Black Friday at the Stanford Shopping Center

Hey everyone. I'm going to brave the crowds and attempt to spread some Holiday season cheer to the hoards of shoppers on Black Friday. I'll be in front of the Apple Store at the Stanford Shopping Center at around 1pm and will probably stay for a couple hours or until they kick me out.

Maybe I'll see you there!

-The Mule

My Twitter Account!

I now have a twitter account! It should come in handy when I am out and about so you can track my whereabouts a bit more easily.

Check it out! Follow my adventures and send me messages!

Blog Layout Change

Hey everyone,

I changed the Layout of my blog. I think it is a bit easier to read now but if anyone thinks otherwise let me know.

MIDI to Smule Ocarina Transcriber!

Woo hoo! this is some really neat stuff. The dudes at TheGoodBlogs have developed a way to translate midi files into Ocarina Notation. I have to say the concept is really cool, especially for people who are new to writing music in Ocarina notation or otherwise.

Here's the link to the converter.
http://www.thegoodblogs.com/ocarina.php

I tried it a few times on different songs and had some great success with these midi files

http://www.diskuspublishing.com/manger.mid

http://www.christmas-carol-music.org/Lead_Sheets/AwayInAManger_Mueller.mid

These two examples are slightly different and the first one has full chord progressions, but the generator was able to separate out the melody. Now you too can play "Away in a Manger". This is a really cool thing considering there are a TON of midi files available.

Here is a massive database of songs to get you going. http://www.8notes.com/

Recap of My Trip Down the California Coast

OK here it is! Finally a little look into the life of the Mule on the road.

First of all, I ended up making it to 34 Apple Stores in 5 days! That's got to be some sort of record. Every single one was a great time and almost all of them had someone with Ocarina by the time I left. I handed out a TON of T-Shirts and you know what that means? A bunch of people got the Ocarina. Ohhhh yeahhh! Now that many more people will be able to express themselves musically to thousands of people around the world!

Here are a few snippets from my journey.

Ocarina Jam Session!
I would like to share this superb experience I had while in LA. There was a video posted of an amazing Ocarinist playing "Song of Storms" on YouTube with her keyboard playing the background music. Well I was fortunate enough to have gotten into contact with her during my travels, and she was nice enough to let me into her home for a bonafide Jam Session! Check out the true awesomeness that prevaled!



Rockarina ON Lauren, you are a fantastic example of what is possible and what Smule is all about!

Trail of Flame
I was able to keep track of where I went using my Sonic Lighter I hope this doesn't upset anyone considering the hills just North East of Hollywood were actually on fire. My condolences to those who lost their homes.



Then From LA to San Louis Obispo and up to the Bay




Thanks to Candace for this picture!

Recap of Stonestown Apple Store Event

I was invited to come and give a workshop / officially Mule around in the Stonestown Galleria Apple Store in San Francisco. It was a lot of fun as always, and I think there are a bunch more people there who know who Smule is, and what we are all about! Hopefully I will get another chance like this soon.

Mule Tour On Hold! But for great reasons.

Hey Everybody Mule here.

I had to cut the Mule Tour short, but for great reasons. First of all I ran out of T-Shirts so as to not disappoint those of you who were waiting for me to come through your area, I am waiting to get more shirts.

Most importantly though, I am doing an official event at an Apple Store in San Francisco!
I will be demoing the 4 Sonic Mule products and handing out stickers as well as the last of the T-Shirts. If you are going to be in the Bay Area Come to the Stonestown Galleria Apple Store at 3pm Tomorrow (Wednesday the 19) and we can learn a song together on Ocarina! Woohoo!

I hope to be hitting the road again soon so keep checking in!

-The Mule

Mule Tour Schedule Update

Hello everyone! I was a little bit more ambitious than I thought I would be today, so I won't be in San Diego tomorrow as I already hit all the Apple stores there! Tomorrow I will be in Northern LA hitting up 5 more stores before I head back to the Bay. And yes I am cutting the tour short which I will post about soon (i'm so busy I can't write any posts lately UGH!). I know you are all probably devastated that I won't be making it your way, but don't worry, it is due to unforseen wonderful circumstances, and I will hopefully be on the road again soon!

Here is my detailed schedule for tomorrow Monday Nov 17:

Simi Valley @ 10am (if I can wake up early enough)
Northridge @ 10:45am
Topanga @ 11:30am
Sherman Oaks @ 12:15pm
The Oaks @ 1:15pm
San Louis Obispo @ 4:30pm
Monterey @ 7:30 pm

If things go as they did yesterday, I will be ahead of schedule. Since I'm pretty much out of shirts I'm guessing it will go quick!

Maybe I'll see you there!

-The Mule

Mule Tour and Facebook Page

OK everybody the Preliminary round is done! The Bay Area Apple Stores have officially been Smuled by The Mule and so has UCSC! Now it's time for me to branch out to the rest of the States as I start my journey. I already have some pit stops to meet Smule users and Ocarina players as well. I look forward to more of these opportunities so keep an eye out!

As Always keep checking the blog for updates on my whereabouts as well as the ocarina.smule.com forum and become a fan of my new Facebook page.

Sometimes words just don't explain

This is a favorite among the Smule team and I just had to share it!



Thanks so much for this video and very well played Ms. goddesslynz. I think you deserve a T-Shirt as well!

T-Shirt Giveaway and Mule tour 2!

Hello Everybody! I'm proud to announce that Smule now has T-Shirts to give away and I'm going on my second tour around the country!

How can you get a T-Shirt and meet the Mule? Well first you have to have Ocarina, and second you have to find yourself in my path, but that won't be all that hard since I'll be posting my general whereabouts in the right hand column on this here blog. I will also be posting my whereabouts soon on the Ocarina Forum.

So where am I going?
Mostly to Apple Stores to spread the word about the Ocarina but I might make some stops here and there. My tentative plan is to start in the Bay Area, then cruise down the coast to LA and San Diego. After that I'll be crossing the Southwest, hitting up Texas, passing through the South to Florida, and then on up the East Coast to New England. After that I'll be heading back West via Chicago and Illinois (maybe I'll stop by the Oprah show!), and finally gutting the good ole US of A right down the middle to return home in the Bay. All in about 2 weeks time if everything goes according to plan.

My itinerary is going to be pretty generalized here, but if you send me an e-mail and I'll let you know more exact locations as I get closer to them.

Hopefully I'll run into you soon and you can get a Smule T-Shirt!

-The Mule

New Mule Video

Hello everyone. Here is a new video featuring me on the Ocarina I hope you like it!

Ocarina on G4 TV!

We've successfully infiltrated the airwaves (and the internet waves of course)! This episode of Attack of the Show from last week features the Ocarina at about three and a half minutes in (3:30). Check it out!

The Mule in San Francisco Tomorrow

I will be in San Francisco for most of the day tomorrow so if you are around shoot me an e-mail and I'll give you a light!

Ocarina: The First wind instrument on the iPhone!

Today is a big day in the life of the Mule! Sonic Mule released the Ocarina: a wind instrument for the iPhone! It is truly fantastic if I do say so myself and you really need to see it to believe it. For those Zelda fans out there it is a must have. This one really takes the cake though. As with all our applications (except Sonic Vox) you can see everyone using the app around the world, but this one has something more. Instead of just seeing where people are playing, you can actually HEAR what they are playing and give a vote if you like it or not, or skip it and go to the next one. Talk about anonymous interactivity! But it gets better. If you take a trip to the new Ocarina website, you can even learn how to play the Ocarina, generate your own scores, AND join a forum of other Ocarina users to share your Ocarina experience or ask questions.

And here is a video of the first Ocarina quintet playing Stairway to Heaven. I just had to post it!

Audio Stream from KMEL Show!!

Well here it is as promised, the audio stream from Tuesday's KMEL morning show!



Hope some of you had the chance to call in and win a brand new iPod Touch!

The Mule On KMEL with Chuy Gomez!!

Me with Chuy Gomez!!!!
Originally uploaded by themulewashere

That's right everyone! I got to be on the air with the one and only, the special sauce in everybody's early morning spice rack... CHUY GOMEZ! After 15 years he's still going strong. We had a great time and gave away some brand spankin' new iPod Touches to the wonderful listeners of KMEL's morning show. I have to say they really got it going on over there, Chuy, Lady Ray, and the gang were super cool and know how to have a great time that is for shure!

I'll upload the radio broadcast once I get it but for now here's a video I snapped real quick like.



Peace.

The Mule in People's Park

For those of you who haven't ever heard of People's Park, it is one of the many places in Berkeley California that became famous in the late 1960's for it's fervent political activism. There have been many documentaries and books that include sections about the park, most notably the documentary called "Berkeley in the 60's", because it became a landmark for free speech in that era. At one point in May of 1969 this peaceful place, where freedom of expression reigned supreme, became a scene of police brutality, oppression, and bloodshed. For more information on the events that took place at People's Park check out the Wikipedia article.

In my travels to Berkeley I met a very Eccentric individual by the name of Jonah who showed up at Berkeley about a month or two ago in a huge bus that he apparently drove from New York. On this one day in particular he was having an event with music and food at People's Park as well as encouraging passersby to help paint the entire exterior of the bus in a peaceful Berkeley manner. I of course couldn't pass up this wonderful opportunity and jumped right in. Leaving my mark.


Here I am with the man himself in front of his beautifully painted bus.



More of the Bus and Me.


The Bus on it's own. It was very big I must say.

The Mule with Cal Berkeley Democrats and Fraternity Brother

Well hello there! To recap my time spent at Berkeley I'm going to make a few posts here of things I experienced. But first things first, I ran into some Political types on campus and got the Democrats to do a light for Obama. I asked the Republicans if they would like to counter the lightup by the UCB Dems, but they declined. Here is the video.



I also was able to infiltrate a couple of frat houses in order to equip them with Sonic Vox just in time for Halloween. Here's the video of that!



I hope you all enjoy these vids and be sure to get out and VOTE today and tomorrow!