Category: Culture

Posted on

Xmas TV

There used to be a time when tv at Christmas time was a highly anticipated event. Yes, you have a huge captive audience. In the 1960s and maybe 70s there were three channels (2 x BBC plus ITV) and audiences would be millions throughout the day.

Nowadays, where there are so many channels stuck in a computer-programmed rut of Wheeler Dealers, Repair Shop, Judge Judy and so on, even the main channels find it hard to present anything new or thrilling.

In the olden days (sorry) there were things the nation looked forward to. Here are a few random reminiscences:

Pages: 1 2 3 4
Posted on

Andy Edwards

Andy Edwards is a rock and jazz drummer and music educator. He has worked with many well-known bands and singers.

In recent years he has devoted a lot of time to his YouTube channel on these musical subjects (well, usually).

There are many new videos each week. They can be long, an hour or more, and a bit rambling. Mostly they are subjective, things like “The 10 most overrated albums” or “The 10 worst gigs I ever saw”.

Some are interesting for us, some not. Even for the ones we are interested in we do sometimes skip over sections, but you may enjoy them more.

One interesting one from recent times is this:

We weren’t too surprised at the list. There were people we might expect who were missing but may well have been in a top 20.

Posted on

Singing

We wanted to commend this YouTube channel to you, if you are interested in music: https://www.youtube.com/@wingsofpegasus

Fil is a musician and a music teacher.

In the past he has looked at music and singers especially, analysed their styles and voices and tried to say what makes them special.

More recently, he has been looking at examples where technology is being used to ‘pitch correct’ singing, even at live events, and other techniques that you might reckon were cheating (eg miming).

The videos all follow a similar style. It’s not surprising that performers are using technology to make them sound ‘better’ singers. What is surprising is the actual scale of it (and Fil must surely only be coving a tiny percentage) and some of the big and famous names. And some performances have been ‘fixed’ even though the singers are long gone.