Red Bull Music Workshop

I love workshops. Or the idea of workshops in any case. The good ones always fill me with energy and I come back home and for a short while, work like I’m never going to stop. It’s all the new ideas tossed back and forth, new tricks learned, stories shared, people met… So when my editor told me about a music workshop by Red Bull in our city, I was more than willing to check it out.

It wasn’t exactly a workshop – more a panel discussion and introduction to the Red Bull Music Academy which is where the real two week, in-depth workshops will take place in Feb-March 2010. RBMA co-founder Torsten Schmidt, Radio Slave aka Matt Edwards and Mumbai musician Louis Banks were on the panel and in the audience consisted of local musicians, artists and DJs.

At the end of the afternoon, I came back without any new musical insights but did make some observations:

- There is a surprisingly strong divide between musicians who play instruments and artists who work in electronica. Seems the two can’t co-exist. As the evening progressed, the conversation turned into a one-sided rant by the musicians who accused DJs of stealing their gigs, and electronica of being noise.

- The DJs/electronica artists were in some strange zone – not really interested in addressing the points raised, just interested in this bizarre, obsessive technical name dropping…of software…synthesisers…electronica pioneers…more software…mixing desks… Almost don’t blame the instrument-playing lot for thinking their gigs are being stolen by a pre-programmed alien species.

- Mr. Banks had one go-to word throughout the evening – Jazz. Which is all very well in itself, as a great style of music, sublime blah blah blah. But it can’t be the answer to every question. Or a response to name dropping of software…synthesisers…hardware…

- The Red Bull girls are a fun lot. And not in a cookie cutter, trained by a grooming school way. They all had “looks”, and it seemed, personalities. Good job on the hiring Red Bull.

In any case, if you’re a musician/composer/DJ/engineer/person working in music, hope you applied. It takes place in London in 2010 and is a two week workshop where selected participants come together with other musicians/composers/DJs/engineers/people working in music to listen and learn.

If not, check out the website anyway. There’s plenty to explore.