Nanyana Independent Music
New artists, records, interviews and local scenes, read through listening, context and fair criticism.
Sections
Four ways into the journal.
Latest articles
A dated flow of listening notes and practical reporting.
Grace, liturgy and hymnody in Lutheran worship
What Lutherans believe about grace and faith, what happens step by step in a Sunday service, and why hymns carry so much of the liturgy.
· Church life
First crochet stitches: hook, chain, gauge, patterns
How to hold a hook, make a first chain, tell single from treble crochet, check gauge and read a pattern line by line without losing the abbreviations.
· Craft
American Film Noir: A Seasonal Repertory Cycle
How Double Indemnity anchors American film noir, how to build a seasonal cycle around the genre, and how to program M for a repertory audience.
· Film
Solo theatre in rural Burgundy: a practical scene
A look at solo theatre in rural Burgundy, small touring companies, village halls and the practical work behind one-person shows.
· Theatre
Watercolor technique: washes, glazing and fixing muddy paint
A practical guide to laying flat and graded watercolor washes without streaks, building depth with glazing, and fixing muddy passages, hard edges and blooms.
· Painting
Editorial and documentary photography as work
Reading an agency brief, quoting a commission, editing a portfolio, and handling consent, licences, captions, credits and metadata in editorial and documentary
· Photography
Yarn shops as working spaces, not just shelves
A yarn shop is a workroom as much as a store: how gauge, fibre and lessons shape what a beginner buys and makes.
· Craft
Planning an alternative wedding ceremony
How to write the running order, assign roles with limits, rehearse transitions and check legal and accessibility points for an alternative wedding ceremony.
· Ceremony
Homebrewing in England: a practical starting point
A practical look at homebrewing in England, from malt extract kits and country wines to hydrometer readings and fermenter choices.
· Brewing
Reading and collecting antique maps
What makes an old map collectible, how to read a cartouche and margins, and why Dutch Golden Age engravers such as Nicolas Visscher still matter.
· Maps
How a first single introduces an artist without overpromising
A practical guide to using a first single to explain arrangement, audience and artistic direction with precision.
· New Artists
Building a live set before building a release plan
How a new artist can shape a live set, rehearsal plan and small-room test before committing to a release calendar.
· New Artists
Listening to a full album in the order the artist chose
A listening method for following an album’s sequencing, opening track, transitions and closing song without rushing to rank it.
· Album Reviews
Why production choices deserve as much attention as lyrics
A clear way to hear mix balance, instrument layers and vocal treatment as part of a record’s meaning.
· Album Reviews
What a week of small shows reveals about a city scene
A field guide to reading local venues, support bills and sound conditions across one week of small shows.
· Scene Reports
How independent venues shape young audiences
What door policy, stage sightlines and community calendars reveal about the audiences independent venues build.
· Scene Reports
Asking musicians about process instead of mythology
A respectful interview approach built around process, songwriting notebooks, demo versions and useful follow-up questions.
· Interviews
Interview preparation that respects an artist’s time
A compact preparation method for researching an artist, writing better follow-ups and editing with care.
· Interviews
About this journal
Read the story behind Nanyana, our editorial policy, sponsored content policy, privacy policy and legal notes, or meet the editorial desk or contact the editorial desk.
Reading outside the music room
Nanyana stays with independent music, but the habit of looking and listening closely travels. Three sites we return to when we want a change of subject without a change of standard.
- Ambient-Musik für lange Abende, in German, for the kind of long, low-volume listening we do before writing anything down.
- affreschi di David Beghè, an Italian gallery page about wall painting, useful when we are trying to describe surface and texture rather than subject.
- LDS chapels in Taiwan, a survey of ordinary meeting rooms, and a reminder that a room is never neutral for the people inside it.
Reading further afield
- For readers who want to follow how reggae and world music travel through Italian stages, sud sound system reggae salento covers tour reports, artist portraits and practical notes on tickets and summer festivals.
- For listeners who also follow the paperwork behind public life, the Denney for Idaho civic information guide covers voter registration, Idaho, step by step, county clerks, polling places, absentee ballots and state records, all in plain English.
- Readers who want a structured introduction to American film noir can start with The Noir Dossier, a personal non-commercial English guide that covers the style's origins, its visual craft and its move into neo-noir.
- For listeners planning a trip around shows and studio time, Virtual Upstate is a regional guide to Lake George and the Adirondacks, covering seasonal lodging and dining, lake wildlife, the forty six peaks, autumn foliage and local life.
- Players who rework older role-playing games often need a precise object or passage, and French J-RPG walkthroughs gather step by step progression for Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy IX and Terranigma alongside tests and rankings.