William Chong

In December 2008, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a literature review, by Drs Sarah Bache and Frank Edenborough, of the numerous health problems and injuries associated with making music.

Under the subhead of “Dermatological conditions”, they included references to various conditions such as guitarist’s nipple, cellist’s chest, cello knee and — get this — cello scrotum.

Every cello player is aware that even the most vigorous playing style would still never be able to cause such an awkward injury. Indeed, Elaine Murphy, the senior doctor who first posited the condition in 1974, has ‘fessed up in a subsequent letter to the editor:

Perhaps after 34 years it’s time for us to confess that we invented cello scrotum.

Reading Curtis’s 1974 letter to the BMJ on guitar nipple, we thought it highly likely to be a spoof and decided to go one further by submitting a letter pretending to have noted a similar phenomenon in cellists, signed by the non-doctor one of us (JMM). Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realise the physical impossibility of our claim.

I guess this guy will be less worried now!

NZ singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser’s sophomore album “Albertine” has been picked as the best Christian album of 2008 by a US evangelical website.

Christian Music Today, the online music website for ChristianityToday.com, recently published its selections for the Best Christian Albums of 2008, an annual list that is regularly one of the year’s most-read articles on the site:

Online music editor Russ Breimeier says the following about Brooke Fraser’s work:

Admittedly, it seems kind of strange to top our list of the Best Christian Albums of 2008 with an album that originally released in 2006 and has already sold extremely well. Of course, those stats pertain to the release in Brooke Fraser‘s New Zealand homeland and Australia. It took another 2 years for Albertine to come up from down under and finally receive American distribution: and we’re so glad it did. Fraser has been steadily gaining attention as a worship leader through Hillsong, regularly touring with the increasingly popular United band. However, the 24-year-old shifts gears dramatically for her solo material, unveiling a remarkable writer behind the passionate voice. There’s an elegance and maturity to her alt-pop style (rightfully earning comparisons to Sarah McLachlan, Nichole Nordeman, and Sara Groves) as well as her expressions of faith through song. It’s particularly astounding that this artist has found success and worldwide acclaim when most of her songs are clearly derived from her Christian beliefs. But then it helps when the music is credible, honest, relevant sounding, and created with artistic excellence. Fraser is further proof that artists don’t need to water down the gospel to be heard in the mainstream, that smartly written Christian music can find an audience outside of the church, and that God can be glorified through music that isn’t specifically intended for worship.

Of course, it’s a bit odd for those of us living in New Zealand that it’s taken this long for the US market to see how awesome Brooke’s music is. But it’s nice to see good Kiwi musicians walking the talk, and being rewarded for it; to me, Brooke is as much a success story as Flight of the Conchords.

N.B.: According to her myspace, she’ll be back into the writing groove in 2009 – definitely something to look forward to for the new year.