Ukulele Anthem by Amanda Palmer So. Most importantly, this song is great. It's just so mad and joyful. It jumps up and down on you and tells you why creativity is awesome while you giggle and roll around on the floor. Fantastic. How is that relevant? But why am I blogging about it? Because at …
Saxophone Players are great.
One of the weird side effects of coming out of Peabody is that you get to know a fair number of classical saxophone players who are also bizarrely accomplished recording engineers. Ian Richter is just such a one. I've crossed his path before, but the first time I got to know him properly we were …
Make It Simple? Hire an artist.
People keep talking about the new wisdom for building technology products, from web apps to phones to enterprise software: "Keep it simple. It's gotta make sense to people." "Focus on making amazing things instead of a profit." "Trust your instincts and your talent, and push them." "Refine and simplify over and over again." "It can't …
Diamonds, Olive Oil, Champagne and Creativity
Idle thought: It's not often that the basic value of something changes. There are bubbles and fads, like tulips, mortgage backed securities and snap bracelets. But it's not often that big changes in the value of something we've had all along happen in the minds of whole societies. Champagne It happened with champagne in the …
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Step 2
I just found out about this community, and I hope it really takes off. It's full of individual artists and their stories. People are talking about how they're selling their art, and what they're finding out. One the one hand it's really great to read what so many of my colleagues are doing. On the …
Best YouTube Comment Ever
At the very least, it's the best ever on any of my films. Just as I was celebrating the 1,000 view milestone for The Seafarer I got an email notification about a new comment: Apparently my film is helping students cheat on their homework. This isn't too much of a surprise, actually. From watching the …
Now THAT is my new tumblr
I have a lot of strange side projects. This one, shared with Victoria Nece, has been a while in coming, but now it's ready. Here's the explanation on our About page: Tumblr is full of great single serving blogs. But once you’ve seen ten posts you’re kind of done. ismynew.tumblr.com to the rescue! We give …
Gin plays well with vinho verde
I've seen a lot of gin and sparkling wine cocktails, frequently balanced with some sugar and bitters. A lot of times there's the fashionable bitters-soaked sugar cube in the bottom of a glass with gin and then wine on top. You can even go up the price scale for both gin and champagne to show …
The Fourth Wall Are Making It Up
The Fourth Wall Ensemble are old friends of mine, and I love them dearly. They play instruments and move around a lot on stage. That, in case you missed it, is totally up my alley. They're uploading a bunch of great little youtube videos that do a lot of work for them all at once. …
Seth Godin Is Talking About Tribes
Seth Godin talking to a room full of arts marketers at the Capacity Interactive's Digital Marketing Boot Camp for Arts Marketers and he, quite rightly, says that everyone in the world, but these groups in particular, needs to think about organizing groups of highly energized people instead of trying to interrupt people in the course …
A Question To Help Individuals Working In The Arts
I wrote this as a comment for Diane Ragsdale's excellent post on digitisation in the arts, and some of the different thinking about new trends and technologies surrounding the question. It got a good bit longer than I had intended, and I think there's an interesting thought here. Instead of framing questions for "the field …
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David Smooke’s Imaginary Audience
About a month ago David Smooke wrote a great piece for NewMusicBox called The Audience Does Not Exist. In it, he argues that imagining "the audience" in your head, and then trying to write music in order to please it, is basically a fool's errand. He argues that it's much more sensible to trust your …