I recently purchased my first micro-controller to make a smart device I need for my home. I had no experience with such devices, did relatively little research, and bought the cheapest knock-off I could find. And it "just works". I ended up with an esp8266 based device for ~$3.80(https://ebay.to/2SmFx7Z); I'm sure I will find modules in the future which don't play nicely, or demand a number of pins this model lacks, but for a basic intro to the ecosystem it has been an incredibly smooth ride. I certainly have found the odd bit or two that I briefly stumbled over due to unfamiliarity with the framework, and there's a few things I've yet to work out(namely, how to test this code properly outside of a device), but overall it has been simply enjoyable. After making my device mostly functional for its intended purpose, I moved on to a task I figured that would be rather involved: adding the ability to remotely update the firmware so I may leave it in operation while adding features. As it turned out this took only about 10 lines of code to get the basic operation in place, taken from a platform-supplied example. If your background is coding and you haven't yet played around with a micro-controller/IoT platform like Arduino, I recommend you do; it is quite satisfying.
Friday, November 30, 2018
Enough Singing Competitions...that's not enough
Can we agree that perhaps we've had enough singing competitions, and instead need to focus on other aspects of musical talent for a while? In the age of Youtube and autotune, we have plenty of "good enough" singers, and quite a few really good ones who never become famous. You could surely find a drop-in replacement for most young singers without much fuss. This isn't to suggest singing well is easy, just that it is accessible. Most people will sing along to their favorites songs at some point; a smaller portion will give it a go singing those songs on their own; a vastly smaller portion will attempt to learn an instrument; and far fewer will make a serious attempt at composing new music. We have constant singing competitions even though that is not the bottleneck to new enjoyable music. We need better and more diverse lyricists; we need more individuals talented with instruments who are capable of experimenting with compositions.
Singing competitions ignore all of this. They make the assumption the winner will have a qualified backing-band, the lyrics will be written for them, the compositions done for them, etc. They may provide input and personalizations during the process, but there seems to be very little effort made to ensure they have talents in these other aspects. These competitions are looking for that drop-in replacement. At the other end of the spectrum you might have a "Battle of the Bands" style event, but that is not the solution either. Taken as a whole, there are countless reasons one band may seem better than another even while individual elements of the "better" band are inferior. Focusing on the band tends to hide the individual effort and talent required to be worthy of band membership in the first place. Importantly, they offer little in the way of a reference starting point for the individual.
I would love to see a major broadcast network show focusing on band-essential instruments, or an individual instrument. America's Next Top Guitarist, maybe as a summer-season special; or perhaps a show focused on the creation of music rather than strictly the recitation of music. In general I find the most consistently enjoyable artists are the singer/songwriter types who are deeply involved with their music from start to finish. This is true even when they're not the most vocally talented, as the uniqueness of their lyrics and styles offer so much on their own. But for some reason, we are making very little effort to encourage these well-rounded artists from developing. Instead, we've encouraged a sea of next-American-Idol wannabe's who have been led to believe that singing a decent cover of a top-40 song, along with shutting your eyes and waving your hand at the proper time, is what it means to be a musical artist.
Singing competitions ignore all of this. They make the assumption the winner will have a qualified backing-band, the lyrics will be written for them, the compositions done for them, etc. They may provide input and personalizations during the process, but there seems to be very little effort made to ensure they have talents in these other aspects. These competitions are looking for that drop-in replacement. At the other end of the spectrum you might have a "Battle of the Bands" style event, but that is not the solution either. Taken as a whole, there are countless reasons one band may seem better than another even while individual elements of the "better" band are inferior. Focusing on the band tends to hide the individual effort and talent required to be worthy of band membership in the first place. Importantly, they offer little in the way of a reference starting point for the individual.
I would love to see a major broadcast network show focusing on band-essential instruments, or an individual instrument. America's Next Top Guitarist, maybe as a summer-season special; or perhaps a show focused on the creation of music rather than strictly the recitation of music. In general I find the most consistently enjoyable artists are the singer/songwriter types who are deeply involved with their music from start to finish. This is true even when they're not the most vocally talented, as the uniqueness of their lyrics and styles offer so much on their own. But for some reason, we are making very little effort to encourage these well-rounded artists from developing. Instead, we've encouraged a sea of next-American-Idol wannabe's who have been led to believe that singing a decent cover of a top-40 song, along with shutting your eyes and waving your hand at the proper time, is what it means to be a musical artist.
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