Biggest yawn ever!
Hello my friends!
How’s it going? No intention to moan this time (something different I know) and I didn’t mean to yawn when taking the picture but thought it looked very funny so I decided to share the giggles.
Went up to Birmingham on Monday to attend class for the first time in “real life” and it was awesome! I mean, this MA is wicked in general, but I have to say that I was once again blown away by the fact that I have such amazing lecturers/professors. And no – this is not me sucking up, if I didn’t think that they are genuinely “all that” and a little bit more I probably wouldn’t waste my time writing about them.
Truth is that they are, and even though I’m almost 100% certain that our opinions will clash somewhere down the line on certain issues, I do feel very lucky to have them guiding me and teaching me and sometimes just reassuring me that what I’m thinking isn’t all that bad.
I guess that’s what I love most about this MA so far - it’s making me think. The only “problem” about thinking is that it’s exhausting. I mean, I’ve only been at it for 7 weeks and it’s literally mind-blowing. Not all the concepts/topics are new, but the way they are presented and the way I am required to look at and analyse them are very different from what I’m used to.
It’s difficult. Especially the idea that we have left the “electronic age” of music and entered the “digital age”, and how this shift is as significant as it was when we went from sheet music and publishers being the dominant/biggest part of music industry to records and labels.
I’ve been brought up with my foot in both worlds. I remember being addicted to my sony walkman and the endless cassette tapes I made with radio rips, of queueing outside a record shop to be one of the first people to buy a new CD album, of owning CD singles, of my dad having lots of vinyl at home, of using mini-discs because I didn’t like portable CD players because they skipped.
But I also remember the first version of Napster and how amazing I thought it was and how the the dial-up connection was slowing me down, how my friend Neil convinced me to get one of the early chunky versions of the iPod, how I used to spend endless nights ripping my CDs and downloading music and making playlists and burning them and so on.
It’s weird. I mean, I work for a company that (barely) makes money from vinyl, a physical format that sells less than CDs, in an era that supposedly has shifted to something completely different.
I’m not trying to desperately hold on to the past, because I actually like all the things that digital brings to the table. But having that said, I still don’t believe in the death of the vinyl, or the CD for that matter.
One thing I do worry about, and this is just something that I have noticed in my own behaviour, is the attention span of people when it comes to stuff online. There is so much music out there. I get bombarded with emails and tweets every day from people trying to promote a release or a band or an event or whatever, and most of the time I ignore it because I just can’t be bothered – it’s just too much.
And I know, there are plenty of recommendation and “discovery” sites out there (or “filters”) and millions ways of sharing music so I can tune in to stuff my friends or people I look up to share or are listening to. I might check that stuff out sometimes, but truth be told, I get much greater satisfaction from simply discovering something on my own. I might be the only person who feels this way, but sadly for me, that is fact.
I don’t want a million emails and tweets telling me to listen to this because of xyz, I don’t want to constantly be force fed all this music from a million directions because not only do I start ignoring it, it makes me fed up with it all. Which obviously sucks, especially when you love music as much as I do.
There is no way of escaping this online unless I change email, shut down my twitter, stop using mixcloud and similar services, stop reading blogs/music websites and so on.
And yes, you could argue that back in good ol’ days, the same thing happened but in a different way. You were fed music by radio and you’d buy the records your favourite DJ/presenter was playing, if you had a regular shop you visited, the people behind the counter would put records away for you and recommend them for you to buy, you’d read specific magazines to see what bands were hot, what records to buy to be cool etc.
I’m not sure where I am going with all this… but I do kind of feel like I have to somehow be able to separate myself from all these personal feelings/thoughts in order to be able to do something useful on this MA course.
Why? Because everything has changed. Like it was pointed out the other week, and like Dubber mentioned in this week’s lecture – Google could buy the entire record industry with it’s “pocket money”. Now if that doesn’t mean anything to you, you are probably still in the frame of mind that things can “go back to the way they used to be”. They can’t and they won’t.
Many people have said this before and I completely agree – at the moment everything is up for grabs because the old rules don’t apply or work in the same way they used to. They belong to the past and we are in the present.
As for the future, I hope I can contribute to the way it will be shaped in one way or another, even if it’s just 0.00001% (or less). And if that means throwing out the old rules completely and starting from scratch then so be it, I am personally all for it because I think it’s needed.
I just need to figure out a way of being able to do that without my brain melting in the process…
Evening my friends,
I am tired beyond anything tonight, was a fantastic but long weekend, followed by a lot of things going on. Got so many exciting things happening at the moment (that I will tell you all about when I can) but as you know, I’m working full time and trying to do this MA in Music Industries too, plus trying not to neglect my loved ones and spend time with them as much as I can. Hard work to say the least, but very awarding in some aspects too!
Truth be told though, I feel like I could sleep for a week. Still not fully over that horrible monster flu and it is eating up a lot of my energy.
But, I gotta soldier on as good as I humanly can! No rest for the wicked as they say. Really looking forward telling you all about the great things happening at the moment. It will mean even more work but I reckon I will gain some very crucial life lessons along the way.
Hope you are all well though :) x
MASSIVE THANKS TO THE ENTIRE SPACE INVADER FAMILY FOR AN AMAZING WEEKEND! THOSE WHO COULDN’T MAKE IT WERE MISSED! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Bristol and Space Invader crew – Here I come!!
WHOA! I am EXHAUSTED! What a looooong day! I literally stepped through the door 60 minutes ago, managed to shove some food down my throat and now it’s back to the computer to catch up on all the uni work I am so desperately late with.
I love this MA so much, but, it makes me think too much… wish i had more hours in a day to write down more of my thoughts on all the stuff I am reading and learning and discovering… but more about that another time! Just wanted to say hello, really should be posting my uni work online instead of updating this blog! Hope you’re all well! Feel free to donate a spare hour to me if there’s any going around, I need it badly! xx
New mix up on the cloud. Perfect start to the week if I may say so myself ;)
A bit of a mish-mash of feelings, thoughts, sounds, visions etc. Hope you like it and happy Monday! x
On a scale from 1-10, how excited am I? 110!
Afternoon my friends!
I have managed to sleep for two nights in a row now – wohoooo! Starting to feel a bit better too, but don’t want to take out another victory in advance because I don’t want to end up half dead like I did a few days ago.
Sipping on coffee, listening to music and planning my day. Got a lot of school work to catch up on today plus I’ve had this mix running around in my head for a while now so was hoping to be able to put it together today…
Been feeling very sorry for myself all week. I really hate being ill! And it’s not the snot or the fever or the cough that get’s to me, it’s the fact that being this ill completely drains me which means I can’t work or study. In all honesty, it drives me nuts not being able to do what I love because I’m too drained and feel like my brain has turned into mush.
But hopefully I will be back to normal soon! So many exciting things happening that I don’t want to waste more time being ill!
