The D.I.Y. Career
March 10, 2011
The musician and genius marketer Gilbert Hetherwick has pointed me to another performer who is making hay in the anarchy that characterizes much of the music business these days. This young man sat down in the park with a single camera and played a song he likes. More than seven and a half a million people have watched his video, and he is now under management and tours regularly. He did not sit around waiting for someone to give him a record contract or permission to perform for audiences. He uploaded an example of what he could do onto YouTube and, with an intelligent Web site as virtual headquarters, pursues a career that he made for himself.
UPDATE: A reader points out this wonderful TED Talk that the artist did.
Judged by Your Peers
March 7, 2011
I have up to now missed out on the Justin Bieber phenomenon, but this article makes me wonder why a compelling “classical” musician — a new Yo Yo Ma, Joyce Didonato, or Leif Ove Andsnes — couldn’t employ this same social-media way of becoming known and admired.
And where did the child learn to do comparatively clean coloratura like this?
The True Power of the Performing Arts
February 28, 2011
Are you a creator, performer, or presenter in one of the arts (or embodying two or more of those roles, as so often happens these days)? Then you want to hear what Ben Cameron has to say about what you’re up against, and where he see the opportunities:
Neurotheology of Genius
February 27, 2011
In her autobiography, George Sand tells of finding Frédéric Chopin composing during a Mallorca rain.
He saw himself drowned in a lake. Heavy and ice-cold drops of water fell at regular intervals upon his breast, and when I drew his attention to those drops of water which were actually falling at regular intervals upon the roof, he denied having heard them. He was even vexed at what I translated by imitative harmony…. His genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature, translated by sublime equivalents into his musical thought, and not by a servile repetition of external sounds.
A discussion of a discussion of this here.
The Next Step in “Live” Performance?
February 25, 2011
Mark T. Mitchell is thinking:
Cisco is boasting that its new communications technology will change the way we engage others. Indeed, when a hologram of a man in California appears before an audience in India and has a conversation with a “real” person, things feel a bit odd. Is this a mere gimmick that will confine itself to business meetings of tech companies or will this soon be part of our everyday experience? What is gained when a holographic figure replaces an image on a screen or a voice on the phone? I have to admit the technology is amazing, but is it significant? With this I could live in a cabin in Montana and teach classes in Virginia and hold regular office hours as well. Would the students find this satisfying? Would I? Could this technology affect the way we think about bodily existence?
I think the question of how our thinking may change if holograms of human bodies become common communication devices is a fascinating one. I see some real opportunities for music pedagogy — for example, making short regular visits to pupils’ practice sessions practicable. But it also leads me to some pretty wild thoughts about musical performance: could a hologram conduct an orchestra or play the viola part in a string quartet’s rehearsal when the “real” musician was snowed in? Would an audience made up of holograms cough less?
Impressive Technology. But It’ll Never Replace the Scroll.
February 17, 2011
Not for Just an Hour, Not for Just a Day, Not for Just a Year
February 12, 2011
Soon after Marilyn Horne closed her 1999 farewell recital in Carnegie Hall with a pure, straightforward performance of “Always,” I heard this story:
Someone asked Irving Berlin which of his songs he valued most. He answered that it would be “Always.”
The questioner listed some more obviously important songs that Berlin had written, adding: “Anybody could have written ‘Always.'”
“But I did,” said the composer.
I have sometimes used this anecdote as an example of how intention, concept, etc. are worthless without execution. Can anyone here provide a source/authority for it?
The song was a wedding present for Ellin McKay, who would be Irving Berlin’s wife for sixty-two years.
BONUS: Ella Fitzgerald’s version even includes a counterpoint lesson.
David Lynch Calls Us Back
February 7, 2011
In an interview about not being a musician, the auteur reminds us why, if we’re lucky, we do what we do:
… take George Lucas or Spielberg: They’re doing, in my mind, what they truly love. But what they truly love, zillions of people love, so they’re multimillionaires. I’m doing what I truly love, but the audience is way smaller. And Don Van Vliet was doing what he truly loved and the audience is hardly there at all.
But it’s OK, because if you do anything that you don’t love for money or fame, you die. You can’t live doing that. It’s hollow. It’s a joke. So be thankful you’re able to do what you love.
RogerEvansOnline.com 