The True State of Music

A few weeks ago I was browsing the musicians section on Craigslist when I happened to find Thomas Penders advertising for piano students and looking for work scoring music for film. Wow. Incredible talent. He is a classically trained composer and pianist from Holland. I spent an hour going through the pieces he has posted, both his own works and those of classical composers. His own works include preludes, fantasies, etudes, sonatas and concertos for piano and cello. Other works include chamber music, choral and orchestral pieces. The orchestral pieces are played using high end synthesizers and samplers so the sounds are sometimes a bit funky, but the music is fantastic. I got in touch via e-mail to express my appreciation for his work, and also to talk to him about how to present himself via the Internet. I am not an expert on the Internet (if I was, everyone would be reading my blog and buying my CD) but I do understand that how you present yourself is as important as your music. His website looks like it was created by someone in grade school. (Sorry Thomas. No offense intended to whoever did the work) The music however shines through. I intend to help him in any way that I can to get his music heard.

As I said at the beginning of the post I found him on Craigslist. I also like to follow the posts I find there by musicians complaining about playing in cover bands or playing their own music and having a hard time surviving or complaining about club owners that don't want to pay them for playing, or crying about this or that blah blah blah. I will sometimes respond by reminding them that the greatest musician in the history of Western Civilization (Mozart in my opinion) died a pauper and was buried in an un-marked grave. As I look at the current state of music in the world I realize that things haven't changed that much. The air waves are flooded with crap, great artists do TV commercials (Bob Dylan doing an ad for Victoria's Secret? What?) extraordinarily talented musicians live in obscurity. I know it's always been this way, but it really does seem to be worse these days. Rolling Stone ( a great magazine for political writing ) fills its' pages with articles on new bands that nobody will remember by the next issue. I understand that it is about selling CDs. It is also about sameness. Comparing one band I've never heard of to two other bands I've never heard of. Don't get me wrong, there are some talented people that make it. I finally heard some stuff by Amy Winehouse. Great voice and song writing. I figure she has a year or two before she overdoses on drugs, alcohol or both. In the mean time, God Bess You Thomas Penders.