Why we continue to make music

I'm a frequent reader of the music technology magazine Sound On Sound, always enjoying their interviews and having complete faith in their reviews. Here is a nugget of gold from their online forums, with Mike McLoone commenting on the music business' health and why we should continue to make music anyway. Here is a short snippet:

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
- HST 

Doesn't sound like a great place to work, does it? The only trouble is, what has become of the music business is far removed from the meaning of the music itself. What became a boom industry in the 20th Century has thankfully contracted and brought back the questions, what is music and who should make it? The simple answers; it is anything one wants it to be and anyone can create it.

So while Hunter was talking about the music business, there is also the possibility to express oneself musically without the crutches of the 20th Century music business mechanism. The means of production are now with Everyone. Thanks to advances in digital audio electronics, software and computer horsepower, not to mention the high number of skilled engineers and plethora of project studios competing for business, currently the content creator is spoilt for choice. The music business may be foundering, but to create music there has never been a better time in history."

Read the rest of the post on SOS Forums:
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1115420&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1#1115420

New Song: Fingertips

This is a slightly nostalgic piece, remembering all the letters I used to write, sitting in cafés, with my favorite old reservoir pen… I hope you enjoy!

New Song: One Wing

The swedish actor and writer Kent Andersson died a few years ago. I live and work across the street from his home theatre, Aftonstjärnan (The Evening Star) in Göteborg. Many of us go through difficulties in life, making us feel curtailed or diminished. For several years this poem by Kent Andersson have given me new insights on these feelings.

The Wing 

We all walk around with just one wing
that we can not fly with
which becomes a burden to us
that we have to conceal.
We probably would have been able to fly
if not all self-appointed superintendents,
masters of school
and all of the practical, tactical,
zealous, critical,
anemeic, academic
wrong-finders with a lecturing tone
had said:
you surely can not fly!
Stay on the ground, you one-winged bastard!
And if you even dream of daring
with a single wing beat
to test your ability to fly
we will take your wing some day!
We all go around with just one wing,
a dream, a longing, a song.
What if our wings were to
fly together again!

The Wing

The swedish actor and writer Kent Andersson died a few years ago. I live and work across the street from his home theatre, Aftonstjärnan (The Evening Star) in Göteborg. Many of us go through difficulties in life, making us feel curtailed or diminished. For several years this poem by Kent Andersson have given me new insights on these feelings.

The Wing 

We all walk around with just one wing
that we can not fly with
which becomes a burden to us
that we have to conceal.
We probably would have been able to fly
if not all self-appointed superintendents,
schoolmasters
and all of the practical, tactical,
zealous, critical,
anemeic, academic
wrongfinders with a lecturing tone
had said:
you surely can not fly!
Stay on the ground, you one-winged bastard!
And if you even dream of daring
with a single wing beat
to test your ability to fly
we will take your wing one day!
We all go around with just one wing,
a dream, a longing, a song.
What if our wings were to
fly together again!

Sonder

New word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:


sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Blessed are those...

I came across this quote and couldn't resist sharing it:

Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

Paulo Coelho

Kristian Gidlund 1983-2013

Kristian Gidlund, swedish musician and writer, passed away a week ago. He died from cancer at the age of 29. I didn't know him, but his blog about the last year's struggles have been a regular reading for me (and many others) for some time now. I will miss his writing very much. Here is a short excerpt translated to english, written by Kristian as a letter to the child he will never have:

The most beautiful, wonderful child. We will never meet. But I love you anyway. I have from the first time I came to think of you. I’ve missed you since. Missed holding you. Sharing secrets. Laughing and crying. Playing on summer meadows and running through storms. We’d probably talk a lot, even if initially I would do most of the babbling. We would talk about everything. In a borderless fashion. I hope, anyway. I would listen to your conclusions – amazing ones – and I would lose my breath over how you use your senses. Because I know that you would be a magical child. I would do my best to answer your questions and listen to your concerns, and I know you would do the same for me. I would encourage you to try things yourself. Because you do can more than you think. Never forget that. And if someone says something is impossible: listen up. That’s when you should use the primordial force that is in your chest. You have great things ahead of you. Don’t think otherwise. 

I will miss you dearly Kristian, though your writing will stay with me as long as I live.

If you want to read more, you can always try google translate with his blog http://ikroppenmin.blogspot.se, but the more poetic dimension of his writing probably won't translate very well.