Living in a digital world

By -
I review a lot of Classical Music CD's - often before they are for sale to the general public. I get them via a special download link, listen to them (several times) and post reviews here on my blog

Over the last year, I've moved, which means I spent the last 9 months working from my laptop, rather than my desktop. Not a problem. When my desktop crashed, I didn't think twice about restoring it to factory defaults. All of my personal files were stored on an external drive (or so I thought).

Because I review so many CD's I generally don't have the time to go back and "enjoy" the previous CD's I've downloaded. - Well.... Nicola Benedetti is performing the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 tonight with the Pacific Symphony. I reviewed her recording of the same concerto last year. I thought the recording was on the external drive - but alas it's not!

Her recording as well as many of the other amazing CD's I have enjoyed over the past few years are gone --the little '+' and '-' are gone, all the little 1's and 0's and just 0's.... *sigh*

Comments

minim said…
Oh golly, that's awful - I hate it when that happens. I've become backup-crazy since the last time. Anything digital I buy (software, music, books) or don't have a physical copy of - plus the final files of all my scores - I now upload to our Amazon S3 server. I think we pay about 8c a month... definitely seems worth it to me!
February 2, 2012 at 9:49 AM
Robert Gable said…
Ack. I just switched online backup from Carbonite to CrashPlan so I could back up my external drive as well.
February 2, 2012 at 8:28 PM
Chip Michael said…
While I must admit I'm gutted to have lost the music, I can't really complain.

1) it's my own fault
2) I didn't purchase the music in the first place - so I feel very fortunately to have heard it!

I do have a pretty serious back up system for my own music, my electronic files of compositions. But that's not something I can replace! (Not available on Amazon ... YET!)
February 3, 2012 at 12:11 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more