Category: youtube richesse

[Originally posted on Facebook 30 March 2020 ]

Let’s stay with the arts.

Tiffany Poon was born in Hong Kong in December 1996. Which makes her 23 [at the time of writing] and—if you buy into such categories—a Millennial. She started piano lessons at age four, made her concert debut at 10.

Her website (tiffanypoon.com) lists a solo repertoire of 150+, from Bach through Liszt to Stravinsky, plus another 40+ concerto and chamber works.

So far so orthodox—there are any number of young and gifted musicians out there, all vying for competition recognition and scarce recital slots.

What sets Tiffany apart is her incorporation of social media into every aspect of her art.

As she puts it herself: “my mission is to inspire all generations, the old and the new, to appreciate classical music using social media. . . . With YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc, I can bridge that mysterious gap between classical music and the modern audience.”

This is most evident on her YouTube channel, where you’re as likely to see her choosing among Steinways for her New York apartment, or chatting to camera about her life and work, as to watch her preparations for performance and the performances themselves.

But oddly, it’s the videos of her practising that I enjoy most. Here you get to see the sheer hard graft and stamina that go into the maintenance of concert-levels of excellence.

Tiffany meticulously annotates it all in edit, overlaying her text comments onto the video, charting the practice process (“finding the right attack for the accent,” “too much rubato,” “needs more E♭”), where things are going wrong (“stop going to C♯” “bad landings,” “why, pinky, why?”) and when she makes them right (“solid now,” “so close, keep going,” “finally!”).

Quite apart from her almost impossibly stunning virtuosity, all this makes you feel you’re getting insights into the music itself.

And boy, do you get to hear some fabulous piano-playing along the way . . .

Tiffany’s YouTube channel here

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[ Originally posted on Facebook 27 March 2020 ]

The city of Toulouse in the south of France is certifiably rugby-mad. And while the French national rugby side exasperates by blowing hot and cold, the Stade Toulousain (ST) rugby club is consistently one of the most successful in Europe.

I’d got to talking rugby pretty often with the Toulousain husband of a work colleague in Geneva, and one day he astonished me by inviting me to fly down to his city and watch his revered team play (ST match tickets basically unobtainable seasons in advance).

It was during this visit that I discovered another of Toulouse’s glories—its huge covered market, a magnificent, proper French one, with running the entire length of the floor above a warren of equally magnificent Occitanian restaurants.

So there we were at the table of one such, chatting away with the chef-owner, also (natch) a rugby-fanatic. And when he found out I was a ‘rosbif’ (English), he started waxing lyrical about a compatriot of mine, a youngster he’d recently discovered who’d completely changed his attitude to food and its preparation.

And the name of this English wunderkind? (this an experienced French chef, mind)—Jamie Oliver.

I tell the story because one of the contributors to my next ‘Riches of YouTube’ channel does for his specialist area what Jamie Oliver does for cooking.

Talking about art on screen is no easy task. You need simultaneously to master a bewildering variety of genres and techniques, breathe the sometimes rarefied air of the artistic imagination, yet be able to put it all across in terms we ordinary mortals can understand.

Well, Andrew Graham-Dixon does just that—like our Jamie he really knows his stuff, but he wears his learning lightly and communicates his vast knowledge enthusiastically and without pretension.

All of which is by way of introduction to #2 in my ‘Riches of YouTube’ series, a channel entitled simply Art Documentaries, in which Graham-Dixon is just one among a myriad presenters.

It’s all here, from bamboo to bauhaus, carpentry to ceramics, dada to dance. A ‘Mastercrafts’ series covers thatching, blacksmithing, stained glass, weaving, stonemasonry; there’s profiles of noted artists, explorations of the art of countries around the world, tours of the world’s great museums.

And so on. And on . . .

And because these are all programmes made for TV, the production is uniformly top-class.

Here, as John Dryden wrote of Geoffrey Chaucer, “here is God’s plenty” . . .

https://www.youtube.com/user/taran333tula/videos

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[ Originally posted on Facebook 25 March 2020 ]

Right then, ‘Riches of YouTube.’ Where to begin?

Let’s assume no prior knowledge about how YouTube works.

Most of the places we’ll be visiting are what YouTube calls ‘channels.’ These usually (but not always) have a home page with some sort of introduction on who the contributor(s) are and what they do.

Then there are tabbed links to the list of videos on the site, and sometimes also a ‘playlists’ option, where videos are grouped by theme or project.

Most of the links I give will be to the home page. If you then click on the ‘videos’ tab, the easiest way to start viewing is just to choose ‘play all’ below the tabs. This will start you off with the oldest video on the site and work steadily forwards to the most recent.

This is a good idea where the contributor is working on a multi-video project, as later videos will continue the story from previous ones.

Bear in mind that for many channels, the earliest videos are often not quite as polished as later ones. It’s fairly common for contributors to adjust how they film, whether and what commentary and/or music they use, that sort of thing, as they become more confident with the medium.

So even if the first few videos on a site aren’t particularly professional, do persevere, they’ll get better as you go along.

Of course you can always pick ‘à la carte’ from the video list if you see one that particularly takes your fancy . . .

Ok, that’s about it for the introduction.

So, what’s first?

Well, there are quite a number of channels that illustrate the process of restoration, of everything from micrometers to tractors.

But there’s one that far outdoes all the rest. It’s called my mechanics.

The chap is (I think) Swiss, and is (I think) a watchmaker. He certainly has the full range of tools and equipment.

But that’s just the start. A leitmotif throughout much of this series will be ‘attention to detail,’ and you won’t find any more of that than here.

Basically, he starts with some rusted old piece of apparent junk, and turns it into . . . well, you’ll see.

And if this channel speaks to you, you’ll quickly come to cherish the phrase “I make a new one.”

So here it is: the first in my ‘Riches of YouTube’ series is the ‘my mechanics’ channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMrMVIBtqFW6O0-MWq26gqw/videos (link straight to video listing).

I tend to watch these with the sound down, as the joy is in what he does and the videos are all subtitled where needed.

You lucky people . . .

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