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Who decides the Future of Musicianship?

by | 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…)

LACF Panel: The Global A Cappella Community

by | 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…)