What Times we live in! ...musings on the art of communication! .
- Tim Knight Music
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
On of the great advantages of the present day world is the way 'connecting' with each other has become so much easier.
I remember when planning my choirs first trip to America, speaking to a travel company on the phone, there was always the inevitable delay before the other party replied, in fact that and the cost of the whole call makes me wonder, thinking back, how we ever got anything done.
These days, a piece of music can be written, emailed through the ether as a PDF and an organist in another country may download, play and record it on a Hauptwerk instrument and like a 'next day delivery' it can appear on You Tube the following morning, ( in the case of the wonderful organist from the Netherlands , Rien Schalkwijk, the same day!
See how the paragraph above has words we take for granted, PDF, Download, emailed, Hauptwerk, You Tube) when I started out as a composer and conductor over 35 years ago, these words and what they represent were only in the minds of people creating Star Trek!
But of course at the heart of all this technology are people, and at Tim Knight Music we have reason to be very grateful for many people, Organists such as Rien, James Flores, Vidas Pinkevicius, Steven Maxson, Jeremiah Martin, Alejandro Consolacion and others regularly play and record our music, (and these fine people come from Australia, Lithuania, Manilla, America, The Netherlands and here at home) and we have choirs that sing and record our music, all of which helps immensely in so many ways, - it encourages people to try before buying, (having heard a piece it often results in sales) and it encourages commissions as people can hear through Youtube the sort of music that I write.
Although I have never met most of the people mentioned above in person, there are others far away that I have, in a career visiting and working with choirs in America, Canada, Belgium, Latvia, Hungary, Norway, Italy and many other places, I have lasting connections with other musicians from these countries ( Facebook is very useful in this respect!) - in fact the attached video is a recording of 'Stars' - the conductor is Brian Burns who I met whilst i was composer in residence in Dubuque, Iowa in 2011, - here he is with his choir in Rockland County New York in 2024.
These days its common to see two people in a restaurant, obviously together, but glued to their phones as if the art of conversation was a thing to be avoided, we do have reason to be thankful for communication technology, after all, we could all still write letters to each other but we would probably have to sell the house to pay the postage costs!
So, a big thank you to all the people who support us, take a look at their YouTube channels, support them, you will find some wonderful music and playing, take a look at our You Tube channel - and .. Keep in touch, who knows when we might make music together!
Tim