There is a blue plaque in Selsey, West Sussex which bears the inscription

This view across the sea to Bognor Regis inspired Eric Coates to compose ‘By The Sleepy Lagoon’ in 1930. It became the BBC signature tune for ‘Desert Island Discs’.

From the Wikipedia (“By the Sleepy Lagoon”):

Coates had originally been inspired to write the piece in 1930 while overlooking a beach in West Sussex. His son, Austin Coates, remembers:

It was inspired in a very curious way and not by what you might expect. It was inspired by the view on a warm, still summer evening looking across the “lagoon” from the east beach at Selsey towards Bognor Regis. It’s a pebble beach leading steeply down, and the sea at that time is an incredibly deep blue of the Pacific. It was that impression, looking across at Bognor, which looked pink – almost like an enchanted city with the blue of the Downs behind it – that gave him the idea for the Sleepy Lagoon. He didn’t write it there; he scribbled it down, as he used to, at extreme speed, and then simply took it back with him to London where he wrote and orchestrated it.

Here’s a link to YouTube:

Here’s a link to an mp3 download on Amazon:

By The Sleepy Lagoon by Eric Coates.

From the Wikipedia (“In Town Tonight”):

In Town Tonight was a BBC radio programme broadcast on Saturday evening from 1933 to 1960 (except for a period of 26 weeks in 1937 when The BBC presents the ABC was broadcast instead). It was an early example of the chat show, originally presented by Eric Maschwitz.

Its theme music was the Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates. Its introductory sequence had a voice crying “Stop” to interrupt the sound of busy central London, before an announcer said “Once more we stop the mighty roar of London’s traffic …” At the end of the programme the voice would say “Carry on, London”.

This is definitely one of those tunes which you’ll recognise when you hear it. Knightsbridge is the third and final movement of the London Suite and was written in 1933.

Here it is on YouTube, for your listening pleasure:

And here’s a link to an mp3 download on Amazon:

Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates

I’m kicking off now at the very start of May 2012, and my theme for May will be the music of Eric Coates.

So, my very first Dr Jan’s Tune Of The Week is…

“Calling All Workers” by Eric Coates

From the Wikipedia (“Music While You Work”):

Music While You Work was a daytime radio programme of continuous live popular music broadcast in the United Kingdom twice daily on workdays from June 1940 until September 1967 by the BBC, initially in the Forces / General Forces Programme, and after the war in the BBC Light Programme and, in the mornings, on the BBC Home Service. The programme began in World War II. By playing non-stop popular / light music at an even tempo it aimed to help factory workers become more productive. For a period, a third edition was broadcast in the late evening for night-shift workers.

…

The programme began and ended with Calling All Workers by Eric Coates

This is such an energetic tune, it really does make you want to jump up and start producing things

There is a second or two, just after the initial fanfare, when I’m reminded of the music used for the mini-game of Back Attack in the Wii Party Games suite. It’s just a drum and possibly some bass strings playing a classic ‘oom-cha, oom-cha’ rhythm.

Here it is on YouTube:

How stirring is that?

And here’s a link to an mp3 version on Amazon.co.uk:

“Calling All Workers” from the Eric Coates plays Eric Coates album.

Look out for more Eric Coates gorgeousness next week

SnackAmp sits on my Linux-based server box. It has a remote control feature (details here) which accepts control strings from a TCP socket. I wrote a Python script which runs on the phone to open a Wi-Fi connection to my music server and send simple commands to control it.

I was pleasantly surprised at just how easy all this turned out to be

First, I installed Python. This is available from the Nokia Opensource site. The N95 uses the 3rd edition of the S60 operating system, so I downloaded these files:

• PythonForS60_1_4_1_3rdEd.SIS
• PythonScriptShell_1_4_1_3rdEd.sis

Then I wrote a small Python script to open a TCP socket on the music server and send the appropriate text strings to control the music player.

The script (see below) first defines some handy functions. send_command actually sends the specified command to the music player. play, pause, stop, next and prev call the send_command function with the appropriate command text.

The main section of the script first checks if there are any command line parameters. If there are, it tries to immediately send the appropriate command and then exits.

If not, it discovers which operating system it is running on, and uses that information to execute one of two sections. The S60 section uses a standard Nokia list GUI widget to enable the user to select a command. The script sends the command and exits. Note that the Nokia GUI requires you to specify all strings as Unicode. Python does this by prefixing each string with ‘u’ – for example, u’Pause’.

The Linux section uses the standard Python Tkinter GUI library to generate a small X-windows based window with push buttons to select commands. This part of the script uses a loop to allow multiple commands to be sent. The window is active until you select the Quit option.

Here is the script:

#!/usr/bin/python
import socket
import sys
import string

def send_command(command):
        # opens a socket to snackAmp, sends the appropriate command and
        # closes the socket.

        # create a socket
        s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)

        # connect to server
        host = '192.168.1.20' # server address - bletchley is 192.168.1.20
        port = 8775 # server port
        s.connect((host, port))

        s.send(command) # send command

        # close the connection
        s.close()

def prev():
        print 'previous...'
        send_command('xmms_remote_playlist_prev')

def pause():
        print 'pause...'
        send_command('xmms_remote_pause')

def play():
        print 'play...'
        send_command('xmms_remote_play')

def stop():
        print 'stop...'
        send_command('xmms_remote_stop')

def next():
        print 'next...'
        send_command('xmms_remote_playlist_next')

args = sys.argv[1:]     # don't keep the program name
if len(args) > 0:
        for a in args:
                found = 0
                a = string.lower(a)
                if a == 'pause':
                        found = 1
                        pause()
                if a == 'prev':
                        found = 1
                        prev()
                if a == 'play':
                        found = 1
                        play()
                if a == 'stop':
                        found = 1
                        stop()
                if a == 'next':
                        found = 1
                        next()
                if found == 0:
                        print "Command not recognised. Currently implemented are pause, prev, play, stop, next."
else:
        if sys.platform == 'symbian_s60':
                # we are running on a Nokia phone
                import appuifw  # access to the user interface framework
                menu = [u'Pause', u'Prev', u'Next', u'Play', u'Stop']
                index = appuifw.selection_list(choices=menu, search_field=0)

                if index == 0:
                        pause()

                if index == 1:
                        prev()

                if index == 2:
                        next()

                if index == 3:
                        play()

                if index == 4:
                        stop()
        else:
                # we are running on a standard computer (i.e. not a phone)
                from Tkinter import *

                class Application(Frame):
                        def __init__(self, master=None):
                                Frame.__init__(self, master)
                                self.grid()
                                self.createWidgets()

                        def createWidgets(self):
                                self.pauseButton = Button (self, text="Pause", underline = 0, command=pause)
                                self.pauseButton.grid(row=0, column=0, columnspan=4, sticky=E+W)
                                self.prevButton = Button (self, text="Prev", underline = 1, command=prev)
                                self.prevButton.grid(row=1, column=0)
                                self.playButton = Button (self, text="Go", underline = 0, command=play)
                                self.playButton.grid(row=1, column=1)
                                self.stopButton = Button (self, text="Stop", underline = 0, command=stop)
                                self.stopButton.grid(row=1, column=2)
                                self.nextButton = Button (self, text="Next", underline = 0, command=next)
                                self.nextButton.grid(row=1, column=3)
                                self.quitButton = Button (self, text="Quit", underline = 0, command=self.quit)
                                self.quitButton.grid(row=2, column=0, columnspan=4, sticky=E+W)

                app = Application()
                app.master.title("snackAmp Control")
                app.mainloop()

You’ll need to create the script in your favourite text editor on your PC and then transfer it to the phone. I used a USB cable to connect the phone to the PC and selected the mass storage option on the phone. Once the file is transferred, you’ll need to disconnect the USB cable so the phone can access the memory card again.

In theory you can use Bluetooth to transfer the script, but I’ve seen reports that it doesn’t work with S60 3rd edition. I don’t have Bluetooth on my Linux server, so I can’t tell you

In use, start Python on the phone, then run a script. Select the script name and the command list appears. Choose a command. The ‘Select access point’ screen appears and I choose my Wi-Fi router connection. Then magic happens and the music obeys my commands