by Christopher Sutton | May 4, 2012 | Ear Training, Music, Technology
A few days ago I attended a fantastic discussion panel session at The Hub, Westminster, entitled “The Future of Musicianship”. It was the first event put on by the newly-launched “Loving and Living Music” project, brainchild of Ben Hillyard and Heli Rajasalo.
The goal of the initiative is outlined in detail here but to give you an idea:
What we are looking for in the Loving & Living Music project is a definition or a description of musicianship that includes all aspects of musicianship across all genres and instruments. Having this definition will enable discussion of musicianship to take place on a wider scale than is possible today.
We see a gap in the way that music in commonly taught. With the Loving & Living Music project we are looking to provoke awareness and discussion among the music education sector about how Musicianship is and could be taught.
The future of musicianship is a subject close to my heart due to my work with Easy Ear Training, where we try to use modern technology to make learning music more fun, easy and effective.
The event was fascinating, and the discussion broad and interesting. I won’t try to recount the discussion (not least because the entire panel session is now available online) but the event was eye-opening for me in a number of ways.
Musicianship is not what I thought.
In my work at Easy Ear Training I live immersed in a world of aural skills and over time (more…)
by Christopher Sutton | Jan 16, 2012 | A Cappella
This is one of a number of posts on the London A Cappella Festival 2012. You can also read more about Saturday’s events and several other posts about the festival!
It would be a great pity to have so many top a cappella groups, and industry movers-and-shakers in one place and not sit them down to discuss the state of the world. Fortunately this year just such a panel was organised.
Part one: Competition & Collaboration
Led by Jes Sadler, the panel session had two halves. The first part was a discussion of the value of competition and collaboration in the world of a cappella music, and featured Clare Chen (Vocal Asia), Florian Städtler (VocalBlog), Bill Hare (legendary a cappella producer) and Belinda Magee (Sing A Cappella). Though the discussion was brief, there were some great points made. I particularly liked Bill Hare’s assertion that the vibe at a really good a cappella competition is much the same as a friendly a cappella festival. The talk around the unreality of reality TV and drama shows like Glee was also interesting.
One funny but non-trivial issue raised by an audience question was whether the a cappella community is, in fact, too nice… It was suggested that some grittier collaborations, or simply less chirpy an attitude might help make a cappella music more accessible to those who write it off as superficial or cheesy.
It certainly is a remarkable close-knit and welcoming community in my experience. You only need to look at (more…)
by Christopher Sutton | Jan 2, 2012 | Music
I recently wrote something about the future of classical music, and asked whether classical artists like James Rhodes and Thomas Hewitt Jones were leading the way by using social media to break down the stigma which normally goes along with classical music.
This time I want to look at another example of an artist – this time pop rather than classical – who’s trying innovative ways to reach fans and make a career in the modern era of net for nothing and the tunes for free.
Marc Sings
Marc with a C is a modern day pop troubadour, writing songs in a varied but reliably catchy pop vein. That isn’t ‘pop’ in the sense of the Top 20 singles chart, which these days actually tends to mean R&B and dance junk. As listeners of his regular music podcast “The Real Congregation” know, Marc’s a real believer in the tradition, and I guess nobility, of pop music and how great a thing the 3-minute pop song can be.
Though his music tends to be straight up pop (and I mean that in a good way), his lyrics range more widely, often surprising with their content or style. I’m not going say too much more about his music here – because it’s all available to hear for free at Bandcamp and his website.
I also think he’s an artist whose large back catalog will hold different gems for different people. So if you don’t know his stuff, go take a listen. I’ll wait.
So aside from being a prolific singer-songwriter and performing regularly in Florida over the last 10 years, Marc is (like any modern self-respecting indie musician) active on Twitter and Facebook. And though he sells his music through his website and Bandcamp, (more…)
My name's Christopher Sutton and this is my personal blog. You can learn more about me