Handel’s Messiah

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Frank Norman

I’m having a big clearout at home and have been discarding most of my collection of old concert programmes. These are a mix of concerts that I’ve sung in and concerts that I’ve attended, going back to about 1973. It’s a bit of a wrench to throw things away that represent old memories, particularly of my choral singing career, but I’ve decided that I am not defined by old bits of paper. I am keeping just a handful of them.

One I am keeping is one of the oldest – an old concert programme from 1974. It was a folded A4 sheet, printed in that blue ink that used to be commonplace in the 1970s. It was for a concert of Handel’s Messiah and I’m pretty sure that I sang in it.  It was memorable as both the first concert I had sung in that was not a school thing, and also the first time I had heard a countertenor singing live. The programme is dated ‘Saturday 2nd March’, but with no year specified. That day was a Saturday in 1968, 1974 and 1985 and 1974 is the only year that makes sense to me.

The previous year my school choir (Salesian School, Chertsey) had performed the Messiah, under our new head of music Father Thomas Carroll. This school performance was the first time I’d sung such a large piece of music, with soloists and orchestra. The soloists were competent but not fantastic. I remember the soprano was one of the nuns who taught at the linked girls school and she had a rather shrill tone. The tenor was a teacher from another school – he was called Trevor I recall – and I experienced a sense of jeopardy whenever he went for the top notes. Anyway, me and my mates in the choir had learnt the music pretty well and it was very rewarding to sing – the first of many times I’ve sung the piece.

Then in March 1974 Father Carroll arranged for a few of us tenors and basses to join in another performance, in south London. This was being put on by a young man, Peter, who was a past student of Fr Carroll at the Salesian School at Battersea, where Fr Carroll had taught music before he came to us at Chertsey. Peter needed some extra male singers to boost the choir – there’s never enough tenors and basses – and he turned to his old teacher to provide some young voices. It was a bit of an adventure for us. Fr Carroll drove us in the school minibus all the way to Streatham.

In my memory the concert took place in the Catholic cathedral at Southwark, but I think I must have imagined that. The fact I possess this programme suggests it must be from the performance that we sang in. I don’t think I would have attended a concert in Streatham, south London to listen to Messiah in 1974.  I didn’t make that kind of excursion far from home back in 1974.  I’ve looked at my old 1974 diary for corroboration but there was nothing marked in for that date.

I don’t remember much about the performance. I had a general sense that it was a big deal (well, it was for me but probably not really on the scale of things). The church we sang in was far more atmospheric and acoustically satisfying than the school hall that we had previously performed in. The orchestral players were good – probably semi-professional players – and the soloists were far better than at our school performances.  The sound of the countertenor soloist in particular entranced me – so pure and bewitching. His aria ‘But who shall abide the day of his coming’ stands out in my memory.

I was pleased to re-find the actual programme for this concert and to remember that occasion. When I looked at it I was somewhat astonished to read the names of two of the soloists: Rod Williams and Ms Rozario. Both are superstars of the UK and international classical music scene today. I couldn’t believe that as a schoolboy I had sung Messiah with these two in a church in Streatham.

I looked more carefully, and was surprised to see that Ms Rozario was listed as a contralto. She is known as a soprano, able to sing very high top notes, and famed for her work with John Tavener’s music. Rod Williams is known not just for his fine baritone voice but he also conducts and composes.

I then looked at these two singers’ Wikipedia pages. Patricia Rozario was born in 1960, so she would have been 14 years old at the time of this concert. It seemed unusual and unlikely that she would take on a solo role at that age. Roderick Williams was born in 1965 so he would have been just 9 years old. That seemed impossible.

Programme for performance of Handel’s Messiah, 1974

I felt perplexed, as though I was experiencing some time warp phenomenon. Then I looked at the programme more closely. The contralto soloist was named as Rita Rozario – not the now-famous Patricia Rozario. The bass soloist was named as Rodney Williams – not Roderick Williams. I don’t know where Rita and Rodney are now, nor whether they were ever mistaken for Patricia and Roderick in the past 50 years.

If I had been more switched on I might also have noticed that the concert was conducted by Peter Hook, co-founder of the popular beat combo Joy Division. I’m not familiar with their music. He was born in 1956, so he could almost have been conducting Messiah in 1974, but I note that he was born in Salford and attended Salford Grammar School, not the Battersea Salesian School. So it was probably a different Peter Hook.

Just imagine that fantasy concert though – Patricia Rozario, Roderick Williams, Peter Hook and Frank Norman all on one stage singing Handel’s Messiah!

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About LinkedIn

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Frank Norman

I’m a member of my local U3A branch’s social media group. A few of us meet regularly to learn about social media and associated topics, taking turns to present. This week I gave a talk about LinkedIn. I don’t really consider myself an expert but I’ve been on it since 2006 so I have some knowledge of and views about it. It was a chance for me to reflect on the platform and my use (and non-use) of it, and to explore its history and how it is distinctive.

LinkedIn logo

Introduction to LinkedIn

In some ways LinkedIn is just like other social media platforms: members have a profile and they can post stuff. But in addition LinkedIn has a defined purpose. Its mission is:

To connect the world’s professionals, so 
they can be more productive and successful

I think this sets it apart from other general social media sites.

It’s not the biggest social media platform but it is substantial. Launched in 2003 it has nearly 1 billion users across more than 200 countries and territories.  300 million of those are classed as ‘monthly active users’. In its basic form it is free to use, but you can pay for a premium subscription. Since 2016 LinkedIn has been owned by Microsoft.

The biggest reason for using it is job seeking/recruiting, with knowledge sharing/professional networking a close second. Businesses and freelancers use it to advertise and reach customers. It’s also used for data mining.

You are probably already a user of LinkedIn, or at least have an account there. One estimate said that there are 45 million users in the UK, which I find hard to believe.

Jobs

I have posted job vacancies on LinkedIn, but never used it to look for jobs myself. A couple of times I’ve been contacted through LinkedIn by job agencies. I think the premium subscriptions can be useful if you’re seriously jobhunting, giving you additional features and communication options. For recruiters too there is a premium service that would be worth it if you are hiring frequently.

One source says that 65 million people search for jobs on LinkedIn each week and there are more than 12 million applications through the site daily. Over three million new hires each year owe something to LinkedIn. The number of job adverts on LinkedIn is ever-changing, but I’ve read one estimate that there are 14 million open jobs there. I’ve also read that up to 60% of job postings there may be fake, so be warned.

Data mining

Some people use LinkedIn for data mining, either by simple web-scraping or by paying for access to the LinkedIn API.  You can use it for  general market research, trend analysis or competitor analysis, or for lead generation. The huge volume of data in LinkedIn also attracts academic researchers. I heard a very interesting talk from someone who’d carried out diversity research using LinkedIn data (eg proportion of women working in IT).

The users

Who are the site’s users? There are personal accounts (individual users) and corporate accounts (businesses).  It is reported that 57% of LinkedIn users are male and 43% are female.  Nearly 60% are aged 25-34, and 78% are outside the USA. Plenty more statistics are available about the geographical spread and extent of usage in different industries.

Knowledge sharing – your timeline – the algorithm

Your profile on LinkedIn is closely tied with your professional profile and employer, so there’s a strong incentive to behave. In my experience people on LinkedIn are reasonably well-behaved, but your mileage may vary.  Much genuinely useful and interesting information is shared, though sometimes it comes across as ‘look at me’ or ‘hire me!’ or ‘buy my product’. Posts about career milestones (promotions, new jobs etc) will usually generate many congratulatory comments that are more about social connection than anything else.

There are also groups – these are sometimes linked with real world groups. They can help you to reach beyond your immediate network.

Your timeline is created partly by who you follow and partly by the LinkedIn algorithm. That’s a recommendation system that decides which posts appear in each user’s news feed.  It filters and ranks content so that your feed is filled with posts that are interesting and relevant to you. It doesn’t have the problems associated with some other platforms  and LinkedIn explicitly says the platform “is not designed for virality”. I think that’s very important.

Sourcegeek says there are three main elements to the algorithm:

Components of the LinkedIn algorithm

Screenshot

If you want advice on how to get better engagement on LinkedIn you can read a 123-page report about the algorithm, full of tips.

LinkedIn and me

I joined LinkedIn in 2006, just because it seemed like something worth exploring and various people I knew had joined. It had a very pushy email invite system back then so it was hard to avoid. Once a few people in your circle had joined up you kept receiving invitations to join up too. I’m not sure if they still do all of that.

I wasn’t looking to change job so actually I used it very little at first. At some point I noticed that people were posting announcements and small articles. Some of these generated comments, even discussions, so LinkedIn became a place I visited to read stuff. Much more recently the changes at Twitter/X pushed more people to post content on LinkedIn instead of Twitter.

For me, with interests in research libraries, scholarly publishing, research culture, workplace wellbeing and DEI, I’ve found LinkedIn has plenty of content of interest.

I also use it to find out about people. Quite often when I search a person’s name in a general search engine their LinkedIn profile is among the top results. The profiles on LinkedIn include educational background and work experience, and the profile summary for a person highlights their recent posts and comments on LinkedIn so it’s good for giving you a quick impression of who they are.

LinkedIn is a successful business

Its three main income streams are adverts, premium personal subscriptions and recruiter subscriptions. It was expected to generate $6.79 billion through advertising in 2024. It generated $17.1 billion revenue in 2024, an increase of 8.6% year-on-year.

It has grown from a small site that let you post your CV online into a large multifaceted website. Here are a few significant mileposts in its development.

  • 2003: Professional profiles – showcase your work history, education, skills
  • 2004: Company pages – Businesses could create pages
  • 2008: Groups –  focused on professional topics or networks
  • 2012: Publishing platform – publish your own long-form posts
  • 2013: LinkedIn Endorsements – recognise your connections‘ skills
  • 2017: Video upload – Native video hosting
  • 2019: Stories –  short-form content sharing
  • 2021: Audio clips –  share bite-sized voice messages
  • 2022: Virtual events toolkit – templates and guidance for hosting

Boring but sensible

At our meeting someone commented that it had a reputation of being a bit boring, and I guess that’s true – it doesn’t court controversy and users tend to be focused on their work and professional interests to a large degree.  But that is also its secret strength I think.

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Missing the bus – a photographic story

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Frank Norman

Talking about social media

Almost a year ago I joined the u3a – a group for people with time on their hands. Members are mostly, but not exclusively, retired people. I have joined several groups in my local u3a branch, including a recently-formed social media group. There are eight of us in this group and we meet regularly to talk and learn from each other about aspects of social media, taking turns to lead on some topic or other. We’ve been led through Instagram, Bluesky (that was me), hashtags, design, analytics, and alt text (me again).

Last week we dived into photos: how to grab attention with a photo and how to tell a story in a photo. We were guided through this by an actual photographer who is the partner of one of the members. He talked us through some key elements of a good photo – strong colours (apparently red is good), lines, positioning key objects (centrally, or in thirds), triangular relations between groups of objects. He illustrated these features with some classic photos taken by acknowledged greats of the camera.

The challenge

He had also set us some advance homework. In preparation for the meeting each of us was asked to take a photo that told a story.

Usually I just take a photo because I think something looks interesting or amusing. I take pictures that please me due to their colours or shapes, or quirkiness. When I post photos on social media I will try to say something about each one, and sometimes use a series of photos to tell a story. But I haven’t often tried to take a single photo that tells a story, so I had to think a bit about this.  For the homework I needed to choose a theme or narrative for my photo and I decided that a missed bus would be my subject.

Millions of us take buses every day and many will have mixed feelings about them. They can be uncomfortable and frustrating, but as a non-driver I rely on buses very heavily so I am attached to my regular bus routes.

The story

I frequently take the bus between Crouch End and Muswell Hill, the W7. It’s quite frequent but can be unreliable, not least because there are so often roadworks along the route. It is famously a bus route that people love and hate, joining up two town centres that are not served by any tube or rail station.

My plan was to take a photo of a bus just leaving the bus stop on Crouch End Broadway, to encapsulate the frustration of just missing a bus. OK, it’s not a major tragedy to miss a bus but when you’re in a hurry and everything else is going wrong in the day it can be devastating.

The photo – version one

Last week I was on my way to the music library in Crouch End (where I volunteer) and I saw a W7 pulling away from the bus stop. I was short of time so I hurriedly took a photo. I was pleased because it included the Crouch End clocktower, a very recognisable local landmark. Thus the photo identified a time (from the clock) and a place. In another stroke of luck there was a yellow sign warning about the closure of one the roads on the bus route, bearing out the unruliness of the service.

A red bus leaving a bus stop

I was so pleased with this that I didn’t really look too closely at the picture. The story elements were all there and I thought I’d cracked the assignment. I was so wrong.

The judgement

At our meeting it was pointed out that my photo was a bit of a jumble – the street scene was too busy with details. As I had taken it in a hurry I’d not had time to frame it nicely or take a series from which to choose. I’d possibly nailed the story (in my head at least) but not produced a good photo. I had tried to capture an instant in time, but the chance of creating a decent photo in a single shot was rather low.

A couple of the other group members had taken some really good photos, not so much instants in time, but taking their time to choose the scene and plan the shot.

I wished that I had done justice to my subject, and to my skills. I felt I’d really missed the bus.

The photo – version two

A few days after our meeting I was back on the Broadway and decided to try again. I took a little more time choosing my vantage point. When a bus came I took a few shots, reducing the clutter in the shot and introducing some lines. I even waited for a second bus, in order to take a few more shots. I still had some traffic in the shot, but much less than before. I achieved a better positioning of the bus, the clocktower and the parade of shops curving off to the right. It’s not perfectly balanced but much better than version one.

A red bus leaving the bus stop. Clocktower and parade of shops in background.

Missing the bus in Crouch End Broadway

More people would perhaps improve it – someone running after the bus, for example. But people aren’t my strong point – I prefer buildings and scenery.

I think I’ve learnt something from the experience. It always pays to take some thinking time when setting up a shot.

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Creating a library system using Airtable

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Frank Norman

I volunteer at the CYM Library, a music library based in north London, mostly helping with day-to-day jobs. Recently I undertook a project to improve the way that CYM Library records requests and loans and I talked about this project at the IAML UK & Ireland Annual Study Weekend in April.

Background

CYM Library is a collection of vocal scores and orchestral parts that can be borrowed, for a fee, by choirs and orchestras across the UK. We lend both directly to them and via other libraries through the inter-library loan (ILL) system. CYM Library is an independent, self-funding charity. In addition to a part-time music librarian (Ceri Mann) there are several volunteers. I’ve been volunteering there for two and a half years and have a good understanding of how it all works.

Until last October we kept track of music reservations and loans via a combination of Word and Excel files, stored on Google drive, plus paper loan records. We had lists of music on loan and a list of requests that needed action – invoicing, packing, posting. Separate lists recorded invoices and payment details.

This all worked, but there was much duplication of information between the different lists, creating additional work and with a danger that they might get out-of-step. We had no list of all our customers, and generating any statistics was an onerous task.

Project aims

As we considered how to streamline our records, we agreed that any new system should:

  • Save time and be less work
  • Be easy to implement and use
  • It had to be able to interface with shelves/packing/returns. That is, we needed to be able to generate a printed record sheet for each loan.
  • It needed to be available anywhere, so we could work on some tasks away from the library if necessary.
  • It needed to be inexpensive. We would struggle to find funding for a big system.

I explored Google Drive and Microsoft Office but was unsuccessful in my attempts with these. Possibly that’s down to a deficit in my technical skills, but I also had a sense (from previous experience) that whatever I did with Google or MS Office was going to end up being very clunky.

As I searched for software tools that were both powerful yet easy-to-use, one popped up that I recognised from my previous workplace – Airtable. I thought it was worth a closer look so I started playing with it on a one week free trial and immediately liked it.

Airtable

Airtable describes itself as a ’No-code’ database. This means a platform that allows users to create and manage databases without writing code. It looks like a spreadsheet, and has a drag-and-drop interface. It is cloud-based and very flexible. Airtable was founded in 2012 and is now widely used so there is a large community of users and good online support. It has many integrations with other software packages.

Pricing is based on the number of users, starting at a single user, and there is a charity and non-profit discount. This makes it very affordable for small organisations like CYM Library.

I read a useful eBook – Learning Airtable and registered for an online course which gave me a good grounding in the basics.

New system

My priority was to create a system that would allow us to enter details of a request just once, and then to amend the record as changes occurred to the status of the request. I also wanted to launch the system in a reasonable timeframe, so I deliberately limited the scope of the initial system to managing requests, loans and returns.

We switched to the new system on 1 October 2024, though I had been recording data in the new system from 1 May 2024.

The two key tables in our database are Customers and Requests, with a few others used occasionally.

The customer table currently has 230 records, and is still growing. It records names of borrowing organisations and the contact person, plus any contact details. We also record the type of borrower (orchestra, choir, public library, school etc).

The request table has more than 70 fields. That’s a lot of data to scroll through on a screen and would be unwieldy to work with but Airtable allows you to create different ‘views’ of your data.

When you create a view you can filter the records by one or more fields, eg to show only requests that have been confirmed and need an invoice to be paid. You can also hide fields that are not of interest at a particular point as well as sorting the records in a view. Thus you end up with a view that shows key fields from the requests that need some action to be taken. Updating a record in one view updates the underlying database, so any changes are reflected in all other views too.

We have created about a dozen different views to match the various processes through the lifecycle of a request.

The first stage is to enter the details of a new request – composer, title, edition, number copies, dates needed (from and to), customer, quotes for charges (price or number of BL forms). There is a view that makes this straightforward, and also a form that can be used for the same purpose.

When a customer confirms they wish to proceed with the request, we then change the request status from Provisional to Confirmed and we print out a loan sheet from Airtable. It was important that we could generate a piece of paper for each loan, so that key details would be available when we’re at the shelf picking copies, at the packing desk, or at the returns desk.

Airtable’s Page Designer tool lets you create a printable version of a record and is very flexible. You can choose any fields, and position them in boxes wherever you want on a page. Then you can format the text in the box, add more text and images.

The Request Tracking view shows confirmed requests and what stage they’re at – invoiced, whether paid, packed, etc. as well as whether the music is to be posted or collected. Some loans are booked well in advance, so this helps to keep track of what needs to be done when. Different colours in fields provide helpful visual clues.

The list of current choral loans and reservations, shows alphabetically by composer/title what choral sets are out on loan or provisionally reserved, and when they are due back.

Some of the fields are formula fields, derived from a number of other fields. Sometimes I’ve used these to make the lists easier to read, other times there is some calculation or logic involved – eg calculating prices. The formulae look a bit scary, but I quickly learnt how they work. It’s a great feature of Airtable.

Results

We made the changeover with no noticeable affect on the service and broadly speaking we’re happy with the result. It is easier for us to record a new request now. It is easier to follow a request through different stages and change its status. The information is all brought together in one place and we don’t need to keep opening different files, using different programs. Claims to the BL for ILL payments are easier – we’ve just done our second batch of these.

We will be generating annual statistics soon, and I expect it to be easier than in the past (fingers crossed). As time goes on I think we will gain new insights from analysing data about our loan activities.

Printing out packing sheets (equivalent to the old loan sheets) has worked well, though we have needed to tweak the format and layout a few times.

The database is accessible anywhere – from the library or when working from home. It is also available via the Airtable phone app if necessary.

We have only needed one userid so the software cost is manageable. It was a bit of a hassle to get validated by Airtable as a charity, but worth it.

We have already found some additional benefits of having an up to date customer list. It allowed us to identify new customers and add their email addresses to an email group that we send updates to. We’ve also been able to start centrally recording the postal tracking details for parcels of music that we send out.

Challenges

Switching to the new system was a bigger challenge than anticipated – it took several weeks to get used to how it works. It’s a cliche, but more time for training in advance would have helped.

We’ve had to devise some workarounds to cater for non-standard requests — time extensions, additional copies, discounts. The basic data structure though has proved to be solid.

Reports are not as easy as I’d expected, though data can be exported to Excel for more analysis. The Page Design feature is cumbersome.

Though the community of Airtable users is large, not many of them are libraries, so the support forums tend to deal with more business-focused applications. It would be good to find other libraries who are using Airtable.

Future developments

We have some new volunteers and I plan to give them Airtable training. I hope they may have ideas for improvements that we can incorporate into Airtable.

I would like to automate some operations, such as calculating prices and parcel weights, and generating invoices. I’d also like to create a webform on the CYM Library website, for requestors to enter new requests. This could feed straight into our Airtable database. A next step would be to integrate the catalogue into the webform.

A bigger challenge would be to expose part of our Airtable database via the CYM Library website, making it into a ‘live catalogue’ that shows the availability of copies.

Conclusion

It is possible to use a general database tool (no-code) for record keeping in a music library.
No-code databases are much easier to get started on than traditional database products.

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An anniversary anthem – the gift of love

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Frank Norman

At the end of August 2024 I set a hare running which has just reached its destination. A brand new piece of music now exists, because I commissioned it. The process of commissioning was surprisingly straightforward.

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Penzance, Cornwall

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Penzance, Cornwall

I have written before about the big part that singing in choirs has played in my life – symphonic choirs, chamber choirs, church choirs. A few years ago one of my sisters, A, started singing in a choir too.  She joined a community choir and then more recently joined her local church choir in Penzance. I enjoyed hearing about her experiences, and talking to her about singing church music. I remembered that it can be difficult when you first start and she found the same, so I sympathised but told her it will get easier. A is just two years older than me, so of all my siblings she is the closest to me in age and we had many shared experiences from our early years. Now we have a new shared experience.

Commissions

An anthem is a short piece of devotional music performed in church. Sometimes they are called motets, if the words are Latin rather than English. Anthems are sometimes commissioned for particular occasions or places. I’ve often noticed the dedications on anthems giving the details of why they were commissioned.

One famous commissioner was Walter Hussey, a clergyman and lover of the arts. He was vicar of St Matthew’s church, Northampton for 18 years and then Dean of Chichester Cathedral for a further 22 years. In both places he commissioned many pieces of music. The anthem Rejoice in the Lamb by Benjamin Britten was written for the 50th anniversary of St Matthew’s church. Hussey also commissioned Lo, the full, final sacrifice from Gerald Finzi (1946). At Chichester Hussey’s most well-known commissions were Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and the 1975 Chichester Service by William Walton.

Benjamin Britten wrote many commissions – his Antiphon was written for the 30th anniversary of St Michael’s Tenbury and his Wedding Anthem was composed for the marriage of the Earl of Harewood and Marion Stein.

William Matthias’ anthem Let the people praise thee, O God was composed for an even grander wedding – that of (then) Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. The choirmaster of a choir I once sang in wrote an anthem for two members of the choir who got married, a setting of O Perfect Love. We sang it at their wedding.

A golden wedding

When I realised last year that my sister A’s golden wedding anniversary was coming up in 2025, an idea started hatching in my head. I subtly enquired whether she was planning to have some sort of party. They had thrown a party for their ruby anniversary, and for their thirtieth anniversary they’d made a renewal of vows in their church in Penzance. My sister said that they were indeed planning a party.

I mulled over the idea of commissioning of an anthem to mark their golden wedding, like those I’d observed. I contacted the choir director at my sister’s church, and ran the idea past him. He was positive about the idea, though was concerned that the new piece should be appropriate to the choral forces available.

Composer’s Edition

I knew nothing about commissioning music, so I wasn’t sure where to start. In March 2024 I had attended a Making Music webinar on sourcing music and I remember hearing Dan Goren talk about Composers’ Edition (CE), a contemporary music publisher that he founded. Among other things Dan said that CE aimed to make it easy for choirs and orchestras to commission new music, so I looked further at them. I put an enquiry into their website describing my plans and soon after that Dan himself called me to discuss the potential commission. He explained the process and asked a few questions about what I wanted. Dan said he would send details of my proposed commission to all the composers on the CE list, to solicit ‘bids’ from them.

I was excited about the idea and put out a post on Bluesky:

Just had a call with someone from Composers' Edition, about my plan to commission a short choral anthem to celebrate my sister's golden wedding. This is a new thing for me – looking forward to the next step, when I will hear from some composers.

— Frank Norman (@franknorman.bsky.social) 2024-09-04T09:24:32.800Z

A few weeks later I had responses from eight composers, with varying backgrounds. I considered all of them, looking at the composers’ experience of choral and church music in particular, and listening to recordings of some of their music via the CE website. It was a bit like sifting through job applicants. Some of the composers addressed the points I’d made in my proposal, some ignored my proposal and just wrote about the music they would like to create.

After much cogitation I settled on Liz Lane. She has written church music previously and has a style that is very approachable. We had some email correspondence and then a Zoom call, during which I was able to fill in a bit more background about myself and A and the reason for the commission.

Realism

I had heard my sister’s Penzance church choir sing a few years earlier and they seemed very competent, singing a wide range of music. However lockdown had a negative impact on many choirs, and this one has shrunk in size to between 6 and 9 singers.

My own regular church choir has shrunk too and now typically has between 6 and 12 members on a Sunday morning so I’m very familiar with the challenges. We make regular use of OUP’s Easy and Flexible Anthems collection and the Novello Short Anthems collection. I think many church choirs will be in a similar position.

When talking to Liz Lane I mentioned the need for flexibility, referring to the examples of collections like these two. While a large-scale anthem for many singers would have been lovely, I wanted my commission to be performable by more meagre forces – a modest number of voices plus keyboard accompaniment.

I also passed on to Liz the comments that the Penzance choir’s director had made about the need for the new piece to be readily singable, not excessively discordant, and straightforward to learn.

I put some more Bluesky posts out.

I've had some proposals through & have chosen a composer. We had a good chat over Zoom yesterday and made good progress. I think she will do a great job. She asked whether the church choir has any instruments other than organ available. I said no, but now I wish I'd said 'onde martenot and tamtam'.

— Frank Norman (@franknorman.bsky.social) 2024-10-08T09:24:10.072Z

(This morning I've been listening to Messiaen's Trois Petites Liturgies, but you probably guessed that!).

— Frank Norman (@franknorman.bsky.social) 2024-10-08T09:25:08.508Z

 

Text

The next challenge was to choose a text to be set. I wanted it to be clearly suitable for religious use, but not overly ‘holy’ if you know what I mean. It should be a celebration of enduring human love. Consulting with friends who knew much about liturgical music they advised that I could consider choosing a poem, or a Biblical text. I liked the famous words from 1 Corinthians 13, and also the words of the hymn ‘O Perfect Love’ seemed appropriate. I looked at a few psalms, but they didn’t seem to fit the bill.

Liz told me that she had previously set texts by the poet Jennifer Henderson. Jennifer kindly drafted an original poem for consideration, called Joyful Promise. I liked it, but again it didn’t feel right for the anthem I had in mind. Eventually we settled on the Corinthians text and I chose some of the lines that I wanted to be included, leaving it to Liz whether she included additional lines. This is the final text that Liz set:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love never fails.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love

Confirmation and composition

In late November Composers’ Edition drafted a contract and Liz and I both signed it, so we were legally committed to the project. I paid Liz the first instalment of the commissioning fee. CE kept in touch periodically, checking that things were proceeding OK.

My sister already knew that I had been in touch with her church choir’s director, but she didn’t know the reason. Now that everything was confirmed I told her what was going on, resolving the mystery. I think she liked the idea of the commission.

As luck would have it I visited Bristol in December and was able to meet up with Liz as she teaches at UWE and lives in the area. We met over a cup of coffee at St George’s Brandon Hill and had a good chat.

In late January Liz sent a draft score of the new piece. I sang through it and found it very tuneful. I don’t have the ability to imagine how the whole score sounds just by looking at it, so I couldn’t judge what the complete effect would be but it looked good.

I sent the draft score to my sister’s church choir director for him to review. He and Liz had some conversations about a few points. Soon the final version was agreed and everyone was happy with it.

Production and performance

Liz sent me a selection of possible cover images and I chose one. We agreed on the precise wording that would appear on the score, to describe the commissioning and the occasion. Jennifer also kindly agreed to allow her poem to be printed in the score booklet.

Cover of the new anthem, The Gift of Love, by Liz Lane

Cover of the new anthem, The Gift of Love, by Liz Lane

The anthem was printed by Composers Edition and a set of copies was sent to A. The choir started to rehearse the music and they liked it. They put in a good deal of work to learn it ready for my sister’s wedding anniversary in April.

The score is very well produced – the printing is clear and legible and it is a good size. The setting is SATB with an optional descant and an optional congregational part. The choir sing sometimes in unison, sometimes in four parts. The main theme comes round several times, so you become familiar with it. It is written to be singable. The accompaniment can be played on piano or organ. It moves at some pace, and is about 3 mins 30 secs long.

The church choir generously allowed me to sing with them for the first performance.  I travelled down to Penzance midweek and joined them for their Wednesday evening rehearsal, then sang with them at the main morning mass on Sunday 6 April. The Gift of Love was sung as the communion anthem that day.  At the end of the service the golden wedding couple were given a blessing by the parish priest.  Their four children were in the church to witness this and to hear the new anthem. My sister told me later that people in the congregation had been moved by the singing of the new anthem.

I liked the title which Liz chose – The Gift of Love. This struck me as very apt. The anthem is about love, 50 years’ worth of love, which is a great gift. The anthem itself is also a gift, from me to A and her husband, in recognition of my love for them.

I hope that other church choirs will want to sing this new piece. I have bought a set for the church choir I sing with regularly and I hope we can schedule it in a service when appropriate.  If you know of a wedding anniversary (or even a wedding) coming up then it would be a good choice.

Thanks to everyone involved – Composers Edition, Liz Lane, the choir and their director in Penzance, the organist, and of course my sister and her husband for showing us what a gift love is.

Posted in Family, Music | Comments Off on An anniversary anthem – the gift of love

A new development in scientific integrity

Posted on April 1, 2025 by Frank Norman

This is a 1st April post, I won’t call it April Fool’s as there’s only one set of fools mentioned here. Rest assured that CrapMed does not (yet) exist.
———————————-
Recent changes in US scientific research are very worrying. The ‘anti-science movement’ is being spearheaded by Robert F Kennedy – a leading figure of the modern anti-vaccine movement for many years. On their own his views are nothing new – the Skeptics in the Pub movement was spawned in 1999 to act as a corrective to science denialism. I remember that homeopathy attracted much criticism from the science community at that time, such as this 2002 systematic review by Edzard Ernst. The difference now is that Kennedy is in charge of the USA’s leading biomedical agencies – NIH, FDA, CDC – so is likely to do real damage.

There is great concern too about political interference in NIH funding.  Trump appointees will screen new funding proposals “to ensure the research that will be funded aligns with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration”. A recent article in the EHN Newsletter says:

Political interference in federal research funding compromises scientific integrity. It could skew national health priorities, delay urgent studies, and have a chilling effect on research related to topics like racial health disparities and vaccine confidence.

In another very worrying move the NIH’s Scientific Integrity Policy has been rescinded.

Will these worrying developments lead to an increase in the quantity of unreliable research results in the published literature? How can we detect research that has been compropmised?

A new information tool is launching today, 1st April, to help sort genuine science from fake science. CrapMed is an index of dodgy science. It contains 1) articles published in journals with suspect peer review, and 2) articles reporting research that has been compromised by political interference.

There are plans to rapidly scale-up the service as there is expected to be a huge growth in this sector (mis-research) over the next four years.

A team of scientific integrity experts has been assembled and many contributors in the broader community have volunteered to help to monitor the literature to identify candidate articles. Developers are also building links to Xitter, another rich source of mis-information.

Commenters have suggested that CrapMed could serve a useful purpose by identifying research that no-one should take seriously. By subtracting the results of a CrapMed search from the results of a PubMed search genuine investigators can derive a set of results that is free from compromised or fake research results.

CrapMed leaders are also negotiating with CrossRef to ingest the Retraction Watch database of retracted articles.

Noted researcher Lunchtime O’Gilson said that ’CrapMed is the highest quality database of utter dross that I have ever seen’.

Initially the focus is on biomedical crap, but observers suggest that it will soon be necessary to expand to cover all branches of research. The Web of Crap is likely to be needed before the end of 2025.

Plans are also under way for a new bibliometric indicator based on CrapMed. The working name for this indicator is the ‘Crap-Index’ but there are worries that this name is not sufficiently descriptive – there are so many other bibliometric indicators that people think are crap.

Stop Press

Rumours emerging from the Department of Ghastly Egregiousness suggests that the NLM will be renamed as the National Library of Misinformation and will divert resources from PubMed to maintaining CrapMed.

Posted in Research tools, Searching | Comments Off on A new development in scientific integrity

My lovely sister, 1946-2025

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Frank Norman

This week my much-loved eldest sister, M, died. I want to share with you some memories of her through my life.

In a few weeks it will be 30 years since my mother died from cancer. It was a difficult time – the uncertainty of waiting for test results, the assaults of chemo and surgeries, the time for recuperation. M had trained and practiced as a nurse so she made it her job to see that my mother received the best care. M navigated through all the healthcare decisions, keeping the rest of the family in the loop and explaining every stage. When my mother needed to recuperate for a bit before returning home, M made space in her own home and looked after her.

I was reminded of that time this week. M’s caring and dedication, her clear idea of what had to be done and her willingness to step in. Giving of herself. Now she was the one who needed all our love and care.

Growing up, we were a family of six children. I was the youngest. One sister died in a plane crash 40 years ago, leaving M as the oldest. We were a close family, though as we scattered across the UK we saw each other less frequently. The bonds remained strong.

When M left home to train as a nurse I was still a small child, so I don’t have strong memories of her until later. When she married I was 12 years old. I had my first taste of champagne at the wedding. (I don’t remember but apparently I enjoyed it!). That was the start of a long and happy marriage. A few years later she accompanied her husband when he moved to work in (pre-Ayatollah) Iran for six months and later they lived in Jamaica for a spell. I remember feeling very sad when she went away the first time, as it seemed such a far-off place.

Back in London they lived in a flat in Notting Hill and I remember as a teenager making trips to visit her in school holidays. M was beautiful and stylish as well as loving. She took me to visit smart department stores like Biba’s, Whiteleys, Barkers and other swell places. I remember on one of those trips watching her cooking in the flat – she was making a curry by mixing different spices rather than by spooning out ready-made curry powder. I was amazed to discover all the individual spices that went into it – their smells and colours. I think that set off my own love of cooking with spices. She was a great cook and her meals were always great treats.

I had many happy times visiting M, on my own or as part of family occasions. She and her husband moved house several times – Newmarket, Stansted, Chelsea, Putney, Rye. She was a great home-maker and relished the challenge of creating a new home – reshaping the house, decorating and choosing furnishings. Her sense of style was impeccable and her homes always had her imprint. She was also skilled in many crafts, things I know little about. She took up beading, making beautiful things with tiny beads. At one point she acquired a knitting machine and used it to create amazing clothes. She made me a jumper with a musical staff on the front; on it were the notes of the first phrase of Colonel Bogey. That was my favourite jumper for many years.

In the mid-1990s I started to have more impact in my library career, and received invitations to speak at professional events. I needed to smarten up my image. M took me shopping and helped me to select a new outfit. I still have the lovely double-breasted jacket that we chose. She also suggested a colour scheme that would suit me. I often veer towards that colour palette when I buy clothes even today.

After our mother died I felt closer still to M. I was no longer her baby brother of years gone by but a middle-aged man, so we related more equally. By then she had started her own family but she always had time to listen and talk. When at a late age I came to understand that I was gay, M was the first family member who I told. She was of course lovely, encouraging and reassuring. Tears were shed on both sides. When I found love with my now-husband, M welcomed him into the family. She was one of the witnesses at our Civil Partnership ceremony.

My sister at my Civil Partnership ceremony

My sister at the Civil Partnership ceremony

M was a very good hostess. She organised family get-togethers and parties for birthdays and anniversaries, always ready to open up their house. Over the years I came to know some of her friends too, through meeting them at her parties.

A few years ago when M and her husband celebrated a major wedding anniversary with a big family lunch, I was moved to stand up and make an impromptu short speech. I’m not good at spontaneous speechifying but the urge to speak overcame any nervousness. I told them that their relationship had been a firm point for me – they were so solid all my adult life – and I thanked them for their generosity to friends and family.

The last few years were hard for M. Four or five years ago she started complaining of a sort of brain fog. Slowly her speech became more restricted. It wasn’t obvious at first but in conversation she would repeat what you said. Later she would repeat just one particular phrase in response to anything you said. Diagnosis was very slow, but eventually we learnt that this was due to Primary Progressive Aphasia, a form of dementia that affects speech especially. This robbed her of the ability to communicate.

Slowly her world shrank as she could not talk or read, then she could not cook or do her craftwork. Later on her condition affected her ability to swallow, making eating a very slow process. Life became very complicated and increasingly fragile. She was cared for at home almost the whole time of her illness, by family and excellent carers, one in particular was so devoted and caring.

I tried to visit M regularly over the last couple of years. It was hard to see her so changed but it was heartening when she recognised me and gave a smile. She was still there inside, responding to loved ones but unable to tell us what she was feeling or thinking.

Last week M caught an infection and over the weekend it became serious. She was taken to hospital. Antibiotics did not help. Her family and close friends came to be with her, and I was able to be with her too on Tuesday. Early in the following morning she passed away.

Grief comes in waves and it’s still hard to accept that M is gone. Writing this has helped me I think. I’m sure everyone who knew M will have their own memories and stories of special times with her, and times when she has helped them. M was important to all of us, inspiring love and loyalty in all who knew her.

I remember that when the Guggenheim Bilbao first opened in 1997 we talked about travelling there together to visit it. Of course M was interested and knowledgeable about art and architecture. Sadly we never did see that plan through. I think I must make that trip soon, in her memory.

Posted in Biographical, Family | 22 Comments

My favourite Christmas carol

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Frank Norman

Waiting for Christmas

Today is the first day of Advent. In Christian tradition this is a time of preparation and waiting for the arrival of the infant Jesus on Christmas Day. These days Advent is often treated as the start of the Christmas season. Traditionalists maintain that Christmas starts only on the evening of 24 December and insist that that no tree or decoration should appear before then. I’m afraid they have rather lost that battle.

In the UK you can find Christmas foodstuffs appearing in shops from October, maybe even earlier. High Streets will put up decorations in November – in London the main shopping streets started switching on their decorative lights in the first week or so of November. By the time December starts we’re on a fast slide down to 25 December and the big feast.

One group of people who always start their preparations early are those who sing in choirs.
My own church choir started planning for Christmas in October and we started rehearsing Christmas music a month ago. Secular choirs too will have made an early start. In the music library where I volunteer, all our copies of Benjamin’s Britten’s masterpiece, Ceremony of Carols, were booked out on loan by mid-August, and the majority were reserved by the end of April!

Singing at Christmas

Christmas is a season when much music will be sung. Christmas carols are hugely popular, more so probably than any other kind of church music or classical music, so there are many services and concerts of Christmas music. People who sing in choirs (like me) can experience a surfeit of Christmas music during December, singing in carol concerts, carol services and ad hoc carol performances. This can leave you jaded as you trot out Hark the Herald Angels Sing for the 19th time.

I did get a bit tired of it all a few years back and resolved to cut back on my festive singing engagements. But then I sang in a carol concert to a packed Royal Albert Hall in London and I realised what a privilege it was to entertain 5,000 people who were absolutely enthralled to be there listening to us.  It would have been churlish to be anything other than joyful.

This year I’m singing in three church carol services, a musical evening in my old workplace, and a carol concert arranged by Bristol University alumni in London. I’m also joining a group to do some carol singing on the street for one evening. Across all those I’ll be singing a mixture of old and new music, including three specially written pieces.

Program planning for Christmas is a fine skill. There is a tension between making sure that all the favourite old familiar carols are included yet providing variety and novelty for the audience (and singers). Luckily there is an enormous amount of Christmas music available and new pieces (or new arrangements of old tunes) are written every year. The highlight of many people’s Christmas is hearing the carol service from King’s College, Cambridge – a tradition that dates back to 1918. They always feature a newly commissioned piece of Christmas music in the service.

David Willcocks was director of music at King’s College for many years and he was the joint editor of Carols for Choirs (CfC), published in 1961, and its 1970 successor Carols for Choirs 2. These books contained a mixture of easily singable standard carols plus some more adventurous and challenging pieces of Christmas music. They became the go-to carol books for choirs, and were known by the colour of the covers – CfC1 was the green book and CfC2 was the orange book. It always struck me as odd that these books, the embodiment of the King’s College, Cambridge Christmas carol tradition, were published by Oxford University Press.

Cover of Carols for Choirs 3 - the blue book

Cover of Carols for Choirs 3 – the blue book

I became acquainted with the green book in the early 1970s, and I remember playing through the whole book on the piano, very badly! Later I came to know the orange book too, and carols from these two sources featured in my Christmas singing  through the mid 1970s. Then in 1978, when as a student I sang in the choir of Clifton Cathedral, a new carol book was added to the series – Carols for Choirs 3 (also known as the blue book). The choir purchased a set of copies of CfC3. The new book contained several arrangements by Willcocks and several by the other editor, John Rutter. Rutter has produced many fine carols and arrangements, to the extent that some people complain that his music is everywhere at Christmas. I enjoyed getting to know some new carols and new arrangements, to add some new spice to the Christmas repertoire.

 

 

My favourite Christmas carol

One of the first pieces we sang from the new book was the Wexford Carol – an arrangement by Rutter of an Irish traditional carol. The original melody is very beautiful and Rutter treats it sensitively. It starts with a baritone solo and I recall that our music director, Christopher (Chris) Walker, sang it. The text of the carol tells the Christmas story, and the opening words address the listeners explictly. Chris was a great communicator – he turned to the congregation and sang the opening words of the story directly to them; it came over very effectively, drawing the congregation into the story.

Good people all, this Christmas time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son

In Rutter’s arrangement the choral parts then enter gradually, wordless and almost imperceptible at first, as the soloist continues to tell the story. Then the choir takes over the tale for a couple more verses until the soloist comes in again at the end to finish the story.

Talking about the carol

This carol became a firm favourite of mine. I was surprised and pleased last year to discover a podcast devoted to the origin of the carol. Maggi Van Dorn is a US audio producer, working ‘at the intersection of religion and culture’. She has made several podcasts delving into the background of favourite Christmas carols, under the series title Hark! The stories behind our favorite Christmas carols. The podcast about the Wexford Carol is about 45 minutes long. She also wrote an essay as a companion piece to the podcast.

The carol originates in Enniscorthy, in County Wexford, Ireland. Van Dorn travelled to that part of Ireland on holiday and while there she learnt more about the carol. It probably originated in the 15th or 16th century and was passed on in an oral tradition. It was first transcribed by Grattan Flood, an organist and a scholar of Irish music and history, in about 1920. Flood published his simple choral arrangement of the carol and it has been popular in Enniscorthy ever since. It even made its way into the 1928 edition of the Oxford Book of Carols, a popular collection of carols at that time.

It’s a great story, and Van Dorn plays the detective as she hunts down the history of this carol, interviewing various people. The podcast also features her interviewing another expert on church music, to outline the musical qualities of the carol – none other than Chris Walker! It was good to hear Chris talking about this carol, which I remember so well and which I’d learnt from him 45 years earlier.

Chris Walker was the first Director of Music at Clifton Cathedral when it opened in 1973, so he created its tradition of music. He left in 1991 after 18 years in charge of the music there and moved to the US, becoming a leading figure in US church music. He was Director of Music at St. Paul the Apostle Church, LA for 20 years up to 2021. Now he works as a composer, conductor and lecturer.

In the podcast he made some interesting observations on the Wexford (or Enniscorthy) carol. In particular he reflected on its transition from being passed on by oral tradition to being written down by Grattan Flood. When passed on orally there can be variations in the precise notes, depending on who is singing it. Transcription sets it in stone, and captures the particular inflexions of the person who sings it to the transcriber, in this case Grattan Flood on that day in 1920. That singer’s version of the tune has thus been fixed as the definitive version that we know over 100 years later.

There is quite a feast of information on the web about this carol and you can easily go down multiple rabbit holes learning more about its history and the history of Grattan Flood. The Wikipedia page gives a short summary and some jumping-off points.

Grattan Flood’s arrangement of the carol is available as a free download and I hope I can sing it one day – it’s more straightforward than the Rutter version.

If you’re interested in Christmas music and musical history I do recommend listening to the podcast.

Posted in History, Music | Tagged , , | Comments Off on My favourite Christmas carol

Bluesky again

Posted on November 25, 2024 by Frank Norman

Since my last post in September I’ve grown ever more fond of Bluesky. I look at ex-Twitter less and less. When I do go to Ex-Twitter I still see things of interest, and I retweet a few things, but I’ve not posted any original tweets there for a while.

Growth

Bluesky has grown both in the range of interesting people and posts there and in overall numbers (see this counter – it’s approaching 23mn users at the time of writing).  It feels like it’s the platform of choice for academics who want to leave Muskville. Bluesky is still developing new features, and I’m learning more about how it works.

Mainstream media have noticed its progress, and articles about Bluesky’s growth keep popping up.

Guides

Guides to migrating from Twitter and to using Bluesky are proliferating. I liked what Andy Tattersall said in this thread – he’s trying to encourage people to try Bluesky, but without badgering or guilt-tripping.

There is a guide for academics produced by Ned Potter, a librarian at York university and a couple of guides specifically for scientists, one made by Jonny Coates, preprint and research integrity advocate, and another made by academics Steve Haroz and Mark Rubin

Who to follow?

Starter packs are a feature of Bluesky that has helped its growth. These are curated lists of people/accounts. There is a starter pack for librarians that I found helpful and many more covering a wide range of topics. I also liked the Science Snark and Shitposters starter pack, highlighting posters with attitude. Most of the packs have a disciplinary focus – you can search this starter pack directory to see if there are any in your field. If you really trust the person who has curated the list then you can just blanket follow everyone on the list, otherwise go through and pick accounts you want to follow. Another useful tool created by Theo Sanderson allows you to find ‘people followed by lots of the people you follow’.

As well as following accounts you can try adding some feeds on topics to your profile. This spreadsheet, curated by Brian Krueger, tracks active science-based feeds.

The publishing world is slowly moving towards Bluesky. Some time ago Biorxiv created Bluesky accounts for medRxiv and each of the 24 bioRxiv subject categories. Nature Portfolio created a starter pack with all their editors. EMBO Press is there too while some others (Cell Press, Science, PLOS) have accounts but have not posted yet.

Tech tips

Funnies

I enjoyed this parody of a guide for new users, that I dubbed the Mornington Crescent guide to Bluesky.

Adam Sharp posted about the upset of not being included in a starter pack, which led to someone suggesting a Russell paradox starter pack, of all accounts which are not in a starter pack.

Warnings

Bluesky may not be everyone’s choice, and there’s no guarantee it will remain the flavour of the month.  There have been questions about its owners, and suggestions that strife/toxicity is inherent in all social media platforms, so we should not take too rosy a view.  The most encouraging point is that it has proved possible to move from one place (X) to another place (Bluesky), so if we’ve done it once then we can do it again.

Posted in Social networking | Tagged | 2 Comments

Switching socials

Posted on September 26, 2024 by Frank Norman

Changing times

When I retired it was an opportunity to make changes in my life. Obviously now I spend less time working (actually no time working), and instead have more time for reading, visiting exhibitions, going for walks/runs, and engaging in other fulfilling but non-remunerative activities. I’m still adjusting the balance but there’s been a big change since my last day of work in July 2022.

In the 21st century this ‘life activity edit’ also entails adjustments to my social media activity. This has been a challenge.

Up to 2022 much of my social media use was work-related, so my Twitter timeline was full of open access, publishing, libraries, scholarly communications and science. I’m still interested in all these things but I’m less committed and have a reduced incentive to engage in a full-throated way. I dip in to discussions and read a little but I don’t feel the need to read everything and keep on top of what’s happening.

Now that I do voluntary work in a music library I want to engage more with the world of music libraries. It’s a much smaller world and I am still new to it so I don’t know people and I have less to say about issues.

These changes prompt me to change my social media approach to reflect the new balance of my interests. However, it is a challenge to build a new network on a different topic and this has been made ten times harder by the disintegration of Twitter and the arrival of multiple alternatives.

The great migration

Since Musk acquired Twitter in late 2022 there has been a stream of people leaving and this has increased each time Musk says something outrageous. There’ve been several articles with titles like Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter and Requiem for Academic Twitter. Often those leaving Twitter switch to a different social media platform and this has stimulated some academics to study the migration phenomenon (eg Tracking the great Twitter migration and Drivers of social influence in the Twitter migration to Mastodon). These studies tell you more than you ever wanted to know about social media users, but seem to end up with fairly mundane conclusions – people leave because they’re dissatisfied, they seek out their communities on the new platforms, their posting behaviour is influenced by the differences in configuration and functionalities of the new platforms.

Cory Doctorow is typically insightful in writing about social quitting. He reminds us that the social networks which preceded the Facebook/Twitter generation all went through cycles of boom and bust. Facebook and Twitter have had a much longer boom phase but each of them are now seeing contractions. We shouldn’t be surprised by this.

Others have cautioned that we should be circumspect when choosing a new social media platform. If it is owned by the same people or companies as those responsible for the failing platforms that we are now leaving then they are likely to suffer from the same problems.

Tweet from Stan Carey: I resisted Facebook and Instagram. I swapped WhatsApp for Signal when it was sold. No way in a hundred hells would I consider joining ThreadsDorothea Salo tweet: Nothing does a better job convincing me that my librarian colleagues are LEMMINSG than watching them rush to Dorsey-owned Bluesky and Zuckerberg-owned Threads.

 

 

 

 

Migrate to where?

LinkedIn. The path of least resistance for me would be to quit Twitter and reply on LinkedIn.  I’ve been there a while so have a strong network and I do find plenty of interesting posts and conversations to read and take part in. However, it is work-focused and I don’t see my broader interests reflected there.

Mastodon. I did set up an account here a couple of years back and put a small effort into engaging there. I found some people I knew with OA interests and tech interests. I can see benefits of putting more effort in to Mastodon but I don’t think it will be useful for my new interests in music libraries, and it is a smaller network with a narrower range of people. Some people are enthusiastic about Mastodon: Steve Royle recently explained his shift from Twitter to Mastodon, giving tips for how to get started there. Maria Antoniak has also written a helpful guide for Mastodon newbies. Hilda Bastian has written several blogposts about Mastodon, and how usage has grown, though her last one was over a year ago.

PostNews. A Twitter buddy recommended this site so I set up an account.  Its focus was on news coverage and its model was a bit different.  I didn’t look there often.  It has now closed down altogether.

Spoutible. This is quite US-centric and quite political (leftish). Its founder is Christopher Bouzy, a Black tech entrepreneur.  I like the appearance and the way it works but I haven’t found people there from the community I know.  I’d need to get to know a new group of people and that will take time and much effort.

Trust Cafe. A few years ago I had created an account on WT Social – a site set up by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia renown. I had an initial poke around but rarely visited the site. I see it has now changed name to Trust Cafe, but the old accounts have not yet migrated to the new site. Trust Cafe hasn’t been mentioned much as a Twitter alternative and maybe it is just too small. I’ll explore it a bit more, when I get time.

Tweet: 'hang on honey i just need to check my account on Twitter, Mastodon, [etc etc]'.

Threads. This is the site that Zuckerberg launched to rival Twitter. I setup an account there and it imported my network from Instagram, but this was quite a small network. I look at Threads a bit, mainly when I see adverts on Facebook for posts there. There are some interesting stories though nothing I want to engage with.  I can’t help the feeling that some of the stories posted may not be 100% factual. Jon Worth says that moving to Threads would be going from the frying pan into the fire.

BlueSky.  I found it easier to get started here.  The Sky Follower Bridge browser extension proved very useful, matching accounts on Twitter that I followed to equivalent accounts on BlueSky. Unfortunately it mismatched quite a few accounts, so I started following some randoms on BlueSky. Gradually I’ve added more people to my following list, and increased my followers, and BlueSky feels like a good experience now.

Comparisons. Several people have reviewed some of the new social media offerings, mainly looking at Threads, BlueSky and Mastodon. Ian Bogost and Charlie Warzel writing in The Atlantic suggested that Threads is ‘Zombie Twitter’. They were writing in the very early days of Threads though. Jennifer Regala, writing on Science Editor,  was more enthusiastic about Threads but also liked BlueSky.  She found both platforms incldued people from her communities, but slightly preferred BlueSky. She was not keen on Mastodon, writing ‘Anything that complicated should not be considered social media from my perspective.’

David Gewirtz, writing in ZDNet, was a bit disappointed at the low number of active users in both Threads and BlueSky but suggests we need to be patient. He says that BlueSky has the most potential.  He has a soft spot for Mastodon and says it is ‘a little more complex and a little less inclusive than Twitter’ but it is solid enough, though slow going.

Excerpt from article by David Gewirtz: Had Twitter not launched first, and Mastodon had first mover advantage, I think Mastodon might have been huge. But since it's a late-to-the-party substitute solution that's a little more complex and a little less inclusive than Twitter, it's probably destined to be a bit of an edge system for the foreseeable future. That's not to say there's nothing to like, because it's nice. But it's not going to take Twitter's place as the voice of the online community overall.I frankly doubt anything will. Twitter may well have been of a time and place, and we may never see its like again.

Screenshot

Institutional accounts

Andy Tattersall has looked at why research organisations might stay on the platform and where they have moved to. There are many factors influencing the decision to stay or move. His spreadsheet (still growing) has details of more than 300 institutions with details of their accounts on different platforms. Strikingly, he says that the majority of these new accounts are inactive, so it seems institutions are hedging their bets – setting up in the new places but staying on Twitter for now.

Ned Potter has forcefully argued that academic organisations should leave Twitter, and provided a five-step plan for doing so. He says

By stopping our use of X we will be upholding our values, adapting 
to the changing landscape of social media by jettisoning a platform 
no longer delivering value, and freeing up capacity to work on more 
impactful communications.

The library where I volunteer currently has a Twitter account – engaging with other music libraries and many choirs and orchestras. I’ve not seen a move away from Twitter among those communities, but it’s something we need to keep in mind.

Curating my network

Creating a network on social media platforms is a gradual, organic process which takes time. I read an interesting post by someone and decide to follow them. I see tweets by people at an event I’m attending and I  follow them. Bit by bit I become more connected. When I move to a new platform I start with nothing so I cannot expect to be immediately immersed in interesting posts and conversations. The Sky Bridge extension mentioned above was really useful for me, and perhaps that is one reason that I am finding BlueSky more rewarding. I think regular posting and interacting with other people’s posts are the best ways to become more embedded.

My decision

I’ve read accounts from many others explaining why they have left Twitter; until now I’ve stuck it out. But there’s a limit. Musk’s political comments are increasingly egregious and outrageous and I’ve reached the point when I must make a change.

I plan to focus on BlueSky with a bit of Mastodon too and occasional glimpses at Threads. I’d like to explore Spoutible and Trust Cafe more but realistically I may not have time.

I am not deleting my Twitter account. There’s simply too much conversation still there that I want to read. I intend to refrain from posting on Twitter, but I may find it hard to resist the occasional reply there. I will try out a strategy of politely asking authors of posts I want to engage with whether they are also on BlueSky or Mastodon, or if they have plans to migrate. Otherwise I will screenshot a post and repost on BlueSky.

I hope to see you over there one day soon – I am @franknorman.bsky.social on BlueSky.

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