Singing Together

I mentioned a few weeks back that Bill Harley had started a new blog and I've been checking it out occasionally ever since. What I like about Harley's blog, besides it being well-written, funny, and spell-checked -- I'm lucky if I get two of those three -- is that he's been taking a very big picture view of things. He's been interested in songs, and kids, and culture, big topics that don't lend themselves to quick posts, snappy one-liners, and links to other folks' comments. Things, if you haven't noticed, that I tend to rely on. So I was quite pleased to see Bill's recent post on singing together, because it says better than I could how wonderful making music together can be.
Singing together is what people have always done. There’s less of it today – we leave it to the “professionals” (me?) and forget that we’re happier and healthier if we open up our mouths and belt it out with the people around us. This has nothing to do with virtuosity, or perfect pitch, or being a soprano or alto or whatever. It has to do with being human.
I've found it a little sad that we've left most of the communal singing in our North American society to the churches. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's great for the churches, and it's one of the things that brings me joy on Sunday mornings -- but why it should be reserved for a segment of the population for maybe an hour on Sunday morning? So I'm hopeful to hear in Harley's post that there are still groups of people who get together and sing for the pure joy of it. As he puts it, "Singing is an expression and fostering of community." While I spend most of my time talking about how professionals craft songs and experiences for our families to enjoy together, I hope that you are all also taking the opportunity to sing your own songs, no matter how silly or out-of-tune you may think they are. Because they're probably not, and even if they are, it doesn't matter. Well, this wasn't quite quick, but there was a snappy one-liner or two, and a link. Two out of three ain't bad.

Post-Grammy Thoughts on the Genre

I already posted some thoughts -- mostly from other people -- about the 2009 Grammys. And, yeah, I was glad They Might Be Giants won -- it was my favorite of the five nominated albums, and one of my favorites of the year, period. I'm glad Brady Rymer got nominated, and I wouldn't have been sad to see Trout Fishing in America to win as sort of a "career achievement" award. And Bill Harley is, well, Bill Harley. Hard to argue with that win for Best Spoken Word Album for Kids. But the weekend of the Grammys also saw a group of kids music folks get together for a brunch to talk about the genre and ways in which the children's music community can work together to foster awareness of the genre. Karen Rappaport McHugh at Muddy Girl Productions sent me a summary of the event, which included more than 30 artists, managers, media, marketing and PR consultants. I've posted most of that summary below for your perusal and thought. These aren't the answers, but they're some thoughts of folks who've spent a lot of time thinking about the genre. While the first point deals with more Grammy-related issues, the stuff after the jump is relevant to musicians regardless of their interest in the Academy. Reactions to the summary are welcome in the comments below. Or, if you'd like, you can go to the very end and see some Grammy trivia put together by Cathy Fink. Quincy Jones - who knew? ***** 1. RECORDING ACADEMY As a result of our initial meeting in 2008, the first GRAMMY Children’s Music Showcase at the Grammy Museum was established to build excitement around the category... To continue this process, we will work to have this event included as an “official” Grammy event in 2010 such as other categories receive including Grammy Salute to Classical and Grammy Salute to Jazz. In addition, it was recommended that individual artists become active in their local chapters and approach them about hosting children's music events in several of the top markets for its membership: Nashville, Austin, Chicago, New York and San Francisco were mentioned as possible locations as members from each of these chapters were present at the meeting. Creating local events on a chapter level during the year would really help artists reach into their own membership, which is tremendously helpful during award nominations. Cathy Fink and/or Karen Rappaport are available to artists who are interested in working on this project to expand it beyond the one Grammy week concert. Although the Recording Academy is unlikely to sponsor concerts, recommended events might include: A Children's Music Listening Party and Meet & Greet Workshop/Seminars, such as: 1) The elements of an excellent recording for children 2) Call for all genres to discuss children's music 3) "Get Up To Date" in the Children's Music Field For workshops like these, it may be best to bring in outside speaker(s) along with local folks. Contact your Chapter’s Director for a meeting and to discuss options. Finally, it was noted that people who are not eligible to become voting members can join as associate members and still have a voice within their chapter – this would include MEDIA, MANAGERS, PUBLICISTS, etc. and would be extremely helpful to the children’s music community. As Cathy Fink noted, “the Recording Academy is a membership organization and is there to serve you. You have to let them know what’s important to you and the more members who are part of the children’s music community, the better.”

Beauty, Art, and the L'Enfant Metro Stop

Someone recently drew my attention to a 2007 article in the Washington Post -- written by Gene Weingarten, it recounts what happened when world-famous violinist Joshua Bell busked for 43 minutes in DC's L'Enfant Metro station. I think I have some vague memory of this, but I clearly never read the whole thing 'til recently. There are so, so many reasons why the article is worth your time; this small selection is just one of many nuggets from the article, about one of the few passerbys that stopped to listen:
When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously, intending to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decided he'd never be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes, you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line of work. He's a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violin much, anymore.... Does he have regrets about how things worked out? The postal supervisor considers this. "No. If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."
The article was incredibly popular, not to mention well-received -- it won the author a Pulitzer Prize. If you skim through the chat Weingarten hosted after the article came out (note: if you think the article is long, just wait 'til you read the chat), there are some negative comments, but I'm much more in the "criers" camp. I didn't actually cry, but the idea that beauty is all around us, every day, and it's hard for us to notice it sometimes struck home. ("A thing of beauty is a joy forever. My man John Keats said that!") As did the idea that performing music, at whatever skill level, is a lifelong gift. As did the idea that I've been through more than my fair share of Metro stops in my life. Oh, and I still play the violin (very rarely). I'll stop babbling. Go read. If you'd rather watch video (cant' seem to get the Post's unedited clips to work), here's a small (edited) clip...

Making Music With Your Kids... and Others...

I spend lots of time talking about people who are making kids music for a living (at least part of the time), but I spend quite a bit of time making music with my kids. Longtime kids music friend and Fids and Kamily Award co-coordinator Amy Davis is spending some time these days writing for Atlanta's Savvy Source outpost, and she was nice enough to ask me to write about making music with the preschool set. The result is my thoughts on preschool music programs such as Music Together and others. If you're so inclined, do check it out...

Kids Music That Hasn't Been Written -- Or Covered -- Yet.

I got an e-mail from a kids' music artist asking the following question: "I'm looking for some song ideas that people like you (you're basically a kidsmusicologist these days) have wanted to hear, but haven't yet heard on a kids' CD. I can always write more songs - but I really like to dig up obscure songs that few people have heard of and lately it seems like I'm having a hard time finding just the right song that hasn't been done by a million kids' artists." Now, I must have been thrown off by the phrase "kidsmusicologist," because I completely misinterpreted the question. What the artist was looking for was, well, what they were asking for -- "that old song that your grandma used to sing to you that no one has heard for 35 years." What I answered was something else entirely...

How Do We Make Money? Volume.

There was an old Saturday Night Live fake ad about some bank whose sole function was to make change. The spoof had the mixture of trustworthiness and responsiveness that is the hallmark of most ads for financial institutions, right down to the founder who, when asked how he could make money solely making change, responded in an eager tone, "Volume." The ad came to mind as I pondered Radiohead's decision to release its new album, In Rainbows, as a digital (DRM-free) download on Tuesday, October 10th, just 10 days after announcing it. (There's a deluxe boxset to be released in December, with a physical version of the regular CD scheduled for sometime in 2008.) There are probably countless bands who are giving away music for free, but none with 1% of the popularity of Radiohead. If you go to the site and ask to buy the download, you can indeed enter "0" as your desired price of the digital download of the album. But Radiohead is probably banking on the goodwill of its fans and the interest of other music fans to generate a fair amount of change. Other music fans like me. I'm not alone in saying OK Computer is one of the best albums of the past 10 years, but most of the rest of Radiohead's post-OK work has left me cold. So it's safe to say that if In Rainbows was appearing at my local record store in a physical format next week, I would not be picking it up. Nor would I be scouring a bunch of torrent sites looking to download it for free -- it's just not what I do. But this morning I went to the site and put down 2 British pounds (about $4 US) plus about a $1 service charge to download it next week. Why? Well, in part it's the musical equivalent of playing the Powerball lottery -- I always viewed $1 I paid when the pot got large and the office collected as entertainment, not as investment. This is much the same, no? It's also part of the giddy glee in helping to make major label executives nervous about whether they can continue business as usual. So here are my questions to you: 1) Was I too cheap? A kids' musician e-mailed me last night saying he'd put down $10 -- a dollar a song. But I think he's a bigger fan than I am. It might be cheap, but $4 is $4 more than Radiohead would have received from me in the absence of this experiment. But if Spoon did something similar with their next album, I guarantee I'd've put down $10. Maybe more. 2) Is this a model that can at all work in the kids' genre? I've always pooh-poohed the idea of digital downloads because I think kids like the physicality of things, and mp3s don't have a lot of physicality, know what I mean? But if somebody like, say, Dan Zanes did something similar, I think he'd probably make a fair amount of change. (Though I'd certainly miss the album packaging, which has always been top-notch with his work.) Of course, he's already reaping all the profit from his CDs, something that Radiohead, while they were on a label, did not, so perhaps his incentives to do so is less... Readers, musicians, thoughts?