The idea of a site as tiny as this one having a question that gets asked twice, let alone frequently, is a real knee-slapper. These are questions that I imagine someone may someday ask, and are probably more reflective of the way my mind works than you and your information needs. But "IAQ" sounds like my cat coughing up a hairball, so frequently asked questions it is.
A: I refer you to the rather fancifully-worded explanation I wrote for an earlier version of the site:
"You take the high road and I'll take the low road, and I'll get to Scotland before you..." That lyric from Loch Lomond might be talking about how the dead get home quicker, but it could easily be taken to describe the tuning phenomenon that is the ditonic comma. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras discovered that when he arrived at the same tone by different intervallic sequences, the frequencies at the destination did not match. The gap, small as it is, is a gulf by western musical standards. Theorists and tuners over the centuries have crafted numerous and elaborate tempering systems designed to mask mask - or exploit - the discrepancy. Decisions must be made: stretch an interval here, squash another there, find an acceptable compromise or choose to revel in the dissonance."
"The two things assumed to be identical refuse to conform to our expectations. This is not imperfect, but rather mysterious and wonderful in its mystery. In other words, I revel. I find the discord to be a source of inspiration; like inverted folds of geology underlying an apparently simple landscape, the unexpected wolf tone, that glorious screw-up in the midst of an otherwise clinically predictable classical performance, awakens us to the full breadth of sensory experience."
Edit: about a year ago I received an email from keyboardist, composer and veteran progressive rocker Francis Monkman, in which he gamely reminded me that I'm hardly the first person to seek out sounds others describe as out of tune. He's right, of course, and I've amended my original text accordingly. I'll also take a tip from him and direct synth users interested in experimenting with intonation tables to check out Scala.
A: Is there anything even vaguely commercial about this site? Just because domain registeries couldn't keep their standards together doesn't mean that I should stoop to the same level. And there's already more than enough of me on here without making the thing eponymous.
A: You can blame two culprits here. One is the near-total lack of free audio hosting on today's internet. Writers have their pick of publishing platforms, visual artists have Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa, and even videographers can happily post their giant files to Youtube or Vimeo. We sound people have...Myspace? Bandcamp, with no HTTP linking and a max of 200 free downloads a month per account? Please shoot me now.
So I host audio on Google Docs, which gives me a gigabyte of streaming audio storage, provided I hack the pants off the URLs. Trouble is, Google hates Opera because it competes with their browser, Chrome: they use browser sniffing and some hidden server-side routine to intentionally block Opera users from accessing certain Google-hosted services. Very evil of them. Bad Google! Google is culprit #2.
Fortunately, there's a simple way around this browser war. In the main Opera window, right-click and select Site Preferences; enter https://docs.google.com/ as the site to change; then go to the "Network" tab and change the Browser Identification from "Identify as Opera" to "Identify as Firefox" and hit OK. There, you've successfully spoofed your browser. If you got lost, check out this step-by-step video, but my guess is you'll be just fine; the Opera demographic doesn't seem to include Uncle Wallace. He's still using IE 6.
A: Nowhere at the moment. I'm working on that. I'd like to take a fair portion of my dance accompanying tracks and make them free downloads, too, but that means sorting out which content is going to be free and which will be paid. I'll get there eventually, but in the meantime, enjoy what's streaming on the site.
A: Yes. My posted rate is $300 for the first minute of music, payable in advance, and $175 per minute thereafter (rounding up to the minute) for electronic and small ensemble pieces. Orchestral scores would be more, but then I haven't had the pleasure doing one in quite a while, so the whole thing is kind of moot. I don't guarantee that I will take your project if you inquire, but I'm willing to work for less than the posted rate, up to and including free, if you're proposing a work that really appeals to me.
A: What? No. I'm an amateur at web development and this site is a hobby. You don't want me doing your site. Go find yourself a professional.