With the London Red Bull Music Academy class in full swing, we headed next door to the maths class and worked on a few sums.
12...
The Red Bull Music Academy has spent 12 years travelling the globe and visiting a new musical metropolis each year. Starting off in Berlin in 1998, the route has taken in Dublin, New York, London, São Paulo, Cape Town, Rome, Seattle, Melbourne, Toronto, Barcelona and now London again.
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Participants from 29 countries across the globe are attending this year’s London edition. Be it the freshest UK House producer who lives just down the road, a Paris-inspired Swedish-Vietnamese composer, purveyors of reggaeton from Cuba or a gifted drummer all the way from New Zealand, they’re all gathered for the two fortnight-long sessions of musical mayhem in the UK capital.
388...
Almost 400 separate pieces of music-making kit are stored in the equipment room. The participants will find everything from a UK power plug adapter to a custom-built modular synthesiser, the latest gear from leading instrument manufacturers and also classics like the Roland TR-808 drum machine (pictured, above, in all its retro glory). In addition, there are 1,500 CD-Rs ready to be filled with samples, recordings and finished tracks.
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Eight smaller studios are set up as production suites at the Academy. Equipped with computer and mixing desk, add some of the 388 items from the equipment room (see above), and you have your very own creative hub.
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Five hours’ sleep is the average amount a participant has per night. A day at the Academy starts at noon with the first lecture, with a second after lunch. After that, it’s studio time or clubs, most likely both. Curfew on the dancefloor does not mean bedtime, however, so there is always still a buzz in the studio when the sun rises over nearby London Bridge.
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Over the four weeks of the Red Bull Music Academy, 28 lectures are taking place. The roster includes many musical legends – Hans-Joachim Rödelius from Cluster being the oldest at 75. For the full rundown of all previous couch guests, check out redbullmusicacademy.com/london/lecture-videos
1,680,000...
To keep Londoners abreast of developments at the Academy, a daily free newspaper, the Daily Note, is being published over 24 editions, with 70,000 copies coming hot off the press each day to be handed out at London Underground stations, so nearly 1.7m copies overall. Each edition is 16 pages, with up to 24 columns of fascinating up-to-the-minute interviews and insight in a handy A3-sized format. That’s about 384 column inches – 32ft or roughly 10m – of original copy per issue. If you laid every printed copy end to end from the whole run, it would stretch 672km (418 miles). That’s about the distance from London to Edinburgh, the Scottish capital.
2,471...
Two thousand, four hundred and seventy-one shows have been hosted at the Red Bull Music Academy Radio (and counting by the hour). RBMA Radio first went to air in Dublin during the 2000 event, establishing a regular home online in 2005. During this year’s edition in London, dozens of mixes, shows and interviews are being produced every week, ready to go on air through NME Radio or to be hosted in the archives.
For more of the right numbers, dial in at redbullmusicacademy.com
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