More and more deaf young people? Wired Magazine is spelling out the obvious - once again. I still can remember the same warnings when the first Walkmans hit the street and everybody went earphoned. Actually the worst thing that could happen to your ears is Techno Music and raves. Never been to any party that is really louder: base kicks so intense that they make your clothes wobble. So most modern digital devices have a loudness barrier anyway - they are not as loud as old walkmans or normal Hi-Fi equipment.
Rarely I have heard such a sweet, intoxicating and fascinating blend of Arabic and European melodies and instruments. Please visit the great Tania Eshaghoff and simply wait till the music starts to flow from her website to your ears. A musical special journey awaits you …
‘Old school’ European music is often still very confusing to me, especially all the different forms of choir music.
I often have a hard time figuring out the differences between a Motet (started 13th century and survived until the late 19th century), a Chanson (mostly french lyrics, started 14th century) and a Madrigal (Italian origin, mostly secular topics, started 13th century, but was mostly popular around the 16th).
So much about history. But I am still looking for same audio examples about the real differences. Any takers? So far I have found this brilliant map of early European music.
Isn’t it nice that some old rich rock farts get alls the pussy for nothing? Where is the proper Dire Straits song when you need it?
I am - also once again - amazed that such low flying social porn sells so well. But it’s also cheaply produced: some no-longer-important-person looking for a PR gig - and loads of young and fertile persons looking for some gold and fame to dig.
Maybe it’s just our regular DNA programming of spreading ourselves disguised as a very bad TV show?
Music is an essential part of our human culture. Too bad we are loosing that aspect in our daily lives. Instead of sharing and listening to it together everybody escapes into his / her own iPod-Sphere. And how many people can play an instrument these days or know the lyrics of several songs (not just the refrain)?
Forget all your trashy New Age CD, filled with terribly harmonious synthesizer rap. Dive into Overtone singing - especially by the great Maestro David Hykes.
Click player and below to get some Overtone:
Overtone music is hardly new: Tibetan monks do it, Mongolian throat singers do it as well - Yodelling actually is using some similar techniques. Gregorian chants sound similar, but don’t create that eerie and fascinating ‘deep sound’.
If you want to meditate, fall asleep or totally relax there is hardly anything more soothing (apart from singing whales).
In the War 1812 - the Brits vs. the young American Nation. The Americans actually declared war on the British for capturing and pressing their seaman into service against Napoleon. In the course of this war the British burned down Washington and then later the Royal Navy bombarded the costal defense Fort McHenry near Baltimore in 1814.
A certain Francis Scott Key (age 35 at that time) watched the brutal shelling of the Fort from nearby Baltimore for almost 24 hours. When the smoke cleared the next morning and the British retreated he was so happy to see the American flag still waving over the fort that he immediately wrote the famous poem ‘star spangled banner‘. The poem contains many elements and images of the battle like rockets and bombs. The poem was swiftly printed in Baltimore and spread with the news of the brave battle all over America.
Now here comes the really funny part. The poem was later set to a popular British drinking song called ‘To Anacreon in Heaven‘ written by John Stafford Smith from London.
It was not until 1931 that this honorable song became the national anthem of the United States of America - which means that they simply didn’t have one for almost 200 years.
So next time you see misty eyed Americans singing their anthem - then also imagine a bunch of drunken snobs in London roaring the original tune and the Royal Navy blasting Fort McHenry. After all - the British inspired the whole venture in the first place …
In the good old days of consumerism you could learn a lot about other people by casually browsing through their record and book collection. But today most people don’t even have CD collections anymore - and they libraries exist only in a digital form.
But switching on someone’s computer, cell phone or iPod just to see what they have ‘on’ is rather intimate affair and not very nice.
Many nations have developed their own complex music systems, which are very different from the currently dominant European sounds. Bali - like India and China - has many unique and so called ‘exotic’ sounds to offer.
Since I heard Gamelan music the first time in the movie ‘The Year of Living Dangerously‘ I was hooked. The sound blew me away. It was hypnotic, weird, yet filled and magical by it’s own harmonic system. Pure fascination.
Compared to so called classical western music Gamelan is stone old - going back at least to the 12th century.
Compared to the soothing Gamelan music this is pure stress, pulsing aggression and unusual harmony to western ears. But I like it. It has a power and expressiveness hardly found in any other music (I know of).
Make sure your speakers are down if you listen to this in the Office. Or crank them up to the max if you are at home.
Johannes Brahms is less known then other teutonic giants like Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. Still his work was highly influential and his huge body of work is a ‘Delikatesse’ for any lover of classical music.
The following piece invokes for me a blissful vision of heaven and filled with singing angels - without any Kitsch and religious overtones. Just me, myself and I - floating in clouds, gentle beings all around and eternal love in the air. I wish all religious and spiritual music would be so careful, sweet and gentle.
Currently all TV channels are flooded with singing and dancing contests. Looking for the next superstars all over the globe - and now the dance mania with Celebs.
The more I see these old photos from old music movies - the more I miss the grace and romance they portrait. I think we really lost something here - similar to old school ballroom dancing. Aggressively parading around on TV shows to win something or humping and jumping in modern clubs is simply not the same.
Gimme some back some glamour, style and most of all silent grace.
Since Leonardo requested a posting about the great Bach I have tried to wrap my tiny mind around the Genius of this Giant. To be honest: I think you have to be a composer, a philosopher, a musician and a mathematician to really really really appreciate the depth of this Maestro. And he created a massive amount of ‘notes’. To know Bach means to spent days and weeks listening to a huge amount of music.
He is part of a great period of Germanic enlightenment: Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn - and many more. It was a time of restless Teutonic renewal and overall change in Europe (Age of Enlightenment). The period that laid the foundation for modern day democratic and humanitarian Europe. But it was also an age of wild romantic compassion and insight.
Cantata BWV 208 - Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!
You can feel still some old medieval Europe in Bach’s music - the devout churchgoing citizens. But these citizens are different, because they are slowly grabbing power from the old institutions like Holy-Mother Church and blue blooded Aristocracy.
Toccata And Fugue In D Minor For Organ BWV 565
Bach’s music is often very ‘churchy’ - but you can also find many intimate and passionate pieces that rival Beethoven’s later achievements in spirit and emotion.
Many of Beethoven’s compositions were deemed too erotic and too emotional in their days. But you already can hear that intimacy in Bach’s music - albeit not as explosive as "Freude schöner Götterfunken!".
Maestro Mancini is one of the greatest composers of the last century. His music scores and themes are beautiful and everybody knows and loves them. What? You don’t know him? Sure you do! Pink Panther? Peter Gunn? Breakfast at Tiffany’s? The ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ from Hatari? I am pretty sure you will know many of his great melodies and themes when you hear them. Browse his stuff on Amazon.com and the Pink Panther soundtrack is actually a very nice album.
Delia Derbyshire was a rare creature: she studied math and music - and worked later in the famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop. There she created for example many sound effects for tv shows and the theme for Doctor Who. Delia had a passion for weird sounds and harmonies. I wish she would have worked during the early house and techno scene - I am sure she would have created amazing music!
Gracious musicals and most of all dance movies have completely disappeared. No more Ginger & Fred shows. Nobody cares about singing and dancing in movies anymore. And Hip Hop movies and MTV video clips are not the same thing.
Just in time for such Giants like Mozart and Beethoven.
To my ears the Harpsichord sounds very flat und without passion. I can’t hear more then three pieces of Harpsichord music until I need a change. Very different to good Piano music …
Georg Friedrich Händel is what I would call a typical court composer. After the church had lost it’s almost total control over European music, the aristocracy and later rich citizens became the new mentors of great composers and gifted musicians.
Most of his work was first performed for the bigwigs - Kings & Queens. And they had the money to get someone like Händel to create music just for a bit of Firework or a trip down the river on the royal barge … (make sure you read the Wikipedia entries for some amusing tidbits).
Like I wrote before - military marches are a strange breed of music. But almost every nation has it’s own variation of death marches.
I think there is hardly any instrument that expresses insanity better then the bagpipe. After marching to that kind of music I am ready to kill anyone just to escape that bloody sound (start scottish accent: "like licking a singing cats arse").
Play the following song for about four hours again and again - and then see if you are still sane …
Many US or UK artists have produced some of their songs in German or even complete albums. This song by the great Ella contains just a few bits of German and it always makes me smile, because it sounds so weird.
Military marches are a strange breed of music. Pompous, patriotic and mostly idiotic.
Preußens Gloria is the most famous German soundtrack for war. It has been used and abused for almost anything.
I think Glen Miller did the American troops and all soldiers a great service when he played his own compositions instead of the traditional crap - while those poor souls marched to their deaths.
Stylish image blending.
Mixing the techno comic style and showing off a fertile female.
