Ten things Google has found to be true

I can't believe that I never saw this before.

Reading that page, I really had some things reinforced into my mind just now. Good things.

http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html
Absorb, smile, hope and be glad!

Sub-$100 Laptops

This is SO exciting.

Imagine being in the middle of an isolated African community or an impoverished urban American neighbourhood. You're segregated from art music (well, pretty much everything!) by the cultural divide, the digital divide, the everything-else-divide... right? Wrong.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology just announced that the much-mooted sub-$100 hand-powered, Wi-Fi enabled laptop is now a reality. The possibility for information flow and education in the less developed world suddenly becomes extraordinarily huge. I'm just praying that it has built in speakers...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292854.stm

Wigmore, Elman

To London for the Wigmore Hall debut of my old group, the Artea String Quartet. Some incandescent Mendelssohn from Tom Gould & Co, followed by extremely moving Shostakovich from Jan Rautio and his piano trio. Look out for both groups; they will be 'hot tickets' sooner rather than later.

More Shostakovich with Jan is coming up [warning: shameless plug coming!] on 25 October at 7.30pm when we perform the Piano Quintet (Op 57) and Blok Verses (Op 127) at the Royal Academy of Music. And because you're switched on enough to read ViolinMP3.com, you can claim a pair of FREE tickets just for visiting... To find out how, stay tuned to this blog...

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On a totally different note, I'm thrilled to find a Mischa Elman tribute site linking to another where recordings, both electric and pre-electric abound (not in copyright? I don't understand). Horrendous crackles don't negate the extraordinary richness of sound and vibrato; there must be something going on with the first joint of his left hand fingers that creates this kind of warm depth in the sound. I like it. [NB: you'll need Realplayer to listen]

Ooh! What's All This?

'What comes out when you are 12 does so purely by instinct. And if you continue to be guided by instinct, it's not enough; you just repeat yourself. You can only grow artistically if instinct is combined with a curious mind.' - Anne-Sophie Mutter

Vowels And Consonants

Playing Mozart E minor sonata through. Slurs = Vowels. Separations = Consonants. When people sing stuff with syllables, (la-la-la etc.) they do just that. It's intuitive, natural. Try it. Nice. :)

Maverick Prowles

A particular acquaintance of mine - let's call him Derek - is renowned in certain circles for an amusing type of MP3 song, less explicit versions of which you may be lucky enough to hear if you stick around the Court Lane site in the next 12 months or so. They're all good, but a couple border - in my humble opinion - on genius. It's all in the timing, daaarling. And the silly voices.

This is one of the more gentle, less satirical ones however, a Spike Milligan number about a guy with... well, rumbling bowels, I suppose. First time I'd multitracked myself properly on violin, which was an interesting experiment. Music minus one, here I come.

Click here for MaverickProwles.mp3

Those of you who are switched on enough to strip down the URL will find a feast of fervorous fun; you may not get all (if any) of the in-jokes, but it's worth it for the sound effects alone ;)

Violin Frequently Asked Questions

Questions are starting to roll in to our new Violin 'FAQ' page, which I want to be a really great place to get answers for general violin problems. So far, they range from the practical 'how to change a violin string', to the confused 'what is a violin?', to the downright surreal: 'what would it be like to be a violin?'. I'm honoured that you think I might be able to answer that, but really...

The best questions will be turned into mini articles and will start appearing on the site soon. Please help us by sending in your BEST question (!) at: http://www.violinmp3.com/violin-questions.html.

Blog Of The Moment

This has to be Michael Barnett, a former soldier now working as crisis manager for DirectNIC.com, who incredibly has sat out the whole post-hurricane collapse of New Orleans with a team of 5 at the top of a city Skyscraper, living off generated power and stockpiled food, and keeping well over a million websites running in the process. Fascinating, if horrifying reading. Find it here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/