Weekly Studio Update

It's been great to get back to some routines after being back for a week. I'm making the most of the whiteboard on the fridge, laying out plans for each day to help keep me motivated when it comes to the not-so-fun stuff in life, namely CLEANING. It never stops! While I was on holiday I was thinking about new ways to find time to listen to more music. I was reminiscing about how I used to listen to full albums a lot more than I currently do, and it made me stop and reflect on why that's changed.

The obvious culprit is music streaming services, with anything available at any time. However I realised that when I scrolled through my personal library that I've curated over the past 15 or so years, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of artists and albums that I continually scrolled past. "NO MORE!" I said, and I've since gone on a library cull, deleting albums that I haven't listened to for a long time, or listened to once and then never again. The benefit of streaming services is that I'm not afraid that I'll lose that music forever, it's just not cluttering up my decision making process any longer when I'm choosing what I would like to listen to.
The list of albums was still very, very long. So I took the decision making out of it again! I've started at the start, listening to each album alphabetically. My first day's chores were to Abbey Road by the Beatles, I drove around doing errands to All Ashore by Punch Brothers, I cooked dinner to All You Can by Tara Simmons, then ate dinner to Alright Still by Lily Allen. Today while I was cleaning I started with Amnesiac by Radiohead, then made the decision after a few songs that the album needed to be deleted. So it's gone from the library now too!
Do you use music for motivation with cleaning? My wife can't - she gets too distracted by the music!

A big warm welcome to Ross who has his first lesson here this week. Nice to have you on board!

It's been a very productive start to the use of more digital technology in the studio, with a mix of students going completely digital, semi digital and paper only. If you missed the email I sent last week with the details on this change, please go back and have a look, or let me know and I can send it through again.

Things I've been watching/listening to this week:

1. Episode 3 of my podcast "Hook Club" is out now! In this episode we talk about Elton John's Rocket Man, which some of you have already explored in your lessons. If you're savvy with podcasts, just search for Hook Club in your app, otherwise let me know if you need some guidance.
2. Normani - Motivation (Official Video) - I think this is such a cool sounding song, and the late 90s/early 00s throwback film clip takes me right back to being a teenager!
3. ANNA MEREDITH - Paramour - my Dad sent me a link to this video, very meticulously planned and executed. An interesting composition too.
4. We measured pop music’s falsetto obsession - a Vox Earworm episode dedicated to the prevalence of high male vocals in pop music.
5. Piano Meme Compilation - Charles Cornell - you may have seen this guy on Facebook or Insta - he turns iconic internet video rants in to jazz compositions using the speech as melody. Extremely clever and well executed. Some coarse language. 
6. Imogen Heap: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert - check out the performance gloves she uses for her rendition of "Hide and Seek". Incredible!