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TwoSet Violin 'ends chapter' after eleven years
- stefanos82 2y agoThere'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/community?lb=UgkxDqqODt_xP6UbhWgp1WseHYvPHnxBsnEB https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAzKFALPuF_EPe-AEI0WFFw/com...
- tomcam 2y agoPlease let that be true! Good catch.
- latexr 2y agoThat 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.
- stefanos82 2y agoGo here https://www.youtube.com/@twosetviolin/videos https://www.youtube.com/@twosetviolin/videos and click on their channel info: seems like they are now twosetacademy
- nerdponx 2y agoI wonder if they're going to put their content behind a subscription or paywall somehow.
- fzimmermann89 2y agoSad to hear that they removed most of their content as well.
- pdw 2y agoWow, that's sudden. They released a sponsored video for Apple just a few days ago.
- seabass-labrax 2y agoThis 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...
- earnesti 2y agoLikely just a bad business decision. People do these all the time. What is obvious to me and you is not obvious to everyone.
- soneca 2y agoOr a conscious choice not related to business. It goes the other way around too, what is obvious to them is not obvious to you.
- throwaway19972 2y agoThere's more to art than simply producing commodities to consume.
- dspillett 2y agoA 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. ---- [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.
- throwaway19972 2y ago
- j7ake 2y agoDidn’t expect this to show up on hackernews! Didn’t know there were so many lingling fans here.
- hdjjhhvvhga 2y agoThey 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.
- j7ake 2y agoI also appreciated commentary from professional violinists about soloist performance and why they’re so technically and musically good
- bdowling 2y agoWhen there’s a sudden, dramatic, never-going-back/burning-the-ships move, it’s a sign that it’s a personal, not business, decision.
- stevage 2y ago>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.
- ziddoap 2y agoApparently this was a bad opinion, oops.
- CharlieDigital 2y ago> Teaching is probably the safer career long-term. Is it? It feels like it's less scalable.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- giraffe_lady 2y agoSeveral 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.
- tzs 2y ago> 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7t9KGcOPk
- jdgoesmarching 2y agoThis is not good for society
- melenaos 2y agoThey 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!
- neilsimp1 2y agoThese are truly sad days.
- apitman 2y ago> 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.
- nxdmum 2y agoYes . 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYQlmpS69k
- foobarian 2y ago> 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.
- djtango 2y agoThis 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.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoOne 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.
- shermantanktop 2y agoI’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.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoYeah, 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.
- nogridbag 2y agoThis 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.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoWow, 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.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI 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.
- tzs 2y agoOr 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.
- pantulis 2y agoThis is the evil hand of Ling Ling!
- tgv 2y agoPerhaps they have to spend more time practicing!
- qianli_cs 2y agoI 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!
- yjgyhj 2y agoWhen 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)
- qzw 2y agoI 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.
- _jcrossley 2y agoI’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 https://youtube.com/jcpractices