Earlier today a friend asked me how to set up a wireless audio system in his house. I'm sure he's not alone in asking the question, and while there are many resources providing information on how to do this online, the options and conflicting opinions can be pretty daunting at first. So here's a little overview from me to you.

It is pretty simple to set up actually - pretty low tech from a user's perspective and easy to set up once the initial purchases have been made.

There are also a few ways to do this. I'm not an Apple Fanboy but have found that the following Apple-based system is reliable, as long as your WiFi signal is strong enough. Other than your computer, the following two pieces of hardware are all that is needed:

1. An Airport Extreme, used as a wireless router. This is what will stream the music from your computer to other parts of your house. I have previously used non-Apple routers (e.g. Belkin) with varying levels of success. But Apple talking to Apple tends to be much easier to set up and save you hours of fruitless head-scratching and Googling.

2. An Airport Express, used to receive the audio signal streamed from your machine / router. This little unit just plugs into a power point, and has a headphone jack on the bottom. This unit receives the audio sent from your computer (via the wireless router e.g. Airport Extreme), and using the headphones jack you can just plug the output into the stereo / speakers of your choice.

Out of the box you'll be able to set up iTunes to stream audio from your computer to your remote speakers i.e. whatever speakers you have which are plugged into the headphones jack of the Airport Express.

iTunes will do the work to make sure the audio stays in synch, so if you walk away from your computer playing music into another room which is remotely streaming the music, it will all be in synch. Nice.

With these couple of bits of hardware, you will be streaming music from iTunes. If you want to go one step further, you can stream ANY audio from your computer to your remote speakers. e.g. stream online radio, YouTube, system sounds, you name it. This is great if iTunes is not the only program you wish to be tied to when listening to music or audio. To stream any audio, get the brilliant AirFoil from Rogue Amoeba.

Once set up, you can then ready my other tips on optimising the quality of your WiFi signal. More iTunes related audio tips can be found in the iTunes section of my blog.

Hope that helps! Happy listening.

Last weekend I recorded a performance of my composition "Before April". In a strange coincidence, a few days later I read this post about the "Out Back Project", a 15-minute audio piece to be composed from the memories contributors have of their backyard. I immediately contacted the talent behind the project and am pleased to contribute my track as the score.

The title "Before April" refers to the time shortly before the arrival of my first child. At the time I was living in Sydney, in a unit, with a tiny grassed area flanked by a very tall graffitied concrete wall, the only thing separating us from the Gore Hill Freeway into Sydney.

I composed this track thinking of the complete unknown that lay ahead for us with the pending arrival, as I looked out to our very limited living space outdoors. That April we moved to Newcastle, returning to our roots, closer to family, in our first home with a large and varied outdoor environment for our little guy to explore. We have not looked back since, and the concrete wall I once saw from the window of my studio has been replaced with the top of citrus trees, rooves and an expanse of sky.

With that, please enjoy the track via the YouTube clip above. If it connects with you, you can download the track in the format of your choice from here. Enjoy.

In the past 24 hours I've stumbled across two sites in particular which have lead to this post. While I may lose several readers with this sentence, my intention is not to prescribe rules with which to make a hit song, but to question some music industry trends.

Yesterday I read the blog post "The Ten Second Rule: What is it and Why It’s Important!". In summary this article explains why a track needs to grab the listener in the first 10 seconds in order to be successful (generally). My first reaction was to disagree, but then I realised my disagreement was not with the rule itself but with the outcome of an adherence to it.

Anyone who has listened to my music would appreciate that the old adage of "don't bore us, get to the chorus" doesn't generally enter into my composition process! I don't approach music from a perspective of needing to grab attention and impact from the get-go. However, I also appreciate that I am not composing with the express purpose of achieving commercial success - something The Ten Second Rule is clearly a catalyst for.

I agree with the suggestion that there must be near-instant appeal for music which is aiming to be played on commercial radio. The reality is that deviating too far from familiar territory will lead to the listener changing the station quickly. But I question the value of this rule in creating fresh, interesting and truly original music – rather than more of what’s been heard before.

The second site I've come across today is SoundOut. As the website explains, SoundOut offers an online service to provide objective, reliable and rapid music insight. Artists are encouraged to upload a track via the site which is then reviewed by music fans (registered "scouts"). As detailed on the site:

"Every track submitted to SoundOut is fed randomly and in real-time to 80 independent reviewers on our sister site, Slicethepie (or 200 reviewers for SoundOut Pro reports). They are asked to respond objectively with their rating and honest feedback. These reviews and ratings are then automatically analysed by semantic technologies and compared against over 50,000 other tracks that have already been processed through SoundOut to produce a detailed SoundOut report."

Among other things, one outcome an artist is said to be able to gain from the SoundOut report is "How good a track is overall, with guaranteed 95% accuracy".

This service may be the absolute delight of artists looking for a way to receive constructive (?) feedback on their tracks. It's certainly an innovative tool.

I must say though that I am wary of the outcomes of a largely automatic reporting tool determining "how good a track is overall". For an artist with the sole objective of achieving commercial success with their music, this would seem like a god-send. Once you have the big success tick against one of your tracks you just need to figure out exactly what commercial success is - how to monetise the popularity of your track in a world gone crazy for free downloads and music piracy!

As a composer putting heart and feeling into creating music, this tool leaves me cold. But again, I acknowledge I am not SoundOut's target market.

Why formulate and automate the art of creating music?

"I am the entertainer, I come to do my show.
You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio.
Ah, it took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life.
It was a beautiful song. But it ran too long.
If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05".
- Billy Joel, "The Entertainer"

Earlier today I was telling a friend how much I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday and I plan to go for a long hike. Alone. Ideally passing no one.

This sounds a little reclusive and sad, but this activity for me is life-giving. The solitude is energising.

The image accompanying this post is a photo I took while my wife and I were traveling Iceland in 2009. After leaving Mývatn in the north of the country we were heading east towards our next stop, Egilsstaðir. Traveling as a duo (at that time pre-children!) and in the off-season, the scenery, lack of fellow tourists, barren and pristine landscape, and sheer isolation made this leg of the journey forever unforgettable.

At the point this photo was taken we pulled our 4WD up in the middle of the national highway (Route 1, the Ring Road which circles the country), turned the engine off and listened. I kept a journal of the trip and the following is my account of the experience as recalled that evening:

Saturday 4th April 2009

...the road to Egilsstaðir consisted largely of barren ice fields and mountains, great for photos and an insight into what the vast, uninhabited and hostile interior of Iceland must be like. At one time we stopped the car in the middle of nowhere, no other cars, rocks, or any life in sight. We turned off the engine, got out of the car and just listened. Nothing. Once you sheltered your ears to stop the sound of the breeze blowing past your ear, the only sound was the occasional drip of thawing snow and ice. Total isolation...

I will never forget that experience.

In the most regular of circumstances we are surrounded by sound. Our constant exposure to what we hear means that after a while we don't really listen to much of it at all. It becomes background noise. An unconscious reminder of being accompanied.

My Icelandic experience is rare.

While I love music and sound as I do, there is an energising peace in solitude. I hope to find it tomorrow.