ambient

I posted some copies of a magazine that I publish to the USA, and to the EU yesterday. You have to state exactly what’s inside the envelope, the weight and obviously the value. Customs use that and the postage costs to ascertain the amount of any duty and/or VAT due. You can obviously undervalue the item, they’re not stupid though, and I suspect they’d be pretty aggrieved if your actions were suggestive that they are. It’s pretty simple for them to go online and discover the true value of whatever’s sat in front of them. Sure, you can sell anything for whatever low price you want, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll actually do that though - however if anyone is feeling very generous, I’d love a 6 string Fodera MG please, I’ve got about £300 saved. As someone’s already pointed out, there’s the matter of insurance should whatever you’re transporting get lost or damaged in-transit.

It’s more to do with the UK ending FoM for its citizens - it hasn’t ended for citizens of the other EU countries. Their citizens still have the right to live, work, travel and retire to thirty odd other countries. The deal that’s just been signed allows for some people to work within the EU without having to obtain an often costly work permit. This is mostly for people working in technical fields though, it doesn’t allow those in the creative industries, neither does it allow for academic staff to travel to work or to conferences etc, so I’m caught both ways. In the past two years for instance I’ve performed and done academic work - talks etc in Paris, Netherlands and Sweden. That won’t be possible without a work permit, these are obtained per country, it's not possible to obtain one permit or visa that’ll allow you to work across the EU, so you need one for each visit. It just isn’t cost effective. My university’s music department has an expenses budget, it doesn’t stretch to the hundreds of pounds per person - KMH for instance in Stockholm last year, there were four of us there. There’s also other costs and paperwork to consider. Most artists/bands take merchandise with them, the sale of which helps pay for the tour. After Brexit you’ll have to pay VAT upfront on any merchandise, that’s on entry to each country. You claim this back on any unsold items when you return. It’s yet another expense though.

That’s a beautiful song.

At uni we used to have to learn the bass part to a song each week, then perform it with as part of a randomly selected ensemble, usually two guitarists, a drummer, vocals and backing vocals. We’d be marked on various aspects of our individual performance. I’d spend hours and hours learning them, I actually really hated that particular module. I’d forget it totally after a week or so. Funny thing is I can remember chord sequences to dozens of jazz tunes no problem at all, but individual bass lines no.

I used DPD the other week to take an instrument to France. Booked through Eurosender.

It’ll be quite a bit more money, PayPal’s exchange rate isn’t very favourable.

There’s not really that much more though. Again, it comes down to using the available technology, tweaking it and getting used to using it. I’m part of a laptop thing with my uni, we have a virtual get-together on a Thursday afternoon, playing stuff using Supercollider. The first couple of sessions we had the odd technical problem, since then though it’s been working really well. It’s probably not going to replace a group of guys in the corner of a bar, but if you’re not able to play in the corner of a bar, then?

That’s it, I do wonder how long this is going to go on for. Even if pubs and bars do open in July; something I’m actually rather sceptical about anyway tbh, but with social distancing still going to be in force, then I think the only live music will be outside. Are we not being a little Luddite in our attitude, maybe we should be using the technology available, and improving it to improve the experience?

I didn’t think you could insure musical instruments with Parcelforce?

I think it depends to a big extent on the genre. The gigs and events I tend to go to are more along the lines of sit there and enjoy the music. The streamed session I watched tonight my friend was doing a DJ set, which was quite entertaining. It would work well for someone like Steve Lawson, I watched some of a set by his wife last night. It almost certainly wouldn’t work well for a rock band I agree. It would work for jazz though, I’ve seen a couple of live streamed jazz and improvisational things recently.

I watched a friend of mine and his wife doing a ‘kitchen session’ this evening. It was brilliant. It’s simple to monetise by having people pay before being given an invite to the Zoom session.

I recently sold an instrument to a guy in France. I used Eurosender, it cost €52, that was fully insured, tracked and took just two days to arrive. I used a massively over-size box, figuring there’d be crush space. The whole package was 140x70x20cm. I made sure to pack all around the actual flight case with bubble wrap, and packing paper that I’d saved from Amazon parcels. Print off a copy of the label plus both adresses; yours and the recipient’s, place that inside the case. Stick at least two on the outside of the package. As far as being paid, try and avoid PayPal, their exchange rate is terrible, we used TransferWise.

If you click on ‘stats’ you can see when and where the listens have been.

I had a TRB6 a few years ago, that had an amazing clear tone, very bell like. Have you tried changing the battery? Silly question I know, but I’ve convinced myself a couple of times that there’s something wrong with my instrument, only to suddenly realise it’s the battery.

Yeah I saw that on the news last night. They had I think just 40 members of the London Phil playing, rather than the much larger number they’d usually have. Still nice to see though.

One of my tutors at uni was Phil Mann. I briefly tried his first signature Overwater jazz, it was ridiculously heavy. So much so, I believe he returned it and had a lighter body built for it.

I know a couple of people who keep bees. It’s something I’d love to do.

I bought it maybe three years ago? I bought it from a guy who works at Overwater.

I bet that was great though. A friend of mine went out to the woods by him the other day and did an impromptu gig for the wildlife.