Music Rediscover
How long has it been since you picked up a musical instrument? Do your playing days seem long ago?
One man is hoping to make a difference for musicians in Perth as he helps them rediscover the joy of playing music.
Ashley Arbuckle is a past concertmaster of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and former co-leader of the London Symphony Orchestra.
He has developed a very high reputation as a teacher of the violin and is currently artistic director of the WA Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ashley has now developed plans to lead a new string orchestra with a difference. Encore Strings is an orchestra for those who’ve packed their instruments away thinking life has become too busy to enjoy playing music together with other music lovers.
I want people to rekindle their passion for music by bringing their violins, violas, cellos and basses out from under the bed and dusting them off.
Ashley joined me in the studio during my radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM today to tell listeners a little more about his vision for Encore Strings. We also talked about the variety of musical styles that have been enhanced with orchestral backing. Ashley tells a great story of an encounter with Frank Zappa when the London Symphony Orchestra was recording with him.
You can hear our chat by clicking the play button at the bottom of this post.
Ashley understands well the pain of life without being able to play music. Some years ago it was thought that his musical career could be over due to injury. Thankfully, he made a full recovery after successful brain surgery by the renowned Sydney neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo.
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how to rediscover your iTunes collection
I’ve been stuck in a music “funk” if you will. I find myself listening to the same artists over and over at work. My staples are Air and Enya, with some Beastie Boys and Ani Difranco thrown in when I’m feeling a little angsty.
But when I go through my iTunes, often nothing is appealing. It’s like looking in your closet and feeling like you’ve got nothing to wear. I have gigabytes of music on my Mac, and a lot of music that I’ve never even listened to closely. Sometimes I just don’t know where to start.
The easy solution?
The Shuffle button.
Such a simple thing, and yet I forget to use it. And the straight Shuffle, not Party Shuffle. Party Shuffle lets you look at what is going to be played next, spoiling the surprise. Shuffle is exciting because of the element of suspense. It keeps you motivated to listen, and gets you excited about your music all over again. You have to look and see who the artist is, what album it’s off of.
It’s thrilling when I have no idea who I’m listening to, but I like it. My mind elicited little squeals of joy all morning:
“Totally forgot about Goldfrapp!”
“Hmmm… unfamiliar with anything Tori Amos did after Under the Pink”
“To the 5 Boroughs is a kick-ass album, why do I only listen to Check Your Head over and over?”
“Old-school Van Halen! Weird Al! Gorillaz!”
“Thank you to Dan for turning me onto Bill Evans… long time no listen”
“Nine Inch Nails Ghosts… Portishead Machine Gun… other angst options!”
There’s nothing quite like the element of re-discovery to rejuvenate your listening routine. My productivity has skyrocketed. And I figured out that The Avalanches are perfect Friday music.
Tags: music
This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Reduce Reuse Recycle, The Daily Balance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Rhtdm Music Director