Hi All!
Here is your weekly dose of “5-Bullet Friday,” a list of what I’m enjoying or pondering… why not put on my monthly Spotify playlist in the background whilst you peruse?
podcast I’m playing on loop —
“Unique Contributions” by RELX. The episode with Dean Curtis is inspiring for its wide-ranging discussion & insights into the past 12 months of upheaval for industry, and an honest nominating of 2024 as the earliest we can reliably expect some of those (eg air travel) to return to anything like normal. High standard of interviewing (eg questions) and production aesthetic, which is unusual for a podcast from a FTSE100 company (most of the top performing podcast producers are indie); I’ll look forward to more of these.
a free & easy to use streaming app at last —
“OBS” open source kit. It actually works, and is actually Free, which is more than I can say for the many I’d been evaluating over the past year. Am almost all set now to start streaming live performances to YouTube; watch this space.
Spotify playlist I’m sharing —
“12 rules for life” on Spotify. The title is the only explicit link back to explain what inspired this. It’s an idea I’d had on the boil for a few weeks, after realising that there’s no musical complement to the book (except Akira The Don’s prosaic settings of voice recordings to chillwave beats). Additional to the playlist, I’m hoping to work up a 12-piece set of instrumental/orchestral reimagining of the chapter titles, since each seems fairly conducive to musical ideas. You can’t imagine how hard it was to find songs about “precision“ (Rule 10) or related concepts: it’s just not something musicians seem to write about! For a fuller discussion of this see my deep-dive post.
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tv I’m enjoying —
“Strike” from the BBC. I’m not usually one for crime/thriller but this is unpretentious and convincing, with cliffhangers that don’t feel contrived. It also features the White Horse at Uffington, one of the few sites I was able to visit in between lockdowns last year.
sheet music I’m finally getting around to appreciating —
“Method for double bass” by Giovanni Bottesini. One of my most played composers on the strength of nothing more than his melodies; they go so high you think you must surely be hearing a violin, then scoop down to scrape in the depths, hammering home some growly bass-friendly theme. Try his Elegy or Cadenza. Turns out his study/exercises are highly worthwhile too, and rather reminiscent of the full pieces with snatches of melody here & there that make you feel like you’re learning something that will contribute to someday getting the symphonies under your fingertips. I’m about twelve years late to this… better late than never.
Wikipedia editor shortcuts I’m using —
“ODI translation and cn abbreviation” available to all contributors. When citing a journal or other source, I’ve often spent a full minute pasting individual pieces of metadata (from the initials of each named author to the specific page numbers on which an article appears within a volume within an issue…!) but now I’ve realised you can just paste the ODI, and click the magnifying glass (estimated it’s saving me 10mins per week); meanwhile using {{cn}} instead of {{citation needed}} is a keystroke saver of note (estimated 1min saved per week). Seeing as the hours during which I make my daily Wikipedia contributions are some of my most valuable (very early, very energised, one of the first things done once the cat has been let out) this micro-hack was one of my most important insights of 2020.
music practice site I’m trying —
“Peghead nation” for all your stringed instrument needs. Tablature and notation for a vast number of folk/read tunes, and various paid/subscription tiers to tinker with to l you find the one that works for you.
book I’m enjoying —
“Station Eleven” by Emily St John Mandel. Makes the pandemic of 2020, and its fallout, look like a walk in the park.
And, as always, please give me feedback on Twitter. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Let me know! Just send a tweet to @olisteadman and put #5BulletFriday at the end so I can find it.
