Category Archives: The Journal of Music

A Connection Like a Full Moon

Posted on by

Is increased audience participation the great musical trend of our time?

In Backnang, southern Germany, a concert reaches for the finish line. We settle on a simple, short hornpipe as an encore, something unrehearsed. The audience perceives a shift. Convention slips away. They feel for the pulse in the piece and start to clap along, their stamping travels under us. It feels like a release. The room is one, a connection like a full moon. They shift from being spectator to creator, the music carrying the expression of over one hundred rather than two. ‘They’ve been waiting to do that all night,’ another musician says afterwards.

Three months on, it is a memorable moment – audience participation doesn’t always work, but when music manages to balance itself on a wave of communal energy, it is a powerful thing.

For much of human history, we were all participators in music. With no recordings or easy access to professional performances, music was more Continue reading →

How Can We Connect to the Musical Life Around Us?

Posted on by
 

For a little more than a year, my colleagues and I in The Journal of Music have been involved in an online experiment. In November of 2012, we launched a listings service, but not a standard music listings service with just concerts. We aspired to create a system that was flexible enough to accommodate a broader range of musical activity, that would, for example, attract every type of musical format and all sizes  too, from the informal community workshop to the big annual festival.

My personal motivation was an interest in the diversity of the musical life around us, how the digital world can make us more aware of it, and what will happen once we, as musicians and audiences, become more fully aware of the range of musical opportunities that are all around us all the time.

This interest goes back to the original print magazine, JMI: The Journal of Music in Ireland, which I founded in 2000. It combined writing on traditional, folk, classical, jazz, contemporary classical music and more, partly because I was trying to challenge the traditional hierarchy of genres – with classical music at the top and folk at the bottom – but also because I was trying to present a more accurate picture of the musical life around us.

It was an idea that connected well with the emerging digital world. Very soon, iTunes, MySpace and YouTube had all but demolished the notion of a hierarchy of genres – in the digital world anyway. Similarly, The Journal of Music listings service took an open approach, in that all events would be on an equal level, without categorisation by genre or scale.

An island of plenty

To date, there have been almost 3,000 listings uploaded. What was striking from the start was the number of events taking place. Ireland is known for having a lively and intense musical life (perhaps because of its size and the fact that it is an island), but we could not conceive of just how busy it is.

Continue reading →

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Entrepreneur

Posted on by

Funding for the arts is essential, but without the right approach it can blunt artists’ entrepreneurial skills.

Mary is an artist and she has an idea. Something big. An arts venture that could make a real splash, nationally, internationally, the lot. It could also earn her money. Serious money. She would be her own boss. She would employ and inspire artists, connect them with new audiences, and really make a difference. She won’t let anyone stop her. Her heart is beating with excitement. She is going to do it before anyone else does. Just you wait.

Continue reading →

Expectation Changes Everything

Posted on by

In the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland, visitors are sometimes frustrated because they speak Irish to locals and are responded to in English. It doesn’t take long for them to give up altogether, deciding that the language is actually truly dead in the area.

Continue reading →

What about England?

Posted on by

I am supporting England in the World Cup this summer. As an Irishman, that is easier to write than it will be to act upon. There is history, and the Irish are traditionally sensitive to the English imperiousness that tends to appear on football occasions. But I want to think about our two islands differently. England is our close, island-dwelling neighbour. In the new peacetime that has been created, can the Irish learn to love it? Sporting and cultural events may offer us that chance.

Continue reading →

Futures Entwined

Posted on by

The direct impact the new digital culture is having on music, in terms of access, dissemination and copyright, is well documented, but the indirect impact less so. If digital platforms will transform the status of public broadcasters in our society and the services they provide, what about the resulting impact on music?

Continue reading →

A Few Days in the Sun?

Posted on by

The Rise and Fall of the Irish New Music Scene

I was at the very heart of the city. The postal code of my office was ‘Dublin 1’. From my office window, I could eventually glimpse the Spire of Dublin, the 120-metre, shimmering, pin-like monument which I watched being erected in 2003. The site of the Spire was traditionally regarded as the exact centre of Dublin City.

Continue reading →

Tell Us Another

Posted on by

‘I mbliana ní raibh aon urraíocht ar fáil faraor, leis an tseachtain ealaíne is oidhreachta a reachtáil mar a bhíonns againn go hiondúil.’ Or, in English: ‘Unfortunately, no sponsorship was available this year to organise the arts and heritage week as usual.’ The note came home from school, here in Conamara. Not an insurmountable problem. It’s a resourceful school and the staff are going to mix up the classes and deploy their own talents to keep the week going. In the past, the funding, mainly public, has been used to bring in artists, musicians and writers from outside.

Continue reading →

A Model Business

Posted on by

The search for a sustainable business model for the producing and selling of music in the digital age persists, but it is crippled by a narrow view of the internet. Presenting this technology as either a threat to income, due to its ability to copy content easily, or an opportunity for generating income, due to its instant connectivity to so many, means other key aspects of its influence on the business of money are neglected.

Continue reading →

Midem 2010

Posted on by

Cannes – The teenagers employed to demonstrate the joys of Rockband – complete with full stage, bass and lead guitars, mics and kit – must have been wondering why the game was suddenly becoming such hard work. Situated by the café area at Midem – the annual music fair that has attracted artists, labels, music publishers and managers from all over the world since 1967 – surely some of them would take take time out from intense meetings to knock out ‘Message in a Bottle’ or ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’. The Journal of Music spotted the occasional enthusiastic Continue reading →