Charles on… anything that comes along

Reading Nick Carr’s splendid rant about the idiocy of those who think that iTunes and its ilk are the apotheosis of the music industry, because “they have split music down to its component piece.. the [individual] track” brought together a couple of thoughts for me.

The other evening I went to a friends’ house, where they were giving a recital - a string quartet. As they’re professional players - one half of the Alberni Quartet, in fact - and one of them was playing a Stradivarius, and as supper was laid on as well, you could say that it was about as good as “going round to a friend’s house to listen to some music” gets.

Interestingly, they played two complete pieces (Mozartr and Schubert) and then, as a sort of mini-encore, played the fourth movement of Ravel’s F major quartet. I love the piece (particularly the second movement, but hearing the fourth on its own was almost jarring.

(Enjoy the second movement. Go on, you’ll like it, even though it’s not the Alberni doing it:

)

But classical players are a shrinking pool. Except… ask yourself, what precisely do they do? Re-play music written by someone else, precisely. Which is exactly what tribute bands do. There are dozens of them - read last Friday’s Guardian article, the copycats who got the cream. And they go out and they slog away, re-playing music written decades ago in some cases, note-perfect, intonation-perfect.

And the names are so splendid. Green Dayz. B-Muse. I think I’d enjoy the job of lead guitar in B-Muse. The guitar work’s not that hard. It’s just the vocals might be a stretch. And I’d have to wear a syrup. And stand in a trench. But at least with their repertoire, you could cook up a storming gig every night.

Weird to think that rock music has created its own spinoff classical universe. But that’s what classics are, aren’t they? The group doing repeating Genesis’s Supper’s Ready is doing a 20-minute piece, one-off, and the audience will know if they go the slightest bit wrong.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• musicplasma.com: find related artists, just like that (25 November 2004; score: 54.96%)
• John Peel 1939-2004 (27 October 2004; score: 52.18%)
• At Netimperative: Apple's plans for music videos (19 May 2005; score: 42.88%)

Spotted on Fullrunner’s “What The Trades Say”:

*GCI* has hired Suzanne Ellis, formerly a senior account director at Firefly Communications. At GCI, Ellis will work on Dell’s account, reporting to chief executive Mark Cater. Cater tells PR Week that Ellis will be expected to “expand GCI’s technology and consumer technology portfolio”.

*Firefly Communications* has hired Christine Wilkie, former head of the tech team at GCI.

Both PR Week, 4 May 2007. (This has been sitting in my drafts box. Life went on. They’ve probably arrived and left by now.) Does this make the two companies even, or is it sort of like Premier League football teams swapping players, or did they do some sort of thing involving music and chairs?

Meanwhile Andrew Smith is trying to remember who sent the first bit of PR email in the UK. He thinks he was the second. (Read his blog for the first.) You know, Andrew, it’s a bit like saying “Do you know who I am?” in the old folks’ home - people are liable to take you away…

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• America: land of the present; because the past is, like, so yesterday (9 April 2005; score: 37%)
• Using NetNewsWire as a bucket, not a toe, in the river of RSS feeds (25 February 2006; score: 35.59%)
• Hurrah for Firebox - first with RSS feeds for its press releases (3 March 2005; score: 32.73%)