A Lark Ascending

I absolutely loved 'The Sea' when I read it a few years back. I was on the west coast of Ireland at the time, so maybe that influenced me. I really liked his one based loosely round Anthony Blunt and the Cambridge spies too - 'The Untouchable' Just finished: Now starting:

That describes them perfectly. But it's a wonderfully off-centre bounce.

I appreciate how difficult it is to break away. I bought LPs from 1970 to the late 1980s, CDs from 1985 through to a few years back. It took a leap in the dark to see if I'd feel any loss by going to download totally (apart from things not available as download). I recall being nervous about it, not quite sure if I wasn't spending money on things I'd eventually buy on CD. It only took a year or so to come to the conclusion that I was happy with the download alone. Probably the biggest wrench was the packaging - until I realised that I didn't really need it. One thing that accelerated the move was the collapse of the record shop in the UK. It became increasingly hard in the mid-2000s to find anything beyond the most popular in provincial cities. I was buying more and more CDs via online retailers (including many from the US). Downloading was the logical step for me. I'm still one foot in the past though - I burn everything to disc and make a little sleeve that I stick in a plastic wallet. I still like the physical aspect of being able to take a specific recording down from the shelves and immediately see track list and musicians. Logically I should be past that; but somehow physical existence on the shelf reminds me what is there. I have a fear that I'd forget recording I have buried in an electronic storage system. But that may well change with time. As many have said, there is no right way. We all do what suits us at the time.

How much of a CD price came from pressing, packaging, distribution? Just one source...and I'm sure others will vary...suggests: Retailer: $5 (29.4%), [now the website] Record label: $4.92 (28.9%), Distributor: $2.40 (14.1%), Giveaways: $1.80 (10.6%), Duplication/ recording: $1.10 (5.8%), Artist royalty: 83 cents , Songwriter license: 60 cents (3.5%), Producer royalty: 27 cents (1.6%), Musicians union: 8 cents (0.4%). http://blog.collins.net.pr/2006/05/cd-costs-breakdown.html I imagine the costs I've highlighted in red are still there. Prices might be different in the States but when I gave up on CD the full price in the UK was £15. Bought from iTunes/Amazon its normally £7.99 (half the price) and through e-music often as little as £3.00. All I lose is the packaging - a sacrifice I learnt to make once I realised I only read liners once. Others will feel they lose audio quality but - apart from a few dodgy transfers in the early days - I can't tell any difference. And the dodgy transfers to mp3 are as nothing compared to the dreadful mastering to CD of many albums in the 80s (which fuelled the 'remastered' boom of the 90s+). There are preference/aesthetic arguments for CD over download; but the economic argument falls heavily to download for me. Not to mention that you can hear a recording or read about it and be listening to it ten minutes later!

I can't see why the existence of mp3 (or any other digital model) should prevent anyone enjoying the music they collected in other formats. There's a 78 r.p.m. thread on this site which shows people still enjoying that format (and hunting down discs) today. MP3s are not the saviour of music; nor are they the spawn of Satan. They are just a more convenient way of distributing music; in the process you lose something, just as the arrival of CD lost the high impact LP sleeve and the built in punctuation points provided by having to stop the music after 20 minutes and start again on side 2.

Brilliant!

I have my doubts about that ECM policy. If people can't find a legal mp3 they are more likely to go to torrent/blog world. I got an mp3 of this off Amazon last week. There's often a time delay in ECM's issues to download.

Absolutely. I don't detect any difference in the quality of my listening when I listen to an mp3 I've burnt to CD, listened to on an iPod or the same music played off a CD or LP (well, actually the quality of my listening is poorer with LP because I get irritated by the clicks and pops). The medium is not the message.

...or Sonny Rollins coda to 'To a Wild Rose' on 'The Cutting Edge'.

I was reading a book a while back that insisted this dated to the early 20thC when people gave up learning an instrument to experience music and started listening instead on the gramophone; became all too easy to let it float by without really understanding it. If that's the case then the shift to barbarism marked by the move from CD (which, it's worth remembering, was the marker for cultural apocalypse not that far back) is so small as to be insignificant. I understand the 'I prefer CD/LP/78/cylinder disc/player piano roll' argument. But the idea that somehow the replacement of one technology by another marks the end of civilisation?

Look what the rest of the world is missing! http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/7518695-pancake-day-in-london Forget the Olympics. Get on a plane NOW!

How the British party on this day!

I don't know about that. Suitable tracks for your exit? Any suggestions?

I thought the Barbara Thompson programme was excellent. Not your average music documentary - probably more about Parkinson's Disease than music. Wonderful scenes of just how hard she has fought and the incredible support from Jon Hiseman.

I only buy a CD if a download is not available. Does it make sense to buy CDs? In the same way that it makes perfect sense to go for a ride on a steam train at the weekend. Great fun, nice smell, warm, fuzzy nostalgia. But don't think they are coming back as the main means of rail transport.

In my experience Vesala is one of those performers who really benefits from listening to several of his recordings; each new one you listen to illuminates the previous ones. True of all performers, I know, but I found my first Vesala - OTTDOJ - a hard nut to crack until I listened to some other things. Has wife, Iro Haarla, is worth exploring to - currently recording for ECM.

Ah! It was Mosquito Dance! Getting my flying insects muddled.

I think the Ghost of Christmas to Come just told Rod he'd be making standards albums in 30 years!

I think that was the Giuffre album that I had in the late 70s - a double if I recall - that completely mystified me. I sold it at some point in the 80s. Would be intriguing to hear again given how much other music I've since listened to. Might make sense now.

Barry looks up for it... According to Robert Wyatt he was always up for a party but the others preferred to do crossword puzzles. She's got another chance in a couple of months.

Looking forward to that Ninesense (and the Osborne) - don't miss this from 1981-3. Two 40 minute pieces: The second is Beckett/Miller/Moholo.

I'm there too, Bill. Full hour, on at the right time! Though I suspect a wipe out when Radio 3 does its 'everyone wants to listen to Schubert for 24 hours a day' adventure in a few weeks. I often fantasise of seizing the BBC for a week and playing 7 days of non-stop Ellington, Coltrane or Anthony Braxton.

Thanks for those recent contributions - just what I hoped for. I listened to Carter's 1st and 4th last night (the Arditti set) and the 1st again this afternoon. A complete fog last night but today there were a few gaps in the mist - in particular a wonderful passage in the last couple of minutes of the second movement. Will keep returning to see what happens.

Watched the 'Arena' which was enjoyable, if a bit insubstantial. I suppose for TV you are confined by what clips you can get and this was very much centred round the celebrity studded 80th Birthday (and that bridge!). Threadbare on the historical context, the personal historical path (didn't get much beyond 'grew up in a neighbourhood surrounded by music, played Bop with Miles and Clifford Brown, did drugs, dropped out, played on a bridge') or why he is so revered. Too much 'homage to the jazz master' for my taste - Courtney Pine and Soweto Kinch paying court. But I suspect that's the nature of these documentaries - radio like Jazz File does the more studied thing better. Good to see him playing, though.

Not being funny here, but why do you consider it greater than other string quartet music of that era? Just interested as a way to getting into it.