Berklee Blogs

Berklee College Of Music are hosting a number of faculty blogs. For those of you are musicians and music producers, it’s a great resource. For those of you working in academia, it’s a great example of how to do faculty blogs really, really well.

Here’s a quick list of outstanding posts to check out,

Lyric Brainstorming Tools – Andrea Stople
Producing a Convincing Drum Track – Erik Hawkins
Lee Konitz, Lennie Tristano, and what they can mean to your playing – Rick Peckham
Seriously, do you really want to be signed to a major? – Michael King
Nokia Predicts the Future of Entertainment – Dave Kusek

In fact the last post is an absolute blockbuster!

“The study, entitled ‚ÄòA Glimpse of the Next Episode‚Äô, carried out by The Future Laboratory, interviewed trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles signposting emerging entertainment trends.

‚ÄúFrom our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call ‚ÄòCircular‚Äô. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups – a form of collaborative social media,‚Äù said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia.”

and,

“As part of the research they identified four key driving trends; Immersive Living; Geek Culture; G Tech and Localism. As these trends become more mainstream, they predict that they will have a collaborative, creative effect on the way people consume entertainment and, we predict, will lead to the Circular Entertainment phenomenon.

Immersive Living
Immersive Living is the rise of lifestyles which blur the reality of being on and offline. Entertainment will no longer be segmented; people can access and create it wherever they are.

Geek Culture
This triumph marks a shift as consumers become hungry for more sophisticated entertainment. Geek Culture rises, consumers will want to be recognized and rewarded – the boundaries between being commercial and creative will blur.

G Tech
G Tech is an existing social force in Asia that will change the way entertainment will look. Forget pink and sparkly, it is about the feminization of technology that is currently underway. Entertainment will be more collaborative, democratic, emotional and customized Рall of which are ‘female’ traits.

Localism
The report uncovered a locally-minded sprit emerging in entertainment consumption and Localism will become a key theme of future entertainment. Consumers will take pride in seeking out the local and home-grown.”

This is critical stuff for people thinking about careers in music and for a college that aims to train people for such careers. Also, notice what is going here – this critical thinking is happening *in public.* The ideas and the sources that are prompting the ideas are not all firewalled inside the institution.

Moreover, as an Alumni of their online programmes, it keeps me in touch (I’ve taken courses with three of the five faculty highlighted above). It’s quite revealing for me to compare this with other insitutions where I invested far more of myself, yet within a few years felt largely disconnected.

[tags] Berklee [/tags]