’re not familiar with Second Life, you either haven’t heard of it, or you have heard of it and think it’s unbearably weird.  It’s difficult to explain what Second Life is, since it’s not really a “game” per se.  It’s more like a huge, visual online community where you create an “avatar”, which is like an in game character that represents you.  This can be as simple as a character that resembles you, to one that doesn’t, to any outlandish thing you can think of.  I even saw a guy once who’s avatar was a robot that was made out of cardboard boxes – lol.  The entire world of Second Life is user created.  For example, you could obtain a piece of land, and then build anything that you wanted on that land.  This is referred to as a “sim”.  Some of the cooler sims I have come across for example were, a virtual Van Gogh exhibit that has painstakingly created three dimensional versions of his paintings that you could literally walk around in and interact with, a giant grand ballroom with everyone dressed in lavish Victorian dress, lots of concert halls, museums, shops with user created clothes, etc.  Pretty interesting place.  However, the place I spent most of my time is at the Music Academy Online.

Just earlier today, I did an informal presentation with the CEO and founder of the Music Academy Online, David Schwartz (known as Benton Wunderlich in SL) on some of our music (Dave is also a composer).  The thing that really amazed me about Second Life were the people I met in there.  Very accomplished and super talented performers who actually perform live in Second Life all the time by streaming their live performance into SL while their animated avatars “perform” on stage.  I’ve seen many classical concerts, as well as blues, rock, and jazz.  Second Life is much more than a game for everyone who is involved in it – it is another way of reaching audiences and meeting new people.  My avatars name in SL, should anyone want to find me there is Tanku Kaligawa.  Here is a picture of myself and Benton during our talk today – I am the one on the right in the black shirt (of course):

sl1

So for me, Second Life is fun, but it’s also another way for me to spread awareness of my music, and discover music from other people. I think it has great potential.  The Second Life client is free, so don’t be afraid to try it!

LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE

The other thing I’ve been enjoying recently is something that is completely just for fun, but something that I’ve been having a great time with.  I recently discovered the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online, and one of the great things about this game is its in game music system.  It uses a language called ABC notation, which is kind of a text based shorthand notation that drives MIDI.  You can download user created .abc files, and then load them up in game to have your character play those files on any number of period instruments such as lutes, theorbos, recorders, flutes, drums (like celtic drum), bagpipes, etc (sadly, no viols yet though).  There are even .abc files that contain multiple simultaneous parts, so that you can group with your friends in game, each character playing a different instrument, and play as a group.  There are actual in game groups that go around Middle Earth playing concerts.  I even found a free application that will convert MIDI files into .abc files – so I was actually able to have my character play some of my own music in game.  Like I said, totally useless, and a total waste of time, but very fun.  Here is a screen shot of my character playing her lute (yes, she’s a Hobbit):

If you’re interested in finding me in LotRO, my characters name is Orpharia and I play on the Landroval server.  I told you I was a nerd…