Facetime for video communication with dad

One of my top missions on this trip to Taiwan was to get my 82-year old father hooked on iPad, more specifically Facetime. He’s already familiar with Youtube. Facetime is even better — he would then be able to watch performances live.

Facetime is a free application for the iPad, iPhone, and iMac computers. It’s a free, bilateral video communication over the Internet. In some ways, it’s better than Skype video.

The iPad presents a disruptive technology I had hoped he would embrace, just like the way my sister had. When I arrived at his home a few days ago, he pulled out the iPad carefully from a black case and asked me what he was supposed to do with it.

My brother had bought it last October from the Apple store near my dad’s condo but didn’t have enough time to “train” him how to make the most of the iPad and its applications.

My father was still switching on his old desk-top (PC) computer, Internet modem, and e-mail to communicate with us.

To use Facetime, you must have someone at the other end available to be contacted. Neither my brother nor my sister have their iPads connected and ready to roll at all times. After a few futile attempts, it’s no wonder you’d give up.

After simulating a live Facetime session from different rooms in his home, I now gave him an assignment.

“Wake me up tomorrow morning with Facetime,” I said. “Just leave your wifi on. Leave your iPad on — let it charge overnight. I will do the same.”

“What time should I call you?” he asked.

“Whenever you wake up. Just press the button to turn on the iPad and click on the Facetime icon. Do you remember how to look for me?”

We tried it a few times.

We would need to practice with my sister and brother next. This would not replace e-mail but it’s better than the telephone, for he is getting hard of hearing.

Getting close to 94,000

Whenever the total number of visitors inches towards the next notch of 1,000, I feel an urge to write a blog post.

Somehow, knowing that I can influence my blog statistics gives me a sense of urgency and power.

But the visitors that arrive at the Concertblog are not necessarily lured by the latest blog post. There is a time lag. Search engines drive the traffic here.

Originally this blog was intended to chart the adventures of our piano guitar duo as we travel and perform in Europe, USA, and Asia.

Except, we are now on sabbatical.

Robert is pursuing his doctorate in the musical arts (DMA, for short) at the New England Conservatory in Massachusetts. I am teaching piano and running a electric vehicle project in Hawaii. We don’t get to perform or rehearse together.

You can find our music online in video format (youtube) and discography.

Below is probably one of our earliest rehearsals captured on video — in Ealing, London, 2003.

Concert promotion by other media: Ebb & Flow Arts in Maui, Hawaii

Once upon a time, the concert was the talk of town. It’s the end result of all things. But nowadays there is too much competition for your attention — to0 many other things you can be doing, including staying at home and watching TV. To get people to come to a concert, you’d have to promote it.

Identify a concert’s unique selling points. Below is a photo of something quite rare: 4 pianists sitting at four grand pianos. It would catch anybody’s eye. This appeared in a free weekly paper that gets published on Thursdays — and just in time, too — the Thursday before the Saturday concert.

Pianists at rehearsal. Photo credit: Klazine Pollock

How to attract people to come to a concert? Mention the composers and repertoire, particularly if they are interesting and connects. In this case, there’s the premiere of a new piece written by a composer based in Honolulu, Thomas Osborne, who also teaches at University of Hawaii at Manoa. The date of the concert, 14th July 2012, also coincides with Bastille Day, celebrating French independence, hence a concert of music by French composers, including Darius Milhaud’s Paris.

Appeal to different audiences, including those who have access to television. The following 10 minute video clip was aired twice a day, every single day in the week of the concert on Channel 55, the 24/7 cable TV of University of Hawaii Maui College (UHMC).

Reach audiences via different avenues and media. On the Wednesday before the Piano Synergy concert, the following 25 minute clip was aired on local radio.

Kaio Radio: Ebb & Flow Arts (audio clip)

Besides local paper, TV, and radio promotions, there were also color posters, postcards, and local newspaper listings mentioning the forthcoming concerts.

What can we learn from this? While the musicians are busy practising, the concert organizer (producer) is busy letting as many people know about the concert as possible. These “previews” are important to help potential audience decide and anticipate. Here is a blog post anticipating the event.

It’s simply not enough to tell someone to come to a concert. It needs to reach all audiences in more than one way. Before doing so, one needs to think through what appeals, what attracts, what is relevant.

Rehearsals and work-in-progress as previews (trailers)

Watching a rehearsal of a choir or the behind-the-scenes of a film production makes me want to go see the real thing (when it’s ready). Like watching a chef prepare a meal, I start to get hungry.

Not the concert itself, Utrecht Conservatory June 2008. Photo: F. vd Meer

Twitter led me to watch the work-in-progress of The Hobbit which will come out next here. The youtube video is not short by any means, but you grow to love the people working on the set and film.

On Facebook, I played a video of the rehearsal of the 88-member student choir of the New England Conservatory. So much goes on in a rehearsal that is not obvious. For the bystander like myself, I see beauty that is being created. I am reminded of my days as a conservatory student, singing in two choirs per year to improve my solfege. For others, it’s the awe of the director — how he manages to get the choir to produce an impressive sound.

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam offers free lunch concerts each Wednesday. I remember queuing 45 minutes before one such event, shoulder to shoulder in the reception area, standing like sardines in anticipation of a 45 minute concert. When the doors finally opened about 10 minutes before the concert, we rushed in and exclaimed a unison “wow!”  It was the stendhalismo effect of arriving at a historically important place, feeling the special feng shui and grandiose atmosphere, and all of that we normally don’t get to experience in daily life. Once we sat down, I realized that it was just a rehearsal. Not even a dress rehearsal. But it was the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. They were rehearsing a Brahms violin concerto. All musicians were informally dressed, despite being on stage and in front of a full-house of eager listeners. We fell silent when the conductor raised his stick. I closed my eyes. This could easily be the concert itself. The conductor brought the violinist into his solo. After leading the orchestra to join him in a mesmerizing passage, he stopped at a beautiful chord. I opened my eyes to another unison sigh from the audience — an “Ah!”

The free lunch rehearsal concert ended 15 minutes earlier than I had expected. Yet we all felt satisfied — as though we’ve had our lunch.

That was a live trailer of the concert that evening.

All in all, I’d say that rehearsals, work in progress, behind the scenes and pre-production all lead us to anticipate. When we anticipate, we expect. It makes us look forward to the real thing.

Quest for music: Peter Cottontail for Easter

In preparation for Easter Sunday Lunch Concert on 24th April 2011, I asked the organizers for requests.

“Nice relaxing music, nothing too religious, maybe throw in Peter Cotton Tail Hoppin’ Down the Bunny Trail just for the fun of it!”

I have never heard of this song, much less know of any Easter songs. I asked a colleague if he has heard of it. The American father of four started humming the tune. Could it be a song that kids in the USA grow up with? A tradition even?

In my years of living in London and the Netherlands, this occasion is generally given to orchestras and choirs to perform Bach’s St John’s Passion or the Easter Oratorio or the Mass in B Minor. Usually at Easter, all the violinists I know are hired to play in orchestras. The opera Cavalleria Rusticana takes place on Easter Sunday. What else happens on Easter besides looking for painted eggs?

I googled “Peter CottonTail” and discovered a wealth of information on its creator, its history, the TV series,  a new movie, cartoons, and music. Peter Cottontail is the quintessential Easter Bunny. There are even articles on giving rabbits as an Easter gift! And he turns 40 years old this year.

But where is the sheet music for this song? How am I supposed to play it this Sunday in Kihei?

I went to the local public library. I flipped through a dozen songbooks. No sign of Peter Cottontail.

The sheet music is only available by purchase. Given the short lead time to Easter Sunday, I decided that the best thing to do is to transcribe from the audio version of this song — from Youtube.

Bekkers interview in Davis, California

After an early Thanksgiving dinner, the first of three in a 24-hour period, our host Rachel interviewed Robert Bekkers regarding the Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo America tour.

Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo America Tour 2010

• 18 October 2010: Utrecht – Amsterdam Schiphol – London Heathrow – Boston Logan Airport
• 20 Oct 2010: JP Concerts, St John’s Episcopal Church, Jamaica Plain, Boston
• 21 Oct 2010: house concert, Newton, MA
• 22 Oct 2010:  house concert, Hampton, CT
• 23 Oct 2010: concert in health centre, Dayville, CT
• 26 Oct 2010: house concert, Shelburne Falls, MA
• 2 Nov 2010: concert, Duke University, Durham, NC
• 4 Nov 2010: concert, Glendale Community College, AZ
• 5 Nov 2010: concert & discussions, Paradise Valley Community College, Phoenix, AZ
• 5 Nov 2010: concert, Arizona State University
• 5 Nov 2010: concert & discussion panel, Spirit of the Senses, Phoenix, AZ
• 6 Nov 2010: private house concert, Houston, TX: photos Anne Ku and Robert Bekkers
• 10 Nov 2010: solo guitar performance, opening art exhibition, 3 Allen Centre, Houston, TX
• 12 Nov 2010: radio interview, KPFT, Houston, TX
• 12 Nov 2010: free performance, MD Andersen Cancer Clinic, Houston, TX
• 12 Nov 2010: recording of special edition Front Row radio programme, KUHF, Houston, TX
• 12 Nov 2010: solo guitar house concert, Houston, TX
• 13 Nov 2010: solo guitar performance, The Artery, Houston, TX
• 14 Nov 2010: house concert, Houston, TX
• 16 Nov 2010: house concert, Denver, CO
• 20 Nov 2010: loft apartment concert, San Francisco, CA
• 21 Nov 2010: solo guitar performance, Sacramento Guitar Society, Sacramento, CA
• 21 Nov 2010: house concert, Carmichael, CA
• 25 Nov 2010: Sacramento – Honolulu – Maui

“So how does it feel to be at the end of your tour?” asked Rachel.

Bekkers Duo America Tour: no agents

The only regret I have in planning this concert tour is not including enough slack to sightsee. It has been solid work: practising, rehearsing, performing, networking, and traveling. We specifically tell our friends that this is not a vacation. Our goal is to break even and survive as classical musicians. So far we have not been disappointed. However, it has taken a lot of work to make it happen.

Over a year ago in Den Bosch, a city south of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, I had asked the director of a vocal competition what it took to go on an international tour as a performing musician. She replied, “Get an agent.”

I did not believe her. Getting an agent is catch-22. You have to be good enough for an agent to want you. And to be good enough, you need an agent. Could we prove otherwise?

I decided to do it ourselves. Instead of hiring an agent to help us plan a concert tour of the USA, I figured out what agents did. Booking concerts requires finding venues and concert producers. The established ones are those that everyone else knows about and compete for. Competition means long lead times. We did not have time. We had six months to use our US visas before they would expire worthless.

Where would we start? What happens first — book the plane tickets before the fares go up or get a concert first?

Apply for funding? That is wishful thinking. We did not have enough time.

As I reflect back, I am amazed that we managed to give more than a dozen concerts as a duo and several as soloists.

On the 33rd day of our tour, we finally gave in. We decided to treat ourselves to an afternoon of sightseeing in San Francisco. The weather was not so conducive — it hovered in the 40′s (Fahrenheit) – barely 10 degrees Celsius with rain and grey skies. On the F tram from Market Street and Civic Center to the Fisherman’s Wharf, we decided to interview each other.

Selected videos of Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo

Many years ago, my friend Stuart told me that we should make videos of our performances. Back in those days, few people had video cameras. The output from those cameras was not in a form we could easily use. Technology has exploded by leaps and bounds since then.

Today I can make a short video with my mobile telephone. It’s good enough for youtube and fast enough for blog readers. I use bluetooth technology to upload to youtube and embed it into a blog post. Simple. Fast.

Because it’s so simple and fast, we have now videos of solo guitar and solo piano performances in different settings, but still not enough of our duo performances. Why not? We need a third person to make the videos.

Here is a new page on our Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo website of selected videos of our duo and trio performances in rehearsal, master class, and live in concert. http://www.pianoguitar.com/video/

Bach’s Badinerie is one of our earliest videos, a home video from August 2007 that has received more than 2,000 viewings. We play a lot better and faster now. We should replace it with a new one. But we’ll need someone to video us playing it!

Chicken A La Carte

Notice the background music, from drumming and other percussive rhythms to melody and song. Let me know what you think.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

I read an email containing the link to this movie from a friend I caught up with recently. She wrote, “This is a short film about world hunger which brought me to tears.”

Audio video to explain economics to an audience

After writing about the cultural economics of music tonight in “Just in time collaboration with composers and sound engineers,” I came across a tweet about online video from The Economist.

How long have these audio video presentations been available on the Economist website? How long have I been missing out?

The topics range from the economies of various countries to climate change and world population. I love the moving graphs and the clear explanations. Such video presentations make otherwise tedious reading interesting and bearable — and even entertaining.

There is a lot of good stuff in academic literature. But a lot of it is wrapped in passive tense, lost in long and winding sentences with vocabulary not in your average dictionary. I have read volumes of scholarly journals only with the help of strong coffee and tight deadlines. I have been to musicology seminars where the presenter reads from a sheet of paper on a topic that had lured a full house. The reading put us to sleep.

There is an audience. Engage them!

Do everything you can to reach the audience!

Even the Economist is trying new ways to get the message across. These “talking charts” are music to the readers’ ears.

As musicians, we cannot rely on our music to do the work. We have to establish a rapport with our audiences. The music doesn’t sell itself. We do.

Audience at Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo concert in Vestry Hall, London 30 May 2003