About Rainlore's World Of Music

Why "Rainlore's" World of Music?

"Rainlore" is a word I first encountered in a poem, long forgotten, many years ago, but it kind of stuck. It is an Anglish word meaning the study of rain, or hyetology. Very poetic, somehow. "Rainlore" also sounds like it could be a name, and indeed, it also makes an anagram for "Lorraine", and it also has a delicious gender ambiguity. It appealed to me, and hence Rainlore's World of Music.

What is Rainlore's World of Music all about?

Rainlore's World of Music aims to feature all the best in music of all and any 'genres,' with a mix of reviews, news, info, features, articles, and interviews. The aim is to provide wider exposure for and share some of the wonderful music around with a wider audience.

All and any 'genres' of music means just that - fundamentally, there really are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music. Whether jazz, world music (inc. folk music), classical (whether western or eastern traditions), rock, hip hop or whatever, it's all covered on Rainlore's World of Music. That said, there are major foci on jazz, the steel pan music of Trinidad & Tobago, and broadly Jewish music, and hence the latter two have their own separate sections instead of just being incorporated under world music.

The definition of world music used here is somewhat broader, as well as perhaps somewhat narrower elsewhere, than was generally expressed by one of the 'inventors' of that term, the late great Charlie Gillett. Gillett had a problem with the 'f word', folk music. Yet ultimately, a lot of world music is folk music, or at the very least strongly rooted in folk music or traditional music! Hence, it is only logical to include all types of folk music, including of course the folk music of the British Isles, whether English or Celtic, in the world music category. On the other hand, some would include world-beat music under world music, but on Rainlore's World of music it is felt that this is generally better accommodated under 'Other Music.'

Often, of course, there will be significant overlap between/among all kinds of silly "genre" classifications, and that has to be a good thing anyway. 'Genres' sometimes are a convenient way for sticking a given recording into a box/stack/shelf of broadly similar ones, but generally, 'pigeon-holing' is a loathsome thing, it smacks of little minds.

The Future of Rainlore's World of Music

So far, Rainlore's World of Music has been an entirely non-commercial, non-sponsored (apart from the odd bit of financial assistance from a few anonymous, non-musical, friends or anonymous donors) spare-time activity.

Although I gladly give all the time I can to running Rainlore's World of Music, there simply aren't enough spare hours in the day to keep up. Nonetheless, I do it happily as best I can, giving it every minute I can.

In addition, the very popular gig reviews involve not only even more time, but also considerable cost and expenses of all kinds (not least of which is the photography) which regrettably I can no longer meet for the foreseeable future.

The re-development and re-design of the site also would have proved prohibitive had it been commissioned on a commercial basis and has only been possible thanks to the generous 'donation' of time by the webmasters and the application of a lot of persistent hard work and a lot of time by myself.

Sadly, the time has come to look at the future of the site more carefully. While web hosting and domain registration are not very major costs and can hopefully continue to be taken care of by small donations, the future of the site as an ongoing, active one remains somewhat uncertain. As much as I would love to do so, it is very unlikely that I will be able to devote anything like the time required to keep Rainlore's World of Music going to the fullest extent due to financial pressures, unless some form of sponsorship can be found. (I would, of course, wish to preserve the site's non-commercial, not for profit status.)

Rainlore's World of Music/Rainlore © 2008-2011. All rights reserved.