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I am an iPhone user – it is a superb digital device.
I just saw two great accessories for the iPhone, one that is musical.
You like?
It felt historic
The last ChoralNet board meeting had a historic feeling to it.
At least, it did for me. I’ve only served on the board for a few years, but I have admired the people that started and maintained ChoralNet for many years.
A quick recap: ChoralNet started because Jim Feiszli saw an opportunity – he had a vision for bringing choral directors together in the early ages of the internet. Over time, the vision expanded and eventually evolved into the full blown entitiy that it is today. Recently, we’ve been talking about the long term sustainability for ChoralNet, especially in light of the new energy that ACDA has under the leadership of Tim Sharp. The ChoralNet board, still under the inspired leadership of Feiszli, has worked hard for years. Things keep getting better and the influence continues to grow.
The last board meeting felt much different. We were talking about the details of a radical change – how we would continue to operate under the structure of ACDA. At one point, Tim Sharp gave us a great word: there are no term limits for members of ACDA subcommittees. That truth gave us the assurance we needed to feel great about the transition – we had official positions to safegaurd the ChoralNet mission as we moved under the auspices of ACDA.
As we took the final vote, we all came to a realization that this was our last vote as an independent ChoralNet Board of directors. There was a sense that we had just done a big thing – that we had taken an important step on behalf of the ChoralNet community.
SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!
It snowed in Birmingham yesterday and we all went predictably crazy. Here in the south, we dismiss school at the mere suggestion of snow, not the actuality of it. My school isn’t dismissing class, however.
I heard on the radio this morning that there was a run on generators this week – not because we are afraid of the snow, but because we don’t want to miss any part of the NCAA College Football Championship. (disclosure: i am a huge fan of college football). The local weather man was warned by hundreds of football fans that he shouldn’t break into the game to warn about winter weather! He issued an blog post to hold all the hate mail – look here!
As for me, I’m trying to prepare for an upcoming ACDA performance so I really need the rehearsal! But another part of me wants to stay at home with my lovely family and enjoy the different weather.
I wish I had thought of this (see above). From the great Dave Walker.
New Haydn Choral Music Site
My good friend Don Oglesby visited Birmingham over the Christmas break and told me about this new site on the Masses of Joseph Haydn.
It is a promotional website about a new book described this way by the authors::
In the first comprehensive study in almost three-quarters of a century of all Joseph Haydn’s Masses, two distinguished Haydn scholars bring to these masterworks the light of a treasury of recently discovered documents and new editions.
The powerful and elegant Austrian Masses of Franz Joseph Haydn are examined with thorough precision and dedication by Don V Moses and Robert W. Demaree, lifelong Haydn performers and scholars.
It has been almost seventy years since the last such study of these masterpieces, and a flood of long-hidden scores and documents uncovered over that time span (especially from the Esterházy princely archives and sources from behind the former Iron Curtain). The Masses of Joseph Haydn builds on foundations laid in the twentieth century by the research of Brand, Larsen, Landon, Feder, Schenbeck, and others.
These exciting recoveries have prompted a Haydn renaissance in Europe and America, one in which the trite, misleading image of Haydn as simple, rustic “Papa” has been replaced by a genuine one: he is now recognized as the shrewd and innovative founder of the Viennese Classical style, the mentor of Mozart, the principal influence on Beethoven, and the master of the choral/orchestral Mass setting.
The Masses of Joseph Haydn examines chronologically the history, sources, character, style, and performance choices within each of the Haydn Masses in careful detail. All this is set in a framework of Haydn’s involvement with church music over his whole life span, and, in the context of his childhood as a singer, his career as Kapellmeister to the Princes Esterházy, and his international prestige at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Killing Obsolete Technology
Technology for the choral conductor . . . a great post here about obsolete technologies we should kill in 2010.
The Publishers vs. The Creators – lessons from the book industry
My wife got me a Kindle for Christmas. I love it. I can’t tell if it is because I love the technology or because I love reading – I think it is because this particular type of technology is invisible most of the time – I am just reconnecting with my love of reading.
Because I am a new owner of a Kindle, I found some Kindle blogs to follow – it is what I do!
This Kindle blog features a *fascinating* post that I think relates to what will eventually hit the music publishing industry. It develops a theme I’ve also blogged about here. Here is a portion of the article – let me know what you think:
Publishers are trying to get a disproportionate share of profits.
Publishers are showing their lack of long-term thinking –
- Instead of cutting prices for readers and encouraging reading they are setting unrealistic ebook prices.
- They want to spend less on ebooks than they used to on books and still make more.
- Instead of giving authors more of a share they want to have the same royalty rate.
Basically, Publishers are saying –
Costs are lower and our role is diminished (and perhaps no longer necessary). So we guess we should get an even larger piece of the pie.
It makes zero sense.
Authors don’t owe Publishers anything
Has a Publisher ever gone to an author and said –
Your book was a huge hit. So we’ve bumped up your royalty from 15% to 25%.
Not to the best of my knowledge.
Why then should authors let Publishers take an even larger piece of the pie?
- As long as Publishers had the power they took the lion’s share of profits.
- Now they don’t have the power and they will have to get used to not getting the lions’ share.