Digital Pill – working musicians talk about their lives

Tim Nikolsky has created the Australian Jazz Real Book – dedicated to the preservation and distribution of Australian Jazz in both digital and print.

The aim is to make  Australian jazz available to the next generation of jazz musicians so that (as the late Graeme Bell put it) “to prevent it from sinking into the waters of invisibility”. The book is also designed for practising and performing musicians, educators and curriculum designers with the opportunity to integrate Australian jazz into music curricula. The idea of it is to create a resource that students can turn to for repertoire that is uniquely Australian; containing tunes that are ‘gig-ready’ and also representative of the Australian Jazz Sound.”

Visit the website  australianjazzrealbook.com

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The hit counter just clicked over to 500,013 so I figure its time to say thanks and talk about what comes next. Its interesting to note that half of that traffic has come from the sax lessons on the site. So firstly I’d like to say THERE ARE MORE coming, starting with a few I’ve been planning and I’m hoping to post next week but also, there are a few other musos who have agreed to post a lesson.

You can write to my new side project HEADS IN THE CLOUD you’ll find it in the side bar under the Lessons videos. If you have any stories about how the music industry (and I use that term lightly) has its head buried in the past in an age when the future is bearing down on us at 500,013 hits per second

Once the traffic on this site started to flow I branched out into presenting some music that I loved and kept trying to up the quality of the videos. This culminated in a personal favourite at the Jazz Fringe that involves new composition, a superb aerialist and brilliant sound recording as well as my videoing skills. Its always better to work with a team of talented people.

Thanks to Victoria Rocks who have been my major sponsor for a couple of years. I wasn’t successful in securing that funding for the coming 12 months which means I am busy working the phones to find support for Digital Pill and I have a couple of Sponsors helping out – DiDonato Partners and the new side project for Maribyrnong City Council called HEADS IN THE CLOUD. Check out the teaser for that show here.

Its a delicate balancing act – following my passion for music and online video – and finding the time and money to do it.

Thanks

Leo

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I’m off on my annual trip to India to study yoga and recharge for a BIG year in 2011. I’ll be checking email every day, don’t go thinking I’ve disappeared, its the 21st century. Back on board 2nd week of January.

Thanks to the incredible team here at Digital Pill
- Phil Greenwood for all the tech support and endless advice on how to improve my photographic skills
- Kim Lynch for the INCREDIBLE job he did on the animated logo this year
- Arts Victoria for their continuing support

and of course all the musicians who have given up their time, ideas and music to the site

Leo

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A growing trend in music is house concerts. If you have a reasonably sized area in your home you can have some very fine musicians come and play at your house. Today I set up InHouseArts on Facebook. The impetus has come out of the need for independent arts to find a place in the community without the rigmarole of dealing with venues, arts bodies, publicists and insurance brokers. Over time I’ll set up the website that describes exactly how you can hold a gathering like this at home, in the meantime if you wish you can offer support on Facebook while I raise funds to pay for someone to build the site. Here’s a brief description of how to set up a concert in the home.

Do you mean like at a party ?

Sort of. We all play many, many gigs at people’s houses when they are having a party and the host wants a party band. However a House Concert is a slightly different way to have music in your home. Its for music lovers who either may be over the live venue scene or perhaps just like music in its most direct, intimate and nuanced form – LIVE and in the home, just like the musos play it in their own homes. A host who has a large room and a large social circle, puts on a gig in their own home, their friends each bring a chair, perhaps a plate of food and the friends pay for the musicians. People sit and listen to a couple of sets of the band in concert and socialise before, in between the sets and then after the show. Intense listening is mixed with social interactivity and community building.

How do the musicians get paid ?

Great musicians certainly do need to be paid but it doesn’t need to all come out of the host’s pocket. It works best for people who have a network of friends that can all pay a ticket price and perhaps bring a plate. The host either can pay for the performance, organise their friends to chip in or a mixture of both.

Where are the pictures ?

Fancy photos for this page are coming. In the meantime, if you love music read on.

Sounds like a bit of work ?

A house concert is a social and cultural event at a community level. If you are the host you probably will have a bit to do but the site I am building will help with advice and tips about how it all works. If you like to bring people together and love music there are many associated benefits – the experience on the day, the energy it brings into and leaves in your home and of course the opportunity to then encourage friends to stage a house concert (having had you turn). For the musicians the benefits are many – proper pay, a listening audience and not having to deal with the attitude that is all too often associated with working in venues.

What’s the actual cost ?

That depends on the band. A five piece band costs more than a duo, very established bands cost more that projects that are getting started. The details will all be explained on the new website

Where do I go from here ?

Facebook

Twitter

inhousearts.com

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As part of my constant striving for technical excellence on the coalface of the ever changing digital learning curve, I am now recording sound separately. This presents me with the opportunity to mix the sound in my studio and general tweak the levels at leisure.
This video of Helen Mountfort represents my first effort at post sync sound.
In my mind, it’s a vast improvement.

The site is now focussing on 3 main areas:
1. Lessons which are VERY popular
2. Recordings of musician’s performances in their own homes
3. Digital Pill LIVE streaming on the second Monday of every month
(see the countdown clock in the sidebar for the timing of the next show)
The LIVE show is where the learning curve is the steepest and the technology is moving fastest. Slowly I am building a crew around me for this important work and I have an incredible line up for October’s LIVE show. Stay tuned . . .

Leo

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Above is the new animated logo for the digitalpill.tv LIVE streaming show that begins regular broadcasts this Monday from the Dog Theatre (6.30pm Mon Aug 9th Melbourne time). For people in other timezones, check out the countdown clock in the sidebar (on the right), it lets you know exactly when the next live show goes to air. At that time you can use the + LIVE STREAM + option in the top menu above to view the broadcast.

If you want to find out a little more about the show watch the video below.

For our first show I will be talking to Rebecca Barnard about her work and her life in music.

Don’t worry . . . starting the live show doesn’t mean we will stop posting lessons, performances and ideas from Melbourne musos as we have been for a couple of years now.

Special thanks to Kim Lynch for his great work on the logo.

Leo

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Digital Pill has received funding from ARTS VICTORIA – Victoria Rocks for the 10/11 year. Its greatly appreciated.

For now I’m working with the illustrator/graphic artist Kim Lynch to create a new look for the videos and also investigating the live streaming service make.tv to establish a monthly live forum about the music scene. So this year there will be regular live streaming. Special thanks to Phil Greenwood for all of his advice and assistance on tech and lighting in the past year. And of course thanks to all the musos who have offered their ideas and performances and to all the subscribers.

We’ll be continuing to post a video about once a fortnight.

Incidently we are still looking for further backing so we can get to the point where we can post once a week.

Thanks

Leo

This is a perfect time to offer any suggestions, if you have them.

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It took 14 months for the first 100k hits and only half that time to reach 200,000 hits for Digital Pill. Well that’s progress. So I am upping the video production yet again and currently awaiting delivery of a Canon 550d to do most of the work of the visuals for the site. The videos are about to become a LOT clearer with that blurred background look that everybody loves. Check out my first effort with the Canon here

I put up a couple of videos without telling the subscribers about them (I didn’t want to bother you too often). But you may like to now have a look at Anthony Schulz on the accordion and Leo Dale (me) on the alto flute.

Of those 200,000 hits an amazing 50,000+ came from one incredible video by Dean Hilson – The stratospheric sax gliss. To celebrate the milestone Dean is coming back into the studio to shoot his second video for Digital Pill, stay tuned.

Also worth noting is the great video from Doug DeVries – the Challenge, where he challenges you to learn some chords to accompany him and then to post a video response of yourself doing it. Top marks to Kev who has done an excellent job of the Challenge (have a look at him doing it, below Doug’s video) and he was the first to win THE PRIZE.

I have had tremendous feedback from all the musos for the video – So what do you do for a crust? And I will be following up with some other videos along those lines in the coming months

On a planetary note – Sure the music is cool and hopefully that just about balances out the heat, that the video server must be producing just to keep this site going.

Leo

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One of the first videos to go up on Digital Pill just passed the 50,000 hit mark. If you are a sax player go and check it out and see what the fuss is about. Dean Hilson’s stratospheric sax gliss

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