In August, I had opened up your song book and started going through a couple of the pieces. I was off Instagram at the time (on my phone at least) and found that my focus was able to land on studying the piano again as it gravitated towards your book.
After my month long experiment ended of Instagram off my phone, I redownloaded it and have found my focus to plummet. Not just in playing piano, but overall at work as well.
I'm afraid that if I delete the app for good I won't find any music like yours and I wouldn't be able to engage with artists like I have in the past. I'm also worried I'd be left out in regard to world events and the yada yada yada of being connected.
So my question is, if I were to delete the app entirely, how can I stay connected with artists in the 'modern classical' genre? I feel Instagram was my best tool for engaging with artists and discovering new music in the genre. What are alternative ways to stay connected to the scene? What alternative methods are there for music discovery these days?
Cheers for the questions, Chris! I certainly hear you in relation to focus, distractions etc.
In many ways, this whole Substack thing is a way I'm hoping to encourage things like this to develop and grow. Either through the app, or via the (hopefully not too frequent) email reminders/notifications. I like the fact that as a platform, Substack isn't just music-focused - or even creative arts-focused, but has all manner of things hosted here, and that it can be a worthwhile thing to invest in, either as a free subscriber or paid supporter.
I'm a big advocate for signing up to email mailing lists/newsletters. If IG and other social apps become too overwhelming or stop showing you the content or artists you're keen to follow the most, at least with emails etc you should always receive them and be in the know.
For artists, it's often said that social media followers are more akin to a rented audience, like renting an apartment, and they are at the whim of the landlord/owner being decent (see Musk and Twitter), whereas your mailing list and subscribers are the ones who truly are engaged with what you do. Which is why I'm trying to, slowly and steadily, build up this place here because of the flexibility it offers to host a range of content which I think is interesting and I know my audience will enjoy, whilst also having more of a direct, algorithm-free line to you all.
IG's new broadcast channel feature is interesting in that it offers people the opportunity to connect quite closely with artists. But it assumes they already follow them and are invested in them; it doesn't really relate to discoverability; there are questions as to how much of authentic engagement you will receive via this method; and also if you're frustrated with apps/notifications/lack of focus etc, this feels like adding to all of those frustrations rather than helping.
IG can be a very exhausting place for artists and creatives, and whilst it can really help aid all sorts of things, it is also a very distracting thing, often taking us away from what we truly want to be doing, feeling the pressure to post more, and it can be especially unhelpful in terms of creating negativity around self-worth, value and comparison with others.
So, in general, I'd say keep trying to engage with musicians and artists via platforms which give you the best opportunity for something meaningful rather than fleeting.
When it comes to finding out new stuff - a lot of BBC shows are available on the BBC Sounds app worldwide (check out 'NightTracks' and 'Unclassified' for stuff in this area) alongside other online radio platforms like KEXP (Alex Ruder's Pacific Notions weekly show) and Soho Radio (Sofia Ilyas's monthly show).
There are still excellent blogs like Headphone Commute, Stationary Travels and A Closer Listen out there who are great at featuring new stuff in this genre. Bandcamp as a platform is always great - Bandcamp Daily, but also just the recommendations section on artists you may like (and that can be the case elsewhere too, but I think Bandcamp is much more likely to get good results for this). Signing up to mailing lists of labels you like can be good - Moderna Records, Bigo & Twigetti etc in this area would be good.
Hey Sim,
In August, I had opened up your song book and started going through a couple of the pieces. I was off Instagram at the time (on my phone at least) and found that my focus was able to land on studying the piano again as it gravitated towards your book.
After my month long experiment ended of Instagram off my phone, I redownloaded it and have found my focus to plummet. Not just in playing piano, but overall at work as well.
I'm afraid that if I delete the app for good I won't find any music like yours and I wouldn't be able to engage with artists like I have in the past. I'm also worried I'd be left out in regard to world events and the yada yada yada of being connected.
So my question is, if I were to delete the app entirely, how can I stay connected with artists in the 'modern classical' genre? I feel Instagram was my best tool for engaging with artists and discovering new music in the genre. What are alternative ways to stay connected to the scene? What alternative methods are there for music discovery these days?
Cheers for the questions, Chris! I certainly hear you in relation to focus, distractions etc.
In many ways, this whole Substack thing is a way I'm hoping to encourage things like this to develop and grow. Either through the app, or via the (hopefully not too frequent) email reminders/notifications. I like the fact that as a platform, Substack isn't just music-focused - or even creative arts-focused, but has all manner of things hosted here, and that it can be a worthwhile thing to invest in, either as a free subscriber or paid supporter.
I'm a big advocate for signing up to email mailing lists/newsletters. If IG and other social apps become too overwhelming or stop showing you the content or artists you're keen to follow the most, at least with emails etc you should always receive them and be in the know.
For artists, it's often said that social media followers are more akin to a rented audience, like renting an apartment, and they are at the whim of the landlord/owner being decent (see Musk and Twitter), whereas your mailing list and subscribers are the ones who truly are engaged with what you do. Which is why I'm trying to, slowly and steadily, build up this place here because of the flexibility it offers to host a range of content which I think is interesting and I know my audience will enjoy, whilst also having more of a direct, algorithm-free line to you all.
IG's new broadcast channel feature is interesting in that it offers people the opportunity to connect quite closely with artists. But it assumes they already follow them and are invested in them; it doesn't really relate to discoverability; there are questions as to how much of authentic engagement you will receive via this method; and also if you're frustrated with apps/notifications/lack of focus etc, this feels like adding to all of those frustrations rather than helping.
IG can be a very exhausting place for artists and creatives, and whilst it can really help aid all sorts of things, it is also a very distracting thing, often taking us away from what we truly want to be doing, feeling the pressure to post more, and it can be especially unhelpful in terms of creating negativity around self-worth, value and comparison with others.
So, in general, I'd say keep trying to engage with musicians and artists via platforms which give you the best opportunity for something meaningful rather than fleeting.
When it comes to finding out new stuff - a lot of BBC shows are available on the BBC Sounds app worldwide (check out 'NightTracks' and 'Unclassified' for stuff in this area) alongside other online radio platforms like KEXP (Alex Ruder's Pacific Notions weekly show) and Soho Radio (Sofia Ilyas's monthly show).
There are still excellent blogs like Headphone Commute, Stationary Travels and A Closer Listen out there who are great at featuring new stuff in this genre. Bandcamp as a platform is always great - Bandcamp Daily, but also just the recommendations section on artists you may like (and that can be the case elsewhere too, but I think Bandcamp is much more likely to get good results for this). Signing up to mailing lists of labels you like can be good - Moderna Records, Bigo & Twigetti etc in this area would be good.
I hope that gives you some helpful ideas!
Yes it does, Sim! Thanks for all you do!