A watch for professional musicians.
- The Covid pandemic lasted three long years. Despite the fact those three years seemed to fly by. At least by my perception which is surely never the prevailing opinion. Just before the pandemic was officially declared, my wife and I danced a waltz in front of our studio during its Christmas party. We danced to the Jerry Goldsmith composed soundtrack to the movie The Russia House and I took the opportunity to play a few opening bars of it with my soprano saxophone in a poor impression of my hero, the saxophonist Bradford Marsalis. You can read that account at https://jimchungblog.com/2019/12/08/how-good-or-how-bad-is-a-brand-new-250-chinese-soprano-saxophone-compared-to-a-3200-yamaha-instrument/
We are finally back to regular ballroom dancing with not a face mask in sight and this past Friday had us doing a slow bachata to George Michael’s Careless Whisper, the song that launched his solo career and also made him an instant star in North America. The song has an iconic eight bar sax introduction of such sultry smoothness that I am indeed a fool to have attempted to play it. Apparently George Michael went through nine saxophone auditions before he found Steve Gregory as the only one who could play it properly. I had thought of playing it on the soprano sax, but that Chinese made instrument no longer works despite all my attempts at discovering the reason. It will now cost more than its value to simply have a professional diagnosis the issue. I was left with my Yamaha alto sax which I have not touched for over 30 years … and it played perfectly.
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As it turns out, there is a much better option. In 2020, Soundbrenner introduced the Core. This is ostensibly a digital watch, but with a heavy rotating eccentric mass that produces an incredibly strong vibrating pulse that is easily felt by the wearer. There is even the option of wearing the watch not on your wrist but on an included long strap around your chest or torso which might be a more secure position for a drummer. Solo artists can also benefit from having this metronomic pulse help them keep time during their performances. The time signature can also be changed which is a distinct advantage to a regular metronome. Fortunately Soundbrenner is a Hong Kong based company and Hong Kong used to be a distinct society within China but unfortunately the HK of today is nothing like the democratic HK that operated under the rule of law in 2020. Still I would buy from this company since this innovative product is clearly no Chinese knock off and I actually picked this one up locally from Kijiji for about $150 USD.
Multiple Cores also can be custom configured and controlled with the Soundbrenner app for your smart phone and the tempos for up to ten songs in a set stored so that they can be instantly available for each member of the group during a gig.
So to summarize, products Made in China might be temptingly inexpensive but they can also be of hidden low quality and designed to fail in short order. I think Covid and a year of war in the Ukraine has shown the free world that economic trade with authoritarian regimes is not in our own best interests. China tried to suppress news of the first cases of Covid in December 2019 and allowed it to freely spread globally. And then held the free world hostage by limiting export of PPE, a trade sector they dominate. Russia threatened to cut off natural gas exports and let Europe freeze during the winter of 2022 because of Europe’s strong condemnation of the Ukraine war. If you can avoid buying products Made in China, then do so.
Jim Chung's Ramblings 
Soprano? Sidney Bechet. The old master. Reed instruments are a bitch so you are a guy who still has some chops. The Jesuit motto of learning, “Repititio, repititio, repititio”, applies in music.
I had just seen a blurb on the Seiko Metronome on YT. I do not play an instrument so I dodged that one.
Cheers and a belated Canada Day.
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