This is old!

I’m no longer maintaining this blog – keep up with me on my 365 project at plog.normo.co.uk
Andrew

Music – A Human Right?

Every now and again I submit to my geek cravings and buy a copy of a magazine called SOS (Sound On Sound). It’s a recording magazine, it’s quite heavy, and much of the stuff inside goes over my head, but there are some very interesting things to be found in there. The editor, Paul White, wrote an editor’s note (I didn’t really need to specify that…) in this month’s issue called ‘Music – a human right?’. His article is much about the government’s recent rulings with regards to live music regulations and radio-frequency licensing, but I won’t tire you with that – besides, White writes better than I could on the issue on the SOS website which you can find at www.soundonsound.com. It did, however get me thinking whether or not the arts should be a human right, or at least how fundamental and important music (and dance, theatre and fine art) is to the world population. I can’t think of a single culture the world over that doesn’t include music as an integral part of who they are.

Where I live, you can’t go a day without hearing music of some form, and normally it’s far from minimal. Music is piped in to the atmosphere in any shop or restaurant; many of us are wired up with a music player on the bus or in the park or walking down the street. We sing to ourselves in the shower, we ‘whistle a happy tune’ while we walk or work, we play music to celebrate or to mourn. There’s even those musical warriors who will not rest until every person on all of Britain’s public transport have heard their new “wiick3d chewn” played from the modest 2cm speaker in the back of their mobile phone. It would be a weird experience to even see a documentary about something unrelated like queue management without some musical backing.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how when you look at what music fundamentally is, all that’s there on a physical level is a series of vibrations. How is it that small differences in the series of vibrations that a piano emits when it plays a minor chord compared to a major can make us feel different on a much higher level? How come the series of vibrations that I allow into my ears on the way to school in the morning can set my mood for the next few hours? There’s been much research done on the links between music and other brain functions, whether music makes you more intelligent or requires intelligence, what effect music has on health, et cetera et cetera. The results vary and there’s still a lot we don’t know, but it’s easy for all of us to say that music does affect us in some psychological or emotional way – there must be something more to it than just a series of vibrations, some special way in which the brain interprets these waves that makes the whole thing a lot more significant to us as a species.

People don’t say “I don’t like music”. They say they like some types of music more than others, they say they find it hard to understand music, but I don’t know a single person who actually dislikes it. If the powers that be were to take music away from us, the effects would be very significant. I wonder what would be done about it, if we would see some kind of mass uprising, or if it would even be at all possible to entirely stamp out music in the first place – I doubt it would.

I’d like to write a conclusion here but I’m not sure I’ve made any point in particular here – just food for thought I suppose. This is just me stopping to recognise how fundamental a part music (and of course the rest of the arts in similar ways) plays in our society.

To read Paul White’s article of the same name, visit http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr10/articles/leader_0410.htm

Why I’m doing this

I just wanted to write a few words about why I’ve decided to spend more time writing this blog, and why I took up the idea in the first place. I don’t know if anybody but me reads these words, and yes I hope someday somebody else will discover them, but that’s not first-and-foremost what I’m here for. I’m not a great writer, and it’s not often that I have great things to write about, but I want a place I can write about the things that interest me, and the things that trouble me, and intrigue me and excite me. My intention is that, over time, this blog will become a reflection of me, and of all the big and little things that I end up thinking and talking about. Maybe somebody else will find that interesting, maybe they won’t, but I’m going to give it a try for a while anyway. It’ll be fun.

Andrew x

PS. If you’re someone that’s not me, and you do read this, I’d like to hear what you’ve found interesting, it’d be really encouraging to hear that somebody’s taken the time to peruse what I’m writing, and to find out which bits make sense and which don’t. Thanks J

Nizlopi – I’m pretty gutted.

In October 2008 my sister and I went to see Nizlopi (www.nizlopi.com) at Warwick arts centre as part of their ‘Last Nights On Tour’ tour. Before that, I’d heard them on MySpace music, I’d bought their first album, I really loved their music and I spent a good while watching their gig clips on YouTube before we went. I was pretty excited, but I didn’t know what to expect.

What I experienced was really incredible, and very lovely indeed. It didn’t feel so much like a concert, or like Nizlopi were there to show off their musicality, or even to make a ‘show’ of it at all. It was more like a night round the campfire with my greatest friends. Even though I’d never met most of the people in the room, there was such a sense of community, of common ground and common wishes and common human-ness, it was wonderful. It felt like the pair of them were there to lead us in our own entertainment, rather than showing us what they could do. We were in the cinema at the arts centre, which is a seated venue, but there wasn’t anybody sitting by the end of the night – people were dancing in the aisles, dancing on the stage apron, everybody was so enthusiastic. Luke had us singing along to the simple refrains, we were all part of the music, it was all so inclusive and energetic and great – I left with a reinstated faith in humanity!

It was then that I got interested in their record label, FDM (Folk ‘n’ Deadly Music – excellent!), who really existed because of Nizlopi, and are the set of people that managed to get Nizlopi’s ‘JCB Song’ single to the all-important Christmas number one spot, an awesome achievement for such a small label. On their website, the page named Ethos simply states this:

We are a ‘tiny’ independent record company that puts music and people first.
We have a very simple ethos: we do what feels right musically and in business.
We work to a very simple set of purposes and principles hammered out in the heat of battle.
Our core purpose simply outlines what we want to do and become
A HAPPY, SELF DETERMINING, SUCCESSFUL, AND CONSCIOUS ORGANIZATION, THAT PUTS MUSIC, PEOPLE, AND CHANGE FIRST. AND INSPIRES OTHERS TO DO THE SAME. 

Isn’t that lovely? I would LOVE to see more music companies be bold enough and true enough to be able to say something like that. Sadly I think it’s the fact that they are such a “‘tiny’ independent record company” that allows them to function like that – I’m not sure a similar ethos would work in the ‘big business’. As soon as it gets too big, music tends to become more of a money-venture than what I believe music should be – community entertainment, and a vehicle for emotion and love. You can’t really do that effectively if you’re tearing around on a world tour, changing city every night. That, and a few other things, is why I don’t want to pursue a career as a performer, I just don’t think I could be real, I don’t think I’d be me, and I don’t think there’s any point – the world’s music scene doesn’t need another singer-songwriter wielding a guitar.

Anyway, Nizlopi promised to meet up after their sabbatical year and let us all know if/how they were going to continue. I received an email a week ago from FDM, titled “Luke and John part company”, and I read it through, and now I’m pretty gutted about the outcome. It’s not that I’m a hung-up fan – I don’t like to idolise musicians, and any music alone can be replaced by other performers – it’s just everything about Nizlopi that went with it that I’ll miss. I loved seeing two honest guys get on a stage and genuinely enjoy themselves and nurture this sense of community in a crowd. I loved the way Luke could flow between speech and singing in such a natural way that it made evident he was speaking from the heart, I really felt that all this music was a real sharing of emotion, that they were being open with us. There was no mad light show, there was no 10-piece backing band, there was no gospel choir, there were no pyrotechnics or circus tricks, but I realised I didn’t need any of that, and neither did they! Like I said before, they led us in entertaining ourselves, they led us in being a community, in just having a fun night, singing ourselves hoarse, grinning like idiots, and loving every minute of it. I’ll miss that. I’ll miss that inspiration.

I’m really sorry to see those guys go, and I REALLY hope that I find somebody else to take their place, and that I can learn to be a musician like them, being real and honest and staying true to what music’s all about.

Grégoire: Toi + Moi

Take a look at this. Yes it’s in French, but there’s not a lot of words, and what I really like about this song is the sentiment and the video. Some quick google translating and my awesome GCSE French tells me what this song is about, and I really like it. If you want to read it yourself, find the lyrics and throw them into google translator, and you can get the gist of it, minus the horrible grammar.

I love what Grégoire is saying in this song: you and me and anyone who wants to, anyone who’s alone – come and join the dance and be carefree. It’s a bit of a celebration of humanity, and a great sentiment. Later on he sings “I know my song is naive, even a little silly. But its harmless, and even if it doesn’t change the world, it invites you to join the discussion.” It’s the kind of community spirit that I long for.

It kind of reminds me of some of the people I’ve met in Montreuil, a Parisian suburb where my uncle lives – particularly the people I met at his wedding this summer. They have this lovely, welcoming manner, and what strikes me the most about them that is different from us Brits, is that they’re not afraid to be silly, they seem to throw themselves in to life a little more than we do, speaking very generally of course. There’s much more of a community feel than I’m used to here in Coventry – for the wedding reception, they opened my uncle’s house and the courtyard outside, set up a little stage at the side and there was Salsa and Celtic music all evening. As people came and went, I saw how easygoing and welcoming they were, especially as the small party of us from Britain were feeling a little outcast, (language and cultural barriers), and they were just like the people in this video.

It’s a lovely song and a lovely video to accompany it. It’s not heart-wrenchingly beautiful, nor is it a call to change the world, it just reminds us to enjoy life, and to notice and love those around us. I’d love to have a mentality a little more similar to that of those in Montreuil, in this way – to stop taking myself so seriously and just enjoy what I have and who I have. Sounds like a plan to me.

Thanks for reading,

A few new videos

There’s a couple of new videos I’ve put on YouTube recently that I wanted to let you know about.
There’s a new video I shot this week with the mighty Luke Sampson, which you can see on my channel – www.youtube.com/andrewnormington or click the link in the side panel of my blog.
Before that, I did some new ones with Hannah Barton, as our Hanndy duet, so you can see them on the Hanndy channel – www.youtube.com/HanndyMusic.

I hope you enjoy them, and make sure to tell me what you think – comment on the videos, subscribe to the channels, and share them with other people!
More to come soon.
Thanks,
Andy

Tags: Music

New Song: ‘How Come?’ – Original

Hey,

I had planned to make my first post something good and meaningful, or at least clever, but I’m not feeling massively up to writing an essay right now so I guess my first post will have to be a shameless plug! Here goes…

It’s been a while since I’ve recorded anything, so there’s a new song now up on my myspace – please go have a listen and tell me what you think of it This song in particular is important to me because it’s the first actual complete song that’s entirely my own. Before now I’ve written music for other people’s lyrics, or done arrangements or covers of other people’s stuff, but this is 100% mine. I do find words hard and this definitely isn’t lyrical genius, I’ll be the first to admit that (and to anybody that is actually any good at this stuff I apologise for my destruction of rhyme), but at least it’s more than just fragments, so I’m proud of it none the less I wrote most of it a few weeks ago and then left it for a while, but I had time on my hands yesterday so I bullied myself into finishing it off and now it’s done. I hope you like it.

So you can listen at www.myspace.com/andrewnormingtonmusic, and if you’ve not already added that page to your friends, please please do!

Thank you loads,
Andy

Tags: Music