More On Online Video

Bay Area newspapers pick up the story about my brother's online video phenomenon. The point is that as soon as there's a real way of monetizing online video, it becomes something that serious time can be devoted to. I haven't been able to put much time into online concert videos etc. so far, because the costs in time and money outweigh my resources... and I have a violin to practice!

On the other hand, as soon as online videos start producing revenue, people worldwide (musicians included) can treat them as a more serious endeavour. I expect by the time we finish the Virtuoso Violin tour (did I mention tickets will be going on sale this week? :) ), this attitude will be commonplace, and a video of a concert uploaded to Youtube will be a standard way of extending the reach of the event beyond the live concert itself, supported by advertising income.

If you think about it, this has global implications for progressive inter-cultural musical development, because once wireless internet hits the developing world (Nicholas Negroponte: 1 Laptop per Child), there's no reason why all world music cultures can't be distributed in this way; musicians would earn a dollar income from it, and benefit from a geographically unlimited reach (let's leave aside for a moment the small matters of access to electricity and a video camera...). If that happened, it couldn't help but affect the way that these countries' social cultures integrate with the rest of the world (in the way that new EU countries adjust to the established benefits enjoyed by long-time EU nations), with all the cultural side-effects that that would bring. Yes, a good balance between traditional values and progressive fusion of ideas would need to be found, but with determination it can be done.

Update: I'm told Revver.com already has a working model of this. Though no doubt it will need adoption by Google/Youtube in order to become mainstream.

Where The Boundaries Are

Earlier in the year, I pledged to spend the summer finding out: Where are the Begrenzungen? (in German, literally meaning borders, but taken by me to mean musical boundaries [stylistic, but also structural, presentational, compositional, whatever really]).

So far as I can see, musical boundaries are wherever you wish them to be, but with the proviso that they should, in order to be effective, be vaguely related (by those perceiving them) to previously established boundaries, so that people can make sense of them, even if they push beyond the comfort zone of their current expectations. Cor, long sentence.

For instance, if I play Bach with a weird new conception of vibrato and sound that improves upon but doesn't betray the best traditions of established Bach interpretation, then people will find it interesting, even if they don't like it.

If I play Bach on the xylophone with an R&B backing track and very loose tonality, it will have breached the boundary of acceptability, not because it doesn't have any artistic merit (though of course it might not!) but because it is not easy for the audience to find any way to relate to it.

This ties in very nicely with Greg Sandow's argument that the so-called crisis in classical music happened partly because of the severity of the modernist movement; there just wasn't enough for a mainstream musical audience to hang onto, yet they were still forced to listen, and therefore became alienated ("no one forces book groups to labor through Finnegans Wake; nobody puts art films in a multiplex").

In a sense, we are always constrained by the current expectations of our present day audience. But this also liberates us; the moment we manage to connect and gain their trust and acceptance, by producing and representing that which they like and enjoy, we can then draw them forward and expand those very same boundaries and expectations that before seemed like an obstacle. The audience's attention will follow ("We liked what he did before - why not give this a try?").

Empirical evidence of my own from excursions to some of England's wilder suburban communities (!) suggests that the same parallel is equally valid when introducing so-called musically 'uneducated' people (like you need to be educated to enjoy music!) to types of music for the first time. If you can tap into and relate to their current experience, you can introduce people to whatever you wish. Getting 14 year olds with severe discipline problems to appreciate Wagner with more enthusiasm than a conservatoire student might sound like pie-in-the-sky to you, but I've done it. Frequently.

If this is all true, and I think it is, then this is great news, because it means that there's no crisis in classical music at all. We ('classical' musicians) are just not empathetic enough to the nature of our social environment.

Therefore, don't be surprised if this tour we're doing (tickets on sale 1st November pluggy pluggy clicky clicky) is slickly marketed and full of pictures of nice middle class boys who are charming on the radio and thrill Granny with virtuosic double stops and tricky harmonics. Instead, smile knowingly to yourself and know that accessibility and flighty repertoire choices are simply an entry point to more sophisticated classical artforms.

Where 4 octave arpeggios tread, transcendence is sure to follow. Or something.

First Violin Invented

One of the questions we get asked a lot through ViolinMP3.com is "What was the first violin invented?"

Well ask ye no more... for your question is answered!

London Violin Studio

I've been meaning for quite a while now to start a small teaching studio, and I finally have. It's a fascinating process; totally different from performance in some respects, but quite similar in others. Obviously everything is couched in terms of how it benefits the student, but I have to say I really do enjoy the process as well. It seems true what people say; as soon as you begin to teach, you instantly become more aware of yourself during practising. Therefore, it's more noticeable when you find yourself doing things which you've guided your students away from.

Of course age and experience is not on my side (or perhaps you could say it still is, depending on how you look at it...), but already I find myself trying to find a way of imparting information in a way I wish I had been taught at an early age. Specifically, I hope to encourage rather than criticise failure as a means to success, create a completely organic student-driven learning environment (not forcing them to change things they're not ready to change, but guiding them there socratically), and reach a stage with more advanced students where I eventually render myself completely obsolete by teaching them to teach themselves. Surely, common sense tells me, this last point is the most crucial aspiration for any effective teacher? It still startles me when I come across teachers who bludgeon information into their students' heads as if it is some kind of Gospel Truth. But I suspect, in the Age of Google, where information finds its own level, that those kinds of teachers are increasingly becoming anachronistic dinosaurs.

Anyone London-based with an interest in violin lessons may like to know there are still a couple of places remaining in my London Violin Studio. Read more at:

http://www.londonviolinstudio.com/

And The Future of Theatre...

An old friend of mine, a theatre producer now studying in Paris, sees the same trends that I do in classical music appearing in the world of classical theatre; that is, a rapid marginalization of serious art by the commercial mainstream. And I don't doubt that the challenges (I think that's a better word than 'problems') are even tougher in theatre than in music.

In today's Evening Standard (London evening paper - no link unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to be online), the newspaper's theatre critic illustrates the problem bluntly with a projection of a drama-free, musical-saturated west end within in a decade, should present trends continue. The entertainment capital of the future, he argues, could be exclusively devoted to popular musicals, and the front line of serious drama would retreat to what are now the fringe theatres. The likes of Monty Python will succeed where Shakespeare fails! Obviously this is an exaggeration, however, there are no clear suggestions for a solution - if indeed a solution is what's needed. The Standard critic makes a vague call for government intervention, but that's all.

Perhaps the future isn't so bleak, though. Maybe the internet and touring and other areas have more to offer in this case, just as they do for classical music. Well, Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to think so anyway. Yes, I know, it's not the same as 'live'.

One thing's for sure; the next generation of theatrical producers is going to have to include some serious innovators. The challenges that classical music faces pale in comparison.

And what's the situation on Broadway? If anyone's commentating/blogging on this, please let me know.

Bowed Radio

That track 'The Violin Player' (which my brother wrote, not me - it's been wrongly credited on some broadcasts) is included in the latest show (episode 16) from web radio station BOWED RADIO.

Presented by former Turtle Island String Quartet violinist Darol Anger, the program features several different styles of string music, including performances on the fiddle. You can download or subscribe to the podcast at www.bowed.org.

Wieniawski

Henryk Wieniawski was a violinist and composer from Poland, whose virtuosic compositions often match those of Paganini in terms of the technical demands they make on the people who play them!

We're going to be featuring some of Wieniawski's Etude-Caprices for two violins in the VIRTUOSO VIOLIN tour (details soon!), and you can read more about Mr Wieniawski and his background on this new ViolinMP3 page.

I Couldn't Agree More

From my favourite blogger, Hugh Macleod. The curse of always being nearly there is a harsh one, but it is getting better. There is a UK Tour in the works (with David and Tommy), it is going to be called 'THE VIRTUOSO VIOLIN', and it is going to be in December. Except for the London date: London people, keep the evening of 4th January free! 'Official' announcement and tickets on sale in a couple of weeks.
I might learn how to update a blog regularly soon too (no, really).

In the meantime, I'm off to call the bank.