Linked List: June 2026
Tuesday, 23 June 2026
- Sightread ✶
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Open source web application for learning to play piano that listens to your MIDI instrument input while you play to songs displayed as sheet music or falling notes, both with extra notation to help beginners such as named notes (alphabetical and fixed do) and colors (Settings icon on top-right → Display → Visualizer).
You can also free play, choosing different instruments, and record your own performance into a MIDI file to use later in your DAW, or load custom ones.
I’ve added it to the piano resources page.
- Barry Harris in The Hague ✶
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I discovered Harris when looking up who played the delicate, beautiful piano part in Yusef Lateef’s performance of Love Theme From Spartacus and then found this series of videos put together by pianist and teacher Frans Elsen. A wonderful resource.
Monday, 22 June 2026
- Steam Machine launch ✶
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I use a Mac for work and a PC for play, and this little box seems a good opportunity to play The Legend of Linux on a desktop or a couch, and help make it true.
- Polder model - cooperation despite differences ✶
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The polder model is a method of consensus decision-making, based on the Dutch version of consensus-based economic and social policymaking in the 1980s and 1990s. It gets its name from the Dutch word (polder) for tracts of land enclosed by dikes. The polder model has been described as “a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity” and “cooperation despite differences”.
- Lagom - just enough ✶
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A Swedish word meaning ‘just the right amount’ or ’not too much, not too little’. The word can be variously translated as ‘in moderation’, ‘in balance’, ‘perfect-simple’, ‘just enough’, ‘ideal’ and ‘suitable’ (in matter of amounts). Whereas words like sufficient and average suggest some degree of abstinence, scarcity, or failure, lagom carries the connotation of appropriateness, although not necessarily perfection. The archetypical Swedish proverb “Lagom är bäst”, literally ‘The right amount is best’, is also translated as ‘Enough is as good as a feast’, or as ‘There is virtue in moderation’.
Saturday, 20 June 2026
- SysEx Librarian ✶
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App to let your Mac communicate with MIDI devices using System Exclusive messages, also known as SysEx. The most common use is to backup patch data from synthesizers, although there are others (such as sending firmware updates).
I think you can build a Linux version from the source.
MIDI-OX is a PC equivalent.
Saturday, 6 June 2026
- Memory, sound design, discovery of music through intuition ✶
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Interview with Matthew Florianz, sound designer of one of my all-time favorite videogames.