“One more tune!” The encore ritual in live music events – Emma Webster

A paper examining the curious phenomenon of the encore ritual in live music events, which argues that while the encore began as a spontaneous display of audience enthusiasm, it has now become an expected and ritualized part of a live music performance.

Drawing Live Music – A Different Kind of ‘Listening’ – Jenny Soep

Visual artist Jenny Soep discusses her experiences of drawing live music, the pros and cons of using ‘traditional’ and digital materials, her personal guidelines for drawing live music, and links to other artists who draw or visualise live music in one form or another.

The pervasive curse of pay-to-play in Tokyo – James Hadfield

Today’s guest post is by James Hadfield, an English writer and photographer based in Tokyo, where he writes about music and other subjects for The Japan Times and Tokyo TimeOut amongst others. In this piece he looks at the ubiquity of pay-to-play, or noruma, in the Japanese capital.

Ghosts from the Bridge – Darren Mueller

This guest post by Darren Mueller- saxophonist, teacher and PhD candidate at Duke University – reflects on how live jazz performances are haunted, and infused, by the recordings of the past.

New fees for foreign musicians touring Canada – Richard Sutherland

Richard Sutherland offers a well-informed summary of the changes to Canada’s visa rules for musicians, brought in July 31st 2013.