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• Simon Hewitt Jones, Violinist

  English concert violinist. Asking essential questions about what's happening to music and the arts, and the role of the violin in contemporary world culture.

• Contact Me: T: +44 (0) 20 7060 0607 E: shj [at] courtlanemusic [dot] com W: www.courtlanemusic.com Instant: Message My iPhone

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Whilst in Boston, I’m staying with my Artistic Director from Al Kamandjati Camerata, Peter Sulski. He’s an ex-London Symphony violist (now a collaborative chamber musician) who is engaged in creating new community-based models for bringing international-quality music performances to specific areas. In his case, that’s three places: chamber societies here in Worcester MA, […]

Writing this from the library of the Juilliard School, who seem to have their own Conservatory Penguin. Nice.
I’m in New York briefly, to lay down the groundwork for some future projects, and then I’m relocating straight away to Berlin. I’ve been very fortunate to gain the support of the Leverhulme Trust, and so I’ll […]

Some Thoughts
The old guard is competitive.
The new order is collaborative.
Sure, it’s a vast generalization, but it is often true.
The fusty old professorcrank passes on his trade secrets to his favoured students. His folly? Scarcity = value. Back then, maybe. Not now. The real truth about his ’secret method’ of creating extra resonance for the staccato […]

I’ve a new role: Artistic Director of Music And The City. It starts on 17 April in London, and you’re invited!
MATC is a musical evening for amateur and professional musicians, inspired by the salon culture of 1920s Vienna. Think of it as a musical meeting point; an opportunity to explore, discuss and play music with […]

This is astonishing.

So, if a Robot could create an emotional response in a listener, regardless of whether it is experiencing emotion itself (which it isn’t, because it’s a robot), would that make it a musician?

Time always flies on these trips, and it’s impossible to get done everything you’d like to do. One of the themes I wanted to explore was the difference between Western and Arabic music, particularly from the point of view that Arabic music tends to be written in a more emotional style than the Western Classical […]

There was one of these seatback TV systems on the plane, and I watched a video where University of Nebraska students were firing questions at both Gates & Buffett during a special Q&A forum.

Amongst many interesting things, one student asked Bill Gates what he thought about the future direction of video game development. Gates […]

Time always flies on these trips, and it’s impossible to get done everything you’d like to do. One of the themes I wanted to explore was the difference between Western and Arabic music, particularly from the point of view that Arabic music tends to be written in a more emotional style than the Western Classical […]

One of the things that’s fascinating to me as a direct parallel between artistic and free market environments is the use of Creative Tension.

Take Banking. The banks trade off one another, forever heightening the peak of their work in order to stay competitive in a fast-developing arena. They bounce back and forth against […]

I found this scribbled in an old notebook. I don’t remember what inspired it, but I quite like it.
“Individual emotive response and quality of music do not necessarily have any correlation.
Commodity capitalism inevitably places a value on each ‘unit’ of recorded music. Perhaps by losing this through digitalization we will recognise the intangibility of value […]

Seth writes: “Commercials used to be a minute long, sometimes two. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of running two per minute, then four. Now there are radio ads that are less than three seconds long."
"It’s not an accident that things are moving faster and getting smaller. There’s just too much to choose […]

I saw this on someone’s Facebook profile and realized that it is also The Indulgence Of The Adequate.
I remember well in the past, getting bogged down thinking about how I could go about interpreting a piece, to the point that I never actually did it.
It’s a similar mistake to the idea that if your company […]

I meant to post this ages ago.
If you know anyone who is even slightly connected to how the music industry works, then please make sure they have read this!
http://www.gerdleonhard.net/2007/07/gerd-leonhards-.html
It is about the only realistic and sustainable model of distributing music that will benefit everyone in the future.
A failure to adopt a model like this […]

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=120396
A Manchester University computer scientist and singer wants to use cutting-edge technology to create Europe’s first successful Internet choir.
Of course, part of the joy of an event is in being there. But this is nonetheless a significant possibility. I for one would jump at the chance to be able to do some rehearsals virtually. Of […]

The Youtube generation is currently being turned into a vast network of internet-bound vegetables. I know of people who shut themselves away at 8 in the evening, and watch Youtube videos for five or six hours until they fall asleep, exhausted. The addiction to infinite media has taken hold, but where it is constrained by […]

Why? Well, it’s all about the relationship of creativity and post-industrialism.
Throughout the globe, there’s a hierarchy in education. At the top, Maths and Languages (and sometimes Sciences). After that, Humanities. And at the bottom of the scale of priority, the Arts.
Over here in the UK, there’s been a lot of intelligent comment about the death […]

This analysis of Chicago Symphony’s current dilemma expresses well the ever-evolving qualities now needed in music leaders around the world.
“Serious musicians — including the 100-plus members of the CSO — know that finding a new music director for one of the world’s top orchestras is not comparable to finding a new coach for a sports […]

A must-read article by Steve Jobs:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
Digital rights are the things stopping you from downloading music from iTunes and then sharing it. If you buy my new MP3 from iTunes, you can transfer it to your iPod, but if you own another company’s digital music player then you can’t.
What’s notable about this article is that Apple […]