It's All Happening.

Blackball electronic music workshops will restart

at Mitchell Woods Public School Wednesday 19 October. 

Thanks to the generosity of the attendees at last month's

Blackball Benefit, Blackball is definitely back.

Blackball. It's Yours.

Blackball's board president has been asking me to organize a benefit show for too long.

It's also been too long since we were able to safely deliver our innovative electronic music education programming. 

But it's all yours, and it's all coming back.

This October at an Upper Grand District School Board public school near you we'll be reintroducing in-person Blackball workshops.

In order to make these workshops possible, we're holding the very first Blackball Benefit.

The Blackball Benefit will take place Friday 30 September and feature a live performance by Guelph's own Transstar, who will perform her new track, Yours.

Delivering free electronic music education costs. Gas is like gold. We're turning to the community for help.

Join us at The Cornerstone. It's 10 dollars at the door, and the curtain rises at 8:00 sharp.

 

Radio Blackball.

Blackball is taking to the airwaves.

Thanks to CFRU 93.3 University of Guelph

Radio Gryphon, Blackball is bringing its

unique electronic music teaching model to distance

education with Synths Always, a four-part audio 

documentary.

Synths Always will be broadcast Sunday mornings 

through August 2021, presented by Blackball's 

creator, Aimee Copping.

Tune in to CFRU 93.3 starting Sunday 8 August at 

11:00 EST, or listen online.

Tight is right—on the radio.

Blackball. What 2020 Gave Us.

First, let's take a look at the good news.

Blackball is honoured to participate in Art Not Shame's #ArtGives campaign, which speaks to the "need for opportunities to connect across isolation." 

Feel free to view Blackball's video testimonial now on Instagram.

The bad news? Like Art Not Shame and so many other community-engaged arts organizations, our work has been turned upside down and inside-out by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Because Blackball electronic music workshops are not deliverable on-line, our operations have been suspended indefinitely.

But the lockdown has turned out to be a gift for us. We've had time to reflect on the work of our project, the needs of our participants and, most importantly, how to serve them better. So we're restructuring our organization, forging new partnerships and researching new ways to teach and inspire through electronic music. We think we can build a better, stronger Blackball to meet the needs of the post-pandemic universe.

We have so much more to give!

Blackball at Five.

Our project's very first session happened in the summer of 2015.

That means Blackball has now been in operation for a jaw-dropping five years. 

So this video got real put together to show the universe that Blackball is still hard at work, dreaming up new ways to bring about our own irreverent vision of music education.

There's one reminder after another of just how much our young participants have benefitted from Blackball over the years. There are so many unadulterated happyness moments in these three little minutes, I defy you to watch it all the way to the end without smiling ear-to-ear—oh, and by the way, that's them, playing every non-automated, non-factory, non-sampled note you hear.

So s-s-s-stay cool, Blackballistas. You make us very proud. 

And we're going to get back to work just as soon as we can.

P.S. A confession: Blackball's "wood" anniversary caught me totally by surprise. I’m not much for "Those-Were-The-Good-Old-Days" to begin with. And trying to figure out how to deliver live-performance music teaching, for kids, with synthesizers, during a pandemic...well, it's been distracting, to put it mildly. But the days were good, and they're going to get good again, darn it.

On Lock-Down? Write a Breakdown!

You thought you'd be out on the street by now, kicking some type of kickball. Didn't you?

Oh, yes, you did. Right under that big sign reading "No Kickball."

The situation seems endless and, like everything else on The Earth, Blackball programming is indefinitely cancelled.

However, as you can see from the photo, we are using the time productively. For one thing, we have embarked on a tooth-and-nail fight for more funding.

Funding. Yay.

Another up-side of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it lets all of us delve deeply into our own resources of creativity, and they really are endless.

What's this? Your Minimoog is MIA? That is so not a problem in the digital age. This free online synth Midi City lets you select and play a range of sweet synth and drum sounds from your computer keyboard. You may access it here.

And when you need a break from the breakbeats, read this kick-derriere article about encouraging girls and women to explore electronic music for themselves.

As Fatboy Slim * has so often and wisely said, "we've come a long, long way together..."


* Well, Camille Yarbrough, really.

Nineteen Forever.

On 19 February, Blackball will launch its second Southwestern Ontario site at the glittering Idea Exchange | Old Post Office in Cambridge, Ontario.

For more information, make with the clicking here.

Can't wait for the 19th, you say? That's not going to be a problem, because Blackball personnel will be waving their hands in the air for a theremin demonstration on Saturday 15 February as part of Idea Exchange's own Music Mania, a free, all-ages event.