Category: Family and Musings

Who’s number 1? Plus an infographic

I just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out who is the number 1 streaming artist on Spotify. (FYI it’s Justin Bieber). Spotify doesn’t make it very easy to find this out – I ended up getting the figure from Wikipedia. This search led me to the below chart showing how the music industry is making money again through streaming. (link)

What these figures point to is a very complex formula for ever declaring an album as “Number 1”. Gone are the straightforward days of measuring LPs sold. It is a weighted calculation, subject to bias and change over time.

Spotify itself is not making much money. For now the Company is beholden to the record companies (link) for their back catalogues (and to a lesser extent, their A&R and recording infrastructure). But one day perhaps it will break free from this like Netflix has from Hollywood.

Waste, tension, and music

The garden waste piles up each week in the corner of the property. Each time the gardener cuts the grass, sweeps up the leaves, or cuts down a branch he puts the waste into bags, and these bags pile up until a truck is organized to cart it off for composting. As the owner of the property this system can stress me out. Watching the relentless growing piles of waste sometimes feels like one of those awkward “white lie” situations – you know the one – you’ve told a little lie or made a transgression which is never confessed. The lie gets bigger and bigger, worse and worse until there is inevitably a release. Either you and your lie are found out, or you tell the truth. The pickup truck taking the waste away feels like eventually telling the truth.

Great music is just like my home’s waste management system. When a song is well written, a tension builds for the listener. The verse builds up to the chorus. The verse places bags of musical notes and dead ends in the corner of the listener’s head. Repeated phrases and hooks. A story in need of some resolution. Eventually the tension is too great and a switch to the chorus is like a clearing out of all the accumulated rubbish. The verse is the lie and the chorus is the truth.

This is most obvious for me in blues music. Think of Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man”. The verse is simple and repetitive to the point of ridicule. The harmonica’s five notes over and over moaning and groaning that Something huge is coming. Trust me he’s coming. Gypsy woman told my momma. Muddy is coming. Just now……Wait for it. It’s almost unbearable until Muddy grants us sweet relief with “But you know I’m here!” The chorus plays and all the rubbish in our mind is cleared away. Then the cycle starts again with verse 2. What a song.

Ants

If you poke an ant’s nest and pierce the shell, all of the soldier ants come pouring out to see what is happening and protect the nest, while the worker ants stream to the problem area to fix the breach.

Are you the one poking the nest? Or the soldier? Or the worker?

Rediscovered Kickstarter Project

I received a reminder from my own website. Kind of ‘meta’ and Sci-Fi in its own right no? But the reminder was for an old post (link) about a Kickstarter campaign. This reminded me of the prize I got for backing the project – Like so many things – I downloaded the anthology and never read it.

I now have it lined up in my queue after ‘Foundation’.

Here’s to machines talking to people, reminding them of their laziness. And here’s to reading Sci-Fi.

Mostly to reading Sci-Fi.

Foundation

I’ve started reading Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’.

Well, sort of. I’ve actually started listening to it on audible. It’s great and very entertaining. I can see echoes of the story in more recent fiction.

Audible as a way to consume books is a revelation to me. It will help me to work my way through this great sci-fi list: link

Imagine a city which covers a whole planet…

Power cuts

Picture my panic. It is Saturday evening, the kids are all asleep after a hard day without their mother, who’s away this weekend. Just when I thought I could relax and stream some music, the power went out. Got to love Eskom and African power utilities.

So I went into scramble mode…my phone still had battery, but no data left to download or stream anything. Dammit.

My laptop battery is dead. I was beginning to lose hope, and then I spotted the iPad.

A quick startup showed full batteries. Now was there any music? Only one album downloaded: Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’

That’ll do pig….that’ll do. My brain is heaving a sigh of relief as Thom Yorke groans in my ears.

On a side note, how does this band get away with such ridiculous music? It strikes me they are impossible to cover….They are the only band that could ever play these arrangements and sound any good.

But sound good they do!

Happy Saturday chimps.

Listening with children

This year is still young, but I’ve already achieved one of my life goals/resolutions. I’ve started a ritual of sorts with my 2 year old daughter. We listen to the hifi together. And she loves it!

I play cds with her. We pick a nice album based on the artwork, and I pick a nice track. Af after one song we switch albums. In one session we covered Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Elvis, Dylan, and a few others. She now asks for “music with daddy”. My life is complete 😂

The fun for her seems to be time alone with me. She enjoys picking the cds and then deciding if she likes the song or not.

I always point out the obvious sounds and instruments to her (drums, guitar, singing).

We spin around in my office chair at fun parts of the songs.

It is so much fun, and way more successful than I thought it would be.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Social media and follower interaction

Is there any point in keeping your social media accounts open?

The cost of interacting is high in terms of attention and time spent. Intense interaction can add to your brand and your followers’ loyalty, but it can also be pure distraction from doing any work that is meaningful.

So we need to be strategic about where we decide to spend our time.

I dislike the combative nature of Twitter. I broadcast for the chimpwithcans account, but don’t take part.

I have a love hate relationship with Instagram. It is the best designed product, but it can be a massive distraction.

I’m too old to know anything about Tiktok, or Snapchat.

I prefer to write than to take pictures or make videos. An English major at university, I enjoy longer forms of expression. Hence the blog. And hence the use of the word “hence”. Ha.

Where do you spend your time and why?

Information packaged

In this internet age, access to information and data is not necessarily a competitive advantage. Everyone has google. Everyone has more data than they know what to do with. This includes your clients.

The trick then when dealing with clients and data is to package it properly. Package it into something as specific as possible.

If the target client needs scientific proof to make a decision, send them scientific papers.

If they are driven by money, send them as many financial statements and ratios as possible to back up your sale.

If they identify with emotion and passion, possibly you need to package your information in the form of a romantic story.

It is a matter of speaking the right language to achieve your goal with a client.

We all have a language we like to speak and will pay money and attention for. What is yours?