Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now

Happy Halloween!

Revolution 3

By now, we've realized that the web has changed the topography of today's music scene. It's taken classical music and new music (the punk rockers of classical music) a little more time than the popular music industry to realize this, but I think most understand the importance of this movement in terms of getting your music heard whether you are a composer or performer, building a loyal fan base, and staying in touch. Some have chosen to harness this power and some have not. Lest those who haven't need any more convincing, here are a few quotes from an article about MySpace.com in this month's WIRED magazine:

"For this generation of musicians, the mass market and the hit-making apparatus it supports are relics of a bygone age. The new reality is that their audience isn't listening to radio or vegging out in front of MTV. The audience is online."

. . . the virtue of blogging:

"By frequently updating their blog and swapping in new songs on their page, the Hawthorne Heights guys were able to give fans a reason to return [italics mine]. That increased the online buzz, and the fan club grew fast, eventually, topping 200,000--a direct marketing list that any major-lavel act would kill for."

. . . the impact:

"But whether MySpace ultimately succeeds or fails is beside the point. Its dramatic emergence is the first conclusive evidence of a new era in which the distance between audience and artist is greatly diminished."

I don't have any illusions. Classical and new music will never rise to the popularity of indie rock or popular music. That's not to say that these strategies won't help us reach a wider audience online. MySpace might not be the answer for us--a lot of the pages look very cookie-cutter, and now that it's emerging from the underground, the culturati may deem it passé (especially since Rupert Murdoch owns it now). No matter, take the idea of MySpace--delivering all the stuff that's cool to do online on one site (Friendster, Blogger, MP3, craigslist)--and do your own thing with it. But while I'm working on those changes to my site, I set up a page on MySpace.

Hello . . .

. . . Canada, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Bahrain, Yemen, Brazil, Cyprus, Romania, Estonia, Sweden, UK, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and the US.

Thanks for reading!

A horse?

Waiting at a traffic light this morning on my way back from a 60-mile ride, an older gentleman rolled down his car window and offered the following advice:

"Hey buddy, buy you a horse."

Um, okay.

Oooooo, ouch!

The route for the 2006 Tour de France was unveiled today. Also on display were the feelings of the Tour organizers towards a certain seven-time tour winner. Although they never explicitly mentioned his name, their comments were clear and suggested as much. A few choice quotes from Amaury Sport Organisations's deputy managing director Jean-Marie LeBlanc and director of cycling Christian Prudhomme (via www.cyclingnews.com):

"On the 24th of July we turned the page on a long, very long chapter in the history of the Tour de France. And one month later, current events made it clear to us that it was just as well that this was so."

. . . and in reaction to the post-2005 Tour Armstrong retroactive doping scandal, to which they had just alluded:

"Does this justify closing the entire book and erasing all the emotions that, for so many years, the Tour and its champions have provided us with? Taken as a whole, judged on its lifelong worth - like an artist or a poet - and in particular on its future productions, we want to believe that the Tour de France deserves a better fate. The dream that it embodies, the values that it is capable of generating mean that it has a duty to be able to hold its head up in pride."

Somebody's cranky. To be honest, I'm glad that Armstrong won't be riding next year's tour. (However, there are rumors that he's planning to mount a comeback, mostly to spite the French media.) I want to watch a race--not domination. The fact that Lance won't be there will motivate many to step up. Not just Basso, not just Ullrich (who might actually have a chance in a Tour sans Lance), not just Landis, not just Valverde. Who's it going to be? At least it will be exciting to see the race unfold over a couple of weeks rather than knowing the outcome after the prologue time trial. But that still doesn't justify the race organizers indirectly slandering Armstrong.

Back online

Website has returned from the ether.

It's del.icio.us

Heard of del.icio.us? It's a website that allows you to post all of your bookmarks publically and sort them by "tags." The cool thing is that you can then see who else has posted that particular link, go to their del.icio.us, and see what else they've posted. You can also see what others have posted with any given tag. Social bookmarks. It can also serve a different function: if you're on the road and don't have your laptop with your browser, you can simply go to your del.icio.us and retrieve all your bookmarks--no need to remebmer all those URLs anymore. Here's mine.

All systems down

Please pardon the interruption while my website switches DNS servers from the unreliable hosting of ECP to the reliable and service with a smile hosting of the bucket. Should be up and running within the next 24-48 hours. Thank you. That is all.

It's all in . . .

. . . the annotations! Heather muses about the plight of the repertoire list and provides a titillating way of livening up the static, alphabetized, itemized, and categorized lists that adorn so many performer websites--annotate them. Not with historical, factual, and other "interesting" tid-bits, but with personal experiences from performances of those works. While a repertoire list suggests a performer's aesthetics, an annotated repertoire list would tell you why a performer believes in a particular piece he/she's chosen to display to the world as a work that they perform in public. What about telling about your personal relationship with the piece--both great performances and ones that tanked? We're all human, nonetheless. Today's performers--especially new music performers--need to reach out to audiences, to seem "real" to them. Blogging is one way performers have tried to do this, but the annotated repertoire list--now that's the next step!

Catch up

Wow, looking at that picture from the last post--it seems like that was so long ago and two and a half weeks ago really isn't that long. A lot has happened since then and here's a quick recap. On October 12 I gave my first UA faculty recital, accompanied by Wenli Zhou at the piano and Gary Cook on percussion (and also Sarah, Kendra, and Scott, three very able crystal glass players). It was a good time and a great success. My parents even came all the way out from New York for the occasion. Featured on the program were three world premieres--ahem--I mean two world premieres and a "workshop performance" (more on that later)--David T. Little's descanso (after omega), Per Bloland's Quintet for alto sax and interactive electronics, and Michael Djupstrom's Walimai (the workshop performance). I was surprised at the reaction to Per's piece. I didn't think that many people would care for it even though I thought it was a very successful and cool piece. But everyone was talking about that piece. The interactive part was what seemed to interest them the most. Done well, I think interactive music can be much more engaging for audiences than pieces with playback, no matter how bad-ass the playback piece might be. Much to my surprise, my parents even liked the piece (and, yes, they would tell me if they didn't--really!).

Three days after the show at the U of A, I headed back to Ann Arbor to give the "official" premiere of Mike Djupstrom's piece. Explanation: I commissioned the work jointly with my mentor Donald Sinta at the University of Michigan and Mike also received funding from the Michigan Music Teacher's Association. The agreement with them was that the premiere was to take place at their conference on October 16. So it was "officially" premiered there and not in Tucson. Don't believe anyone if they try to tell you different!

Going back to Ann Arbor felt like going home after having lived in the desert southwest for the past four months. It was also a beautiful time to be there--the air was crisp, the leaves were changing, and the Arbor Brewing Company was serving their Oktoberfest. Sigh.

Up next: NZ and National Insecurity 2.