String Theory Media

A Bull Market in Music Making

Last week's LA Times synopsis of the annual NAMM show, the annual confab of those who make musical instruments and gear, was incredibly encouraging. One of the biggest questions hovering behind the digital music revolution is whether it would encourage a more passive or a more active attitude toward music. Here's some powerful evidence that the latter is winning out. Here's one exciting quote from the story:

The biggest market demographic is young adults. The NAMM musical industry group, which sponsored the convention, contracts with the Gallup Organization for a poll every three years. The most recent found that the number of instrument players ages 18 to 34 grew from 24% in 1997 to 32% in 2006.

It also found that last year about half of American households had at least one person who owned a musical instrument, up from 43% in 1997. The instruments of choice: piano, 31%; guitar or bass, 28%; and brass, 27%.

All of this has helped propel unprecedented sales of musical instruments and related items, from guitar picks to sheet music to computer interfaces.

One of String Theory's articles of faith is that music appreciation and music participation go hand in hand. The idea that so many amateurs are playing, composing, recording, mixing, posting and distributing their original work all but negates the soporific effect of commercial radio playlists, major label fear, and big-box music retail. The people are picking, and that's good news to start the week.

NY Fund Revives Bluegrass Festival

Reader Tina Aridas sent this news as a follow-up to my post about the New York State Music Fund. Here's a link to a newspaper story about the return of the Staten Island Bluegrass Festival. Thanks for the tip Tina.

This fund is allowing the Staten Island Bluegrass Festival, which had a ten-year run before the host organization could no longer help fund it (and had to skip 2006), to be resurrected for this summer. This festival had a decade-long run of bringing top-notch bluegrass acts (Rhonda Vincent, the Osborne Brothers, etc.) to Staten Island (the most inaccessible borough of NYC) as well as providing a stage for local and regional bluegrass bands. For some, it was the once-a-year chance to see this sort of entertainment. The announcement last year that the festival would end was met with dismay by many (and charges that the host venue was only concentrating on the short-term bottom line and not the long-term cultural benefits). The festival will be held -- it's 11th year (but no longer "consecutive") --  this August thanks to a grant from this fund.
Tina

Prizes From Swedes

I love this because it's a genre-buster, a barrier-blaster. Some years ago, ABBA's manager, lyricist and publisher founded the Polar Music Prize, "an international music prize and awarded to individuals, groups or institutions in recognition of exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music." This year's recipients were Sonny Rollins and Steve Reich, two guys who definitely come from the burning hot core of cool.

Check out these past winners: Sir Paul McCartney, Dizzy Gillespie, Witold Lutoslawski, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Quincy Jones, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Sir Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Pierre Boulez, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Ericson, Ray Charles, Ravi Shankar, Iannis Xenakis, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Isaac Stern, Burt Bacharach, Robert Moog, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sofia Gubaidulina, Miriam Makeba, Keith Jarrett, B.B. King, György Ligeti, Gilberto Gil, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Valery Gergiev, and Led Zeppelin.

Here's the full report, from New Music Box.

Always liked ABBA.

Save the World

This piece in the Christian Science Monitor about Violinist.com is just a profile of a well-run community web site. There are more than a few of those. But I appreciated the quote one of the founders offered up from Pablo Casals, the great cellist: "Maybe it's music that will save the world." This one might come in handy in the years ahead.

Byronic House Music

Writing about bass master Byron House yesterday prompted me to visit his MySpace page, where I was happy to discover his own music. At least I assume this is his, and now I have a picture of him hunched over a computer when he's not on the road playing with America's Music Gods. "Zim 2 Portal 1" is blippy. "Trio" is Philip Glass-like and nicely hypnotic. "Mishka" is Middle Eastern trip-hop. Love this stuff.

Cadillac Sky

I don't go to happy hour showcases as much as I should, but I was excited about Cadillac Sky at the Mercy Lounge last night. Hosted by Skaggs Family Records and well-attended, the party went as hoped for; the band smoked the place. It's a five-piece bluegrass band from Texas with a debut album out yesterday called "Blind Man Walking." I hate their website, but I love their CD, and I loved their show.

The challenge in modern bluegrass, a field crowded with talent, is to etch out a distinctive sound, and C-Sky, as I'll call them only for blogging convenience, has undoubtedly done so. The sharp end of the spear is the vocal attack of lead singer Bryan Simpson and the wonderfully named Mike Jump, who also played some sharp guitar. They hit a chorus in the song "Born Lonesome" that is as memorable as any hook I can think of. It's power-grass that raises the bar without selling out tradition. Only Mountain Heart really is near them in texture and drive, and I'd gladly see a long double bill.

Ricky Skaggs, bluegrass legend and label honcho, strapped on his mandolin and joined his new signees on stage for a song and I think a lick or two of Big Mon. The maddeningly invsible Sonya Isaacs appeared like a vision and sang goosebump harmony with Jump on the album's prettiest song, "Homesick Angel." If I had a label I'd sign Sonya Isaacs in a heartbeat. The band gave little trophies to their many other guests and to Byron House who played bass on the album while the band was mid-doghouse. Cool night. It's a band that I'd take any music fool to see whether they thought they liked bluegrass or not.

The next big debut for what is turning out to be a hot run of young bluegrass - the Infamous Stringdusters in March. These are just amazing bands and projects. Who will be the next American Bluegrass Idol? Ask me in September.

Soulgrass in the Wall Street Journal

I have a piece in today's Wall Street Journal about a very special jazz/bluegrass summit at the Blue Note in New York. Former Miles Davis sax player Bill Evans leads Soulgrass, which for this stint includes banjoist Tony Trischka, mando master Sam Bush, drummer Dave Weckl, bassist Richard Bona, and fiddler Christian Howes. If you never heard the album on which this band is based, check it out. It's a treat. Thanks so much to The Bluegrass Blog for the news story that tipped me off in time to get this piece together.

The full text of the piece follows after the jump...

"Playing a Theremin with your brain"

There was a boatload of music news coming in this morning from MIDEM, but instead this caught my attention at Wired.com. Nut graph:

Artist Luciana Haill uses medical electroencephalogram, or EEG, monitors embedded in a Bluetooth-enabled sweatband to record the activity of her frontal lobes, then beams the data to a computer that plays it back as song.

This reminds me of an electronica/rave DJ I saw in a nice documentary last week on the Documentary Channel called "Better Living Through Circutry" who said he was investigating the same possibility. I first saw a biofeedback machine in about 1980. You placed two fingers on metal pads and it made a tone that rose or fell supposedly in tune with your stress level. I remember wondering then if it could somehow be used in music.

Full article after the JUMP...

STM's First Music Video

String Theory's first music video premiered on GAC's Edge of Country today. "Hank Williams' Ghost" by Darrell Scott depicts Darrell on a pilgrimage from Hank's boyhood home to his gravesite in Montgomery AL. I'm grateful to Darrell and John Condon at Full Light Records for the confidence to go forward with the project, and I want to credit John McPherson with invaluable assistance in the shoot and Nathan Walker for help with the editing. Here's the YouTube edition, but we hope you'll watch for it on TV where it looks a whole lot better.

Also, here's a story about the recent celebration for Hank and the new Hank Williams Trail in Alabama, which we drove. The new brochure/guide for the trail was a huge help.

Music - it's all in your mind

I just finished the relatively new and somewhat awkwardly titled This Is Your Brain on Music by Dan Levitin, a record producer and musician who was so interested in how people perceive sound that he got a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and became one of a mere handful of scientists in the world who closely study music and the brain. He was the subject of a massive profile in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago, and the book seems to have been well received. My reactions were mixed.