ambient

It would be a good idea to start at the beginning, just to fill in any holes that maybe there. It’s really up to you how deep you go. I learned to read music from the start, mainly because I didn’t know any better; not a particularly good way of saying it I know, but I came from a classical music background, I was learning violin and classical guitar at school, and assumed I’d be given a part to sight read. If your daughter is learning through a teacher, then you’d be able to bounce ideas off each other, and help one another out. Good luck anyway.

You’ll find them on eBay etc, be prepared though, the prices have increased quite a lot over the last couple of years. As with vinyl, cassettes have recently had quite a surge in popularity.

I’ve got a copy of that magazine. My uncle used to play, he gave me hundreds of old magazines about twenty years ago; much to my mom’s annoyance 😆.

Check this video, Lee Sklar has played it hundreds of times with Phil Collins.

I’m a solo bassist and weird music composer, I don’t have such problems.

I think sometimes the backing vocals make the song. A prime example for me is Foreigner’s I want to know what love is. It’s to me a pretty awful song, that gets played hourly on Smooth FM, but the backing vocals are sublime. They’re by the New Jersey Mass choir.

Is his bass called Victoria?

Like it points out. Many are uninsured for this kind of eventuality. They will also have paid out quite large sums of money in advance, which they’ll be unable to recoup. I see they announced yesterday the cancellation of the Reading/Leeds festival. They were still selling tickets last week, which struck me as being wrong, it was pretty obvious they’d have to cancel. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/13/uk-live-music-festivals-sector-at-risk-coronavirus

Fabulous, I hadn’t seen that before 😁.

I don’t know why they teach children the recorder, it’s not an easy instrument. If they don’t completely cover one of the holes, then you get dodgy notes, and children’s fingers tend to be very small making it hard to cover the hole completely. My mom still has nightmares about a carol concert she went to at my niece’s infants school. They had a recorder orchestra playing little donkey. It was most definitely a case of all of the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order, only with a few of the wrong notes thrown in for good measure.

It’s like the greatest anything really, it’s down to personal taste, and to a great extent your experience too.

I’ve taught via Skype, my university tutorials are now via Skype too. Have you got an audio interface? I find it’s not too bad just plugging into that. As others have said, you need to be quite strict with only one person talking at a time, and either play or talk, don’t do both. Try and pick a time too, where there’s nothing else taking up your broadband signal.

I usually watch this. I think it’s brilliant to see young musicians playing who’ve put hours into their practice. I haven’t seen any of this year’s competition unfortunately. I love woodwind too. A friend of mine plays contra-bassoon.

I guess they’ve always happened when someone has done a performance worthy enough to be called back out.

I have to agree with you. I tend to only go to places that have original artists playing, there’s invariably a good attendance. One thing you’ve said though should be of particular concern to covers bands/pub bands. They do tend to take up a lot of room. Everything I’m reading points to social distancing being with us for some considerable time to come, so the last thing the owner would surely want is a band taking up valuable floor space.

They’ve just said in today’s briefing, that public transport will only have one-tenth of the capacity as normal, owing to having to maintain social distancing for the foreseeable future. People will be encouraged to walk or cycle. I can’t see them having a strict limit for passengers, then allowing pubs and clubs to function normally, it’d be rather pointless.

That’s it, you’re visible to people who might not have otherwise seen you. People can send a link to the stream. You can set up a watch party too. You can also put up links to Bandcamp etc.

That’s kind of my point about online streaming events; I probably didn’t express it well. People do seem to have embraced them, they can watch something without having to leave their living room. My department at my university was meant to have had its main event of the calendar last week. It was obviously cancelled, so we organised a mini streamed one. It was done quickly, and listeners were without the huge array of speakers that form a real event, so stereo only. It went down really well though. There’s a guy I know who owns an instrument and equipment distribution company. He posted a link to the same report a few days ago. One of the replies was from a guy who I’ve never met him, but I know his name, he’s quite a well known music writer and journalist. It was his reply that got me thinking about this. He’s of the opinion that opportunities will still be there for bands and artists, they’ll need to adapt to whatever the new normal is though, at the same time, audiences will also need to adapt. There’s a very strong possibility that social distancing is going to be with us for quite a while to come, so whichever part of the whole musicking thing you’re from, you need to accept that what was there before, possibly won’t be back for quite a while to come. It’s probably therefore a good idea to start thinking, well how are we going to carry on doing what we do? Then look at ways that technology will help us, rather than guessing at dates when various things might be relaxed.

They’re talking about having more frequent services I think, with strict limits on the number of passengers, and they’ll probably have to wear masks. I’ve read also that people will be encouraged to continue to work from home, at least where they can. Universities for instance will be running their courses online until at least next year. I don’t think that’s a bad thing tbh. Hundreds of thousands of people spend hours a week travelling to and from work, doing a job they’re quite capable of doing from home. My one sister-in-law works for Lloyds bank from home, that’s the way she’s always done it. There’s a lady I know moved to Turkey two years ago, but continued working for the company based a mile from me, again working online. From what I’m hearing from people who are promoters, and those who organise events, they’re writing off this year totally. It would be nice to think I’m wrong, but you’re maybe a little optimistic about gigs starting again this year.

Original music has been my focus for the last few years, mainly experimental or electronic music. Some events are better attended than others, some are extremely well attended though, with audiences travelling quite a distance.

Hence my use of the word ‘maybe’. I remain optimistic though, that as with other things, this could be a turning point. There’s a meme I’ve seen shared quite a bit, pointing out that for many, many people, it’s music and art that have helped them through the last few months. Sales of books have soared too. It would be nice to think that now people have discovered there’s more to life than endlessly buying tat that they don’t need, and the simple pleasure in a walk in the park, or sitting reading a book, whilst listening to music?

That’s the thing though, there’s a lot less effort required to ‘attend’ a streamed event. It’s something I’ve noticed on social media recently, friends of mine are doing weekly streamed performances, and people are watching. I’ve had more sales via Bandcamp recently, and two new subscribers in the last fortnight. That’s not based on any streamed events of mine; I haven’t done any, but I have been sharing a lot of new stuff that I’ve been recording. Bandcamp have had two days recently where they’ve waived their fees, I believe their website came close to crashing on a couple of occasions. It’s just a thought based on what I’m seeing people are doing.

That’s it, I did say in my post that it was probably more suited to original artists. Maybe this will be a turning point in music, with people more interested in hearing original music? There are some incredibly talented people out there; bands, solo artists, songwriters, composers. They’re there, you just need to look for them.

As few as that? That’s quite a shock, my figure was just a guess. It’s affecting pretty much everything I love; theatre, museums, concerts. All these places have been struggling for years anyway, thanks to cuts in arts funding. I think this will very sadly be the end for many of them.