TwoSet Violin 'ends chapter' after eleven years | Hacker News Reader

TwoSet Violin 'ends chapter' after eleven years

thestrad.com

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This is a bit bizarre; why would any musician take down their own recordings, where they continue to earn advertising revenue and gain fans? Even if they were planning to sell the recordings to a record label for some anniversary album, it would be daft to close down their main publicity channel. Very mysterious...

Likely just a bad business decision. People do these all the time. What is obvious to me and you is not obvious to everyone.

Or a conscious choice not related to business. It goes the other way around too, what is obvious to them is not obvious to you.

There's more to art than simply producing commodities to consume.

A fair chunk of their output (that I saw) was commentary on other stuff (performers/performances/other) which is pretty much commodity content for easy consumption, not really art¹.

Perhaps this is the reason for taking it down: they want to concentrate on a more commonly accepted-as-art part of the careers and not have the other content distract from that for now? If so then perhaps once they've moved far enough forward in the new direction, that it stands on its own to their satisfaction, the old content will start to be republished for nostalgia points.

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[1] I'm not meaning to denigrate it, despite how that sentence may sound. It entertained many including sometimes me, so the content very much has value, but I don't generally consider commentary to be art.

> A fair chunk of their output (that I saw) was commentary on other stuff (performers/performances/other) which is pretty much commodity content for easy consumption, not really art¹.

In what way is this excluded from being art? These are overlapping categories.

I do get your point. However, this might be incidental to the art they want to produce rather than central to their project.

Another famous example of this is the KLF who did they same. They also set fire to 1 million pound sterling of their royalties at the same time, so it was more an art thing than a bad business decision.

They time limited it to 23 years or the establishment of world peace, whichever came first, so it's available on streaming services now, though sadly not as a result of world peace.

Yes, I'm only hearing of them now, so that robs me of the chance to enjoy a lot of their music.

The more I think about it and read, the more certain it is they're just switching platforms. Even the phrase "ends chapter", it's not the end of the book, they're just making a change.

This is a huge loss - outside of a handful of echo chambers classical music is kind of dying. Fewer and fewer young people care about it, I am grateful to TwoSet for providing a relatable way for the next generation of listeners to ramp into classical music.

One thing that sort of shocks me about music in general is that fewer and fewer people are actively engaging with music. While more and more people start to pick up instruments, a smaller and smaller fraction of the population sticks with them (classical or otherwise), and even things like actively listening to a recording or going to a concert (again, classical or otherwise) are declining as hobbies. Music for many people is something that happens increasingly in the background of other activities as a "mood enhancer" rather than as a focus itself.

I’m in a jazz band of committed amateurs and most of the musicians are under 30. And this music is not easy to get good at.

The modern era seems to have taken the previous distribution of engagement and hollowed out the middle. People now either don’t care much, or they care a LOT. Applies to music, art, cooking, and so many hobbies.

Yeah, I sing in a chorus, and the rough composition is:

* 10% professional or aspiring professional singers (who are young)

* 20% music educators in their 20's and 30's

* 30% people in their 20's and 30's who are very musically-inclined and studied music a lot as children

* 40% older people who sing as more of a hobby

When I mostly played chamber music, the crowd was also very young and enthusiastic. 21st century composers actually seem to have a better audience than 20th century composers did.

Music in general seems to be fragmenting into many subcultures of very interested people, with the exception of pop music and ironically parts of the classical/opera crowd that see it as a status symbol.

I feel like hollowing out the middle is another way of saying something had fallen out of the mainstream/popularity. So, I certainly agree.

The middle in music (and most arts) is increasingly worthless, especially as displayed in public. Has been for decades, but we're finally past "generations are shifting" and into "generations have shifted".

Nobody needs a slightly-talented pianist for family sing-alongs (or: anyone who can sing halfway on-key, for that matter, because who's singing around other people in a typical house unless it's to Disney songs on the TV?) around Christmastime or that old guy who knows some folk & sing-along pop songs tolerably well to bring his guitar to the pub or whatever. We have Spotify. Fuck, the church bells anywhere that doesn't already have a set from 50+ years ago are just speakers playing recordings now.

The only remaining value unless you are very good and also put in a lot of time to sell, is personal, and that's not enough for a lot of folks who, in decades and centuries past, would have been hobbyist musicians. The social value started declining in the early 20th century and took a nose-dive in the last half of it. The generations who even remember their grandparents clinging to those habits, and their parents half-assedly attempting to keep it up out of nostalgia but then not really doing it because nobody wanted that anymore and forgetting how to play, are now old.

That's where the middle went.

I don't know if the middle is really hollowed out... I for one am in the middle, but I say I don't care much because people who care a lot get overwhelming quickly.

Indeed. Especially when their self-image is being someone who cares a lot about that specific thing. If one-upping behavior starts it rarely stops.

What people want out of a concert is also changing.

There's a YouTube channel, "Wings of Pegasus" that does a lot of breakdowns of recordings, isolating voices and instruments and analyzing what kind of processing has been done on them.

They had a video a few months ago [1] looking at two performances from the 2024 Glastonbury Festival. One from an '80s artist (Cyndi Lauper) and one from a current artist (Dua Lipa).

Lauper's live performance was the kind you'd expect from an '80s act. What the audience heard was what she was singing live and what the musicians on stage were playing.

During Lipa's performance most of the time what they audience was hearing was Lipa's vocals from the studio recording. She was singing live but most of the time they had her microphone turned way down in the mix. They'd only turn it up and the recording down for a few passages. Same with the musicians. There was a drummer on stage but mostly to accompany the studio recording.

The thing is Lipa's fans are OK with that. They aren't there to hear what she sounds like live. The extras they get at a live show over just listening to the recording are the experience of the crowd and watching the dancing and light show.

Contrast to the '80s and '90s where one of the points of going to a concert was that the bands tried different things with their songs. They didn't just play note for note and beat for beat the studio version. Live versions might have more solos, or a different solo, or different instrumentation, or variations on the lyrics (or even new verses). The live performances were different enough that people would buy live albums even though they had every song from the live album on studio albums they already owned.

It's an interesting change, and I'm not sure why it happened. I speculate that it may be due to the increased sophistication of the processing that can be done in a studio. If every tiny imperfection gets processed away in the studio so that all people are hearing is 100% on pitch with 100% perfect timing maybe the imperfections of a true live performance would sound bad to them?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHJ4pL7U0Po

I will offer you another thought along that last paragraph: Pitch correction and post-processing is a productivity aid for musicians, so Dua Lipa doesn't actually need to ever be able to give a good performance of one of her songs for the recording to come out perfect. Most artists are great singers/players, but it's a waste for them to spend time practicing songs when they just need to be good enough to correct. Cyndi Lauper had to be able to sing her songs at record quality, but Dua Lipa never did, so the quality gap between a live performance and the (perfect) recording will be a lot bigger naturally for the more modern artist.

Also, the dancing that happens at modern pop concerts is so difficult and lively that nobody would be able to sing well, much less at full power, while doing it.

As a fan I’m driven to say Dua’s been credited with “Most Improved Artist” having taken to heart the infamous criticism of her BRIT Awards performance of “New Rules”: “I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHtnxluMXMw

(Not a post I’d ever expected to make on HNs)

Don't get me wrong - every pop artist is an incredibly good musician and most of them are capable of putting on a Cyndi Lauper level of vocal performance. My comment was mostly about how many reps they need to put in before going into the studio to record.

Here's one you could add to your list: https://www.youtube.com/@AnnaLapwoodOrgan

Classical music needs to drop all pretensions. Silly rules about conductors walking on and off stage, no clapping between movements (or sections or whatever), dress codes, etc... I'm a music lover and I go see a classical concert once every few years and it's easily the least fun concert experience (apart from the music). Also, god forbid they have someone come out and talk for 2 minutes and tell the context of the piece, why it might have been different or interesting at the time it was written, what to look for, etc... Some of these composers were literally rock stars of their time, let the audience know about that. It's fun! But no, you should just know all that. The old rich white people that run it would rather cling to the past and watch it continue to slowly die than modernize.

I actually like those a lot. It's one of the few places where people are not shouting, there's no bright lights or loud background music. People don't use cellphones much. I assume a certain (minority) of the population likes those things. There sure are enough loud and flashy things for people to choose from.

In the Mozart biography that I'm reading, it talks about how the opera during his time was much more social: people openly chatted, played cards, and were busy catching eyes during the show. It was a seen or be seen type of social affair, or something to do to pass the time. It was the job of the composer to draw attention from that other stuff to the show and singers.

All this puffed up pomposity around opera or classical we currently deal with is much different than in the "hey-days".

Well really it's about respecting the performers and your fellow attendees. I once saw Mitsuko Uchida storm off the stage in Southbank because there was an alarm outside going off non stop lol.

If you went to a nice restaurant and I came over and started talking loudly with spit flying into your dish or took some food from your plate it would ruin your enjoyment. When we're trying to hear the subtleties of interpretation from the performers, the faintest sound detracts from that.

I think most people can accept that talking in a cinema or using your phone is pretty anti social so I don't know why classical music gets such a bad rap for being pretentious when it has a conduct. The only thing that drives me crazy is people always seem to cough when the music slows down and gets quiet. Please do the exact opposite. Don't spoil those tranquil serene moments with your coughing. Cough when the percussion and the tubas are storming and no one will hear.

That said, I'm all for bawdy music experiences - I once saw a tiny production of Le Docteur Miracle in a bar in London which was extremely fun (by Popup Opera UK) and if you go to Sarastro's by Covent Garden you'll get some fun rowdy opera hits sung at you while you dine. Plenty of outdoor picnic concerts are similarly laid back

The latter part of what you suggested - the pre-concert talk - is a very common thing to have now, and often it's a 30-minute thing. Program notes are also getting better and better about this. People will also often talk about the context when they give recitals.

As to clapping: As late as the late 1800s, it was okay to clap during the loud parts of the song. Baroque music also often has long cadenzas that end in a big trill, which was a signal for the crowd to go wild. I agree about getting less strict about this, and historically things were less strict. At the same time, I recently saw a performance of Tchaikovsky 6 where the audience started clapping between the last two movements (a triumphal march followed by a tragic final movement), and a large part of the energy of the piece was lost from the audience doing this. I think this rule mostly comes from the audience not understanding when not to clap.

Also, lots of classical music is done in environments that aren't concert halls and these are much looser about the etiquette. A concert hall is a nice place to go, and many people go on dates at concert halls, and a lot of the vibe for the audience comes from the fact that people dress up for the occasion.

Wow, this is pretty sudden. I wonder what the real story here is. Both have grown a lot as musicians and violinists over the last 11 years, so I wonder if one or both of them has picked up an agent for a solo career that really didn't want the twoset channel being up. That would be a really stupid decision, but I can see it.

I doubt that's it. "We're stepping away from this project to focus on our solo careers" is an extremely established & acceptable play for musicians. To such an extent that it's often stated disingenuously to cover other conflict or scandal. If it were that they would have just said it.

Or they want to move away somewhat from comedy. Note that earlier this year they started another channel, TwoSet Talks, which is things like them interviewing people, telling behind the scenes stories from their tour, commenting on things, and other typical talk show stuff.

Also, they are starting something called TwoSetAcademy.com. I don't know if they have given details but if you go there the heading says "WANT TO BE THE NEXT LINGLING?" and the subheading says "Professors Yang and Chen are waiting for you...", and it asks if you play violin/viola, do not but want to learn, or neither.

If you say yes it then starts asking for more on that like your level. If you say you want to it asks what other instruments you play if any. If you say neither it asks if you would be interested in learning other classical music topics.

A lot of music channels end up running some sort of teaching platform. Violinist Ray Chen for example has something called "Tonic". I've not really looked into it but it seems to be some kind of virtual practice room where you and other people using it can encourage each other and give each other feedback.

Brandon Acker, whose channel is mostly serious classical guitar and older string instruments (lute, theorbo, oud) with a few fun side things has Classical Guitar Pro which has video classes and you can post videos of your progress to a private Facebook group for Acker to comment on. He also has Arpeggiato.com which is described as an online music school for "everything that goes pluck", which has a bunch of teachers giving online private lessons. They've got teachers for classical guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lute, theorbo, early plucked instruments, ukulele, mandolin, bass, oud, flamenco guitar, baroque guitar, and voice. They also have masterclasses and workshops directed by Acker.

It's similar for YouTubers in the non-classical world. For instance Samurai Guitarist has the Samurai Guitar Dojo where he offers his Samurai Guitar Theory courses. Charles Cornell has Better Piano.

> The duo has pulled the majority of its video content from YouTube, leaving only 29 videos on the platform.

Sounds like there's more to the story.

Yes . I was showing a friend the prodigy video and the next day I was reviewing their series on the Hardest violin pieces - Easy , Medium, Hard, God Level and then they had Ling Ling. I was watching it for the Bach Chaconne - I knew it was marked as difficult but didnt know where. And suddenly it went private while I was in the midst of watching it.

PS. I had just watched James Ehnes Chaconne on youtube . It was beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYQlmpS69k

For others like me that didn’t understand what Ling Ling is.

https://twosetviolin.fandom.com/wiki/Ling_Ling

Did you find out where the Chaconne ranked before it went private?

God Level. 1 level below Ling Ling

> The duo has pulled the majority of its video content from YouTube, leaving only 29 videos on the platform.

And this, my friends, is why we download local copies.

When there’s a sudden, dramatic, never-going-back/burning-the-ships move, it’s a sign that it’s a personal, not business, decision.

There's a hint in their post [1] though: "This will be the last piece of content we post __as TwoSet Violin__."

Seems like they are rebranding!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAzKFALPuF_EPe-AEI0WFFw/com...

Please let that be true! Good catch.

That doesn’t automatically mean they’ll just change their name and continue going, it could also mean they’ll part ways but continuing releasing stuff under their individual names, or with other people, or doing something different together.

Go here https://www.youtube.com/@twosetviolin/videos and click on their channel info: seems like they are now twosetacademy

I wonder if they're going to put their content behind a subscription or paywall somehow.

Didn’t expect this to show up on hackernews! Didn’t know there were so many lingling fans here.

They realized the same thing that Davie504 and other musicians did: that music itself is fine, but it will be much more interesting if one spices it with a bit of humor.

I miss the old setup but at the same time I can't wait to see what's next.

I also appreciated commentary from professional violinists about soloist performance and why they’re so technically and musically good

>This will be the last piece of content we post *as TwoSet Violin*. It’s been a wild ride with you all for the last 11 years. We’ve all grown up together and it’s kinda surreal that we’re *ending our chapter here*.

It sure looks like they are just moving to a different platform, one that doesn't want their stuff on YouTube for free.

Apparently this was a bad opinion, oops.

    > Teaching is probably the safer career long-term.

Is it? It feels like it's less scalable.

Several prominent music youtubers have abandoned successful channels for much less lucrative "traditional" music work like touring and session play. The sense I get is that they think of themselves as musicians, belonging to a community of musicians, and that the longer they work on youtube the farther they get from that community. Making your money from youtube is its own hell too.

> Making your money from youtube is its own hell too.

There are some interesting details on that in this video [1] from YouTuber Samurai Guitarist. The video is on the various ways one might make money as a guitarist (but much of it is not specific to guitar) and how effective they may be.

Covered are local gigging, mid level touring guitarist, top level touring guitarist, busking, cruise ship musician, studio musician, private lesson teacher, university teacher, endorsement deals, and content creator.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7t9KGcOPk

Being a music teacher is a well-established play that winds up being a reasonable money maker. It's not super lucrative but it is understood and legible.

Sad to hear that they removed most of their content as well.

This kind of reminds me of DigitalRev TV. Like TwoSet it brought in people who would typically have no interest in the subject matter just because the hosts were entertaining. Rebranding or trying to launch your own content never seems to work out.

They are closing their eShop :( they were loyal clients of my app EXPORT OrderPro in Shopify for years.

It's an odd way to see a shop leaving my app!

I’m sad to see this - I used to binge their videos a few years back. As someone who discovered and fell in love with classical music late in life (~26), and is now a hobbyist content creator [1] they were a terrific bridge into learning about orchestral instruments that I don’t play.

I agree with others that this seems like an attempt to pivot to “music as a higher art”, e.g. the rumored Two Set Academy, like a Tonebase competitor. Which is an absolute shame, because I think they did wonders to challenge that status quo and make classical music fun.

[1] Shameless, but if anyone is curious about an adult hobbyist learning classical guitar, I’m livestreaming almost daily: https://youtube.com/jcpractices

I discovered TwoSet during the pandemic lockdowns and have enjoyed both their content and seeing them grow as people. It’s sad to see their YouTube channel coming to an end, but I think it has the potential to be a good move. One of their great qualities is that they seem to genuinely care about classical music as an art form, and even though they used their share of memes and gimmicks (the “feud” with Davie504, e.g.), I always thought they possessed a certain artistic integrity that’s fundamentally not a great fit with YT’s algorithmic gods. I know they’ve had taken some breaks in the past for mental health, which is smart. I hope this move is part of a pivot to a more sustainable and artistically satisfying venture.

This is the evil hand of Ling Ling!

Perhaps they have to spend more time practicing!

When attending school for music a few years ago, my house mate had started playing violin after having binged TwoSet Violin on YT. Sad to see them go - they inspired many.

(I never watched a video though, as I had 40 hours of practice to do every day)

Wow, that's sudden. They released a sponsored video for Apple just a few days ago.

These are truly sad days.

I used to be their big fan. I bought many 2set T-shirts and put their stickers on my violin case. But recently I found their video quality dropped so I stopped following… Anyways, their videos helped me through the dark times of the pandemic and I really appreciate that. Hope they will produce some better content maybe as individual creators in the future!

This is not good for society

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