General Music thread 3
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Craig 5 years ago.
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5 October 2016 at 20:12 #54099
@puroandson Okay, I was actually going to post something rather different last night, but I had to go away for awhile to recover from your epic post. 🙂 It’s hard to follow something like that, frankly.
@whisht Yes to Sun Ra! I can curl my tongue, but that’s it for my skill set (and how I wish I could raise one eyebrow, that’s such an effective trick!). However, I can whistle, which I used to take for granted until I found out that my son can’t do it. Perhaps I’ll add it to my c.v.
Okay, pinging now. Or is it ponging? I forget. Mr. Arbutus had his birthday last week, and I loaded him up with early music and jazz cds. Here are a couple of highlights. (Speaking of superpowers, I would adore being able to play either the medieval vielle or the saxophone!)
5 October 2016 at 22:51 #54100Anonymous @
epic post. Who ME? 🙂
<glances another way>
I agree -medieval instruments have that quality, don’t they?
5 October 2016 at 23:08 #54101@Puroandson
well….. thanks for that ditty on zombies. I erm, may give the film a miss, but probably my loss.
[ahem]
I’m not a zombies fan if I’m honest, especially the zombies who walk around in the morning on their way to work staring at their phones and not avoiding people as they walk until the last moment (if then).
Mobiles have actually changed the way we walk (a study was done and the cone of awareness ahead of anyone who walks is quite reduced if they are staring at their phones).ah well. Progress.
Now, @arbutus – happy birthday to Mr Arbutus and thanks for the ping (no pong with those two!)
Both or those are lovely and that Mulligan was a great ‘conversation’ between two players.
So, a wiff to your waff:Be Bop by Coltrane and Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfNIZI_Xus
And now yet another one I’m sadly prompted to link to:
Which for me is a more fun song than this more famous one by Rod Temperton, but this does at least have zombies….
5 October 2016 at 23:16 #54102Also, I echo birthday wishes to Mr Arbutus! I hope happy wine, happy tea, and happy cakes were enjoyed by all
I get what you’re saying: zombies DO walk into everyone don’t they. Phones and PDAs inflict themselves on everyone else. I’ve been zombie-mugged a few times recently.
Great dose of morning music for me: always loved Thriller. <^-_-^>
7 October 2016 at 17:59 #54115@whisht @puroandson
Mr. Arbutus sends thanks for the birthday wishes. Wine and tea were certainly had, and pie because he likes it better than cake.
Nice tracks! I have the Bags & Trane recording, isn’t it gorgeous? I think inspired duets are one of the greatest things you can get in a jazz performance. I have fond memories of Boogie Nights from my high school days. 🙂
Okay, riffing on a whole other theme now, but I have to give this one as I am about to listen to a ball game (only the MLB schedules playoff games for the middle of the day, as far as I know, it’s a strange kind of insanity). Toronto dominated Texas yesterday and Canada was happy; hoping for another good one today- if not, I will be back later with a sadder tune!
Go Jays!
8 October 2016 at 08:58 #54163@arbutus and family 🙂
The Purofilions say halloo.
Glad you all enjoyed pie.
I didn’t have any trax to add -with Mr A and Mrs A being very musically inclined I’m not sure if any of my particular choons would be all that interesting!
Puricle has discovered a bit of rock and metal lately -in an effort to move away from the mates who, for some reason, follow the bieberettes and the One Direction fella who went solo. In an Australian talk show interview the host made a comment whilst the mike was hot to the extent that the “latest song sounded like something she’d heard many times before and he was pedalling the same music as his old band.”
She blushed quickly as her fellow host hurriedly covered her indiscretion and the Executive Producer babbled expletives in her ear (or so I imagine) but she was probably entirely correct in her observations. Considering her yearly salary she ought to stick with the company line 🙂
So puricle would play something from Black Sabbath unless I watch the ‘send’ button!
Yay Canada indeed (actually it is your National anthem I love above all others -not easy either).
Now, what is the MLB? Baseball….League….
PuroSolo
8 October 2016 at 12:50 #54168@puroandson Your post quoting that the “latest song sounded like something she’d heard many times before” reminded me of this article:
http://popbitch.com/home/2016/08/14/all-mapped-out/It argues that the first song below is the foundation of all modern pop and is “the single most influential song of the 21st century so far” as it lead to the song below it and many imitators since. Would be interested to hear what the musical ones of you think.
8 October 2016 at 14:31 #54169Argh! These things drive me nuts -personally, but musical conspiracy is always fun!
So, repeated words happen in threes more often than not in the pop world and in the classical world or ‘classical’ era too.
They usually all use 2/4 or 4/4 (C) and as the most endearing sound comes from the keys of G (maj) and D (maj or b min) then that’s going to seem similar (because it often is) and we’re attuned to it.
They then write: “singing the exact same syllable “way” on the exact same note, D…given there are hundreds of syllables to choose from…the odds of picking the same are remote..”
But, it’s quite likely that a composer will:
1) start the main scansion syllable on the first beat of the next bar, or ‘any’ bar by virtue of the strength of the song lyric. It just works well.
2) use a note from a chord associated with the key -D or G is more likely than A or E, say.
3) use a note best suited to a head voice so D works in a linear sense but also vertically as D comes from the G major key or chord (‘Maps’) and from the D key in excerpt 1.
But.
The first excerpt is b minor -not D major. So the writer of the ‘hey it’s the SAME thing’ is focussing on the unlikely marriage between b minor and G major: “the purpose of the note of D changes from key to key serving a different function in the b min scale than the G major” but in that bar they fixate on, the listener wouldn’t be wrong in assuming the chord of that bar is D after all, or possibly even G.
You could also read it as chord v1 in the key of D even though it’s actually chord 1 in the key of b minor.
The keys b minor and D major are used a lot in pop and swapped about just as G major’s used and swapped about with e.
So, chances are it’s not that remote at all…. when you consider that music composition still relies on the same modes as the 1200s and the same three -four chords in pop are played without restraint (why everyone can pretty much play guitar to a 50s ice-cream cone tune and do it confidently: I, vi, IV, V :// ) and why, once a song with a typical riff and repetitive melody can get stuck in one’s mind, that a certain amount of voo-doo hoo-doo similarity is recognised.
Put it a different way, the word “wait” is going to ‘stay’ on the note D in the key of G as it;s the 3rd note of the chord and most likely to be sung as it fits the head voice of most female altos and, at an octave lower, is the male balladeer’s choice of (chordal) notes.
There really are influential pieces out there such as the Hallelujah Chorus ‘taken’ into Mendelssohn’s wonderful Octet for Strings -an astonishing piece of writing for that era. Then, there’s Beethoven’s use of chord 111 in the most unusual of circumstances during the Waldstein Sonata. Probably what’s most awesome about music is when someone like Ludwig ends up composing phrases so ‘out’ of the musical era. The same thing happened with Wagner during The Ring and the main chorus as well as his ‘romance’ chord much later. I assume the Doctor had something to do with it 🙂
Kindest,
PuroSolo
8 October 2016 at 14:44 #54170Yeah, ‘Yeah yeah yeah’ is interesting. When you listen to much of Bowie’s 1990- 1993 out -put with the use of the third note of the 7th chord (big whoop as it’s really top stuff) lots of bands nonchalantly did the same thing. It seemed all “voo doo hoo-doo” when it was straight up copying. Is there a place for it?
I think so. Despite the chicks who said to Bowie: “I SO love how you covered Cobain” and his response: “you bitches, I wrote it first” I think everyone’s going to do a Kurt sometimes and it’s OK. As long as we progress. But I think -listening to the ‘Whalley whine and pout” which has been utilised by girl and boy banz since about 2000 – we haven’t progressed all that much recently 🙂
8 October 2016 at 16:17 #54171Would not presume to add what @puroandson’s comprehensive answer, but a couple of things:
Pachelbel’s Canon in D was largely forgotten until the early 20th century and not really popular until the early 70s. I first heard it when visiting friends in Boston in the 90s (it really wasn’t as ubiquitous as it now is, even that late) and, left to my own devices for an afternoon, wandered into a record store near Harvard Square and this was being played. This child of the 60s and 70s thought it the most exquisitely beautiful thing he had ever heard, but for some reason didn’t ask what it was.
Then a couple of years later a housemate played it and I thought to ask. Of course it is now so common it is cliché.
Then a little while ago I found list of pop and rock songs based on it (and another of those based on Bach’s Air on a G String). I now can’t find it. Fortunately, Wikipedia is useful for something (although not as comprehensive as the list I saw): Works based on Canon in D. Ah, here.
On a side note, according to Howard Goodall (who knows his shit) the pentatonic scale – the black keys on a piano – is found in every system of music in the world.
So, roundabout way of saying: certain beats and tones are very appealing to everyone and come around time and again. But fashion is capricious, so “influential” is a bit of an empty word.
A good choon is a good choon. This is a very good choon and, I suspect accidentally, the best pop song about depression ever:
9 October 2016 at 01:19 #54172brought tears to my eyes.
Also: everything you said above. I have a tendency to stick to the pure note by note analysis which is, well, boring and doesn’t exactly ‘help’.
Pachelbel Canon is interesting isn’t it? I remember a conversation between Sam Seaborne and his blonde ‘I’m not a believer in the ERA’ friend:
“I just love this choon”
“Could it be because its called Air on a G String?”
It was melancholy.
9 October 2016 at 02:07 #54173@craig Interesting! I fully agree with @puroandson’s excellently-written assessment of this, I don’t see most of those similarities as particularly startling. Quite honestly, within the basic harmonic structures used in pop music nowadays, there just aren’t enough possibilities for every song to be utterly different. Not too long ago, I was able to point out to my son that the riff he likes in a particular TV theme is identical to one from a Bob Marley song. He knows the Marley song in question, just didn’t recognize the riff in its new context.
As a musicologist, I’m just familiar enough a millennium’s worth of music to believe that anything is ever really new anymore. I remember going once to a June Tabor concert and hearing her introduce a song as dating back to the 18th century- true as far as it went, which wasn’t far enough, as I knew it as a renaissance song from the late 16th. :-
@pedant The thing about the infamous canon is that it’s based on a “cycle of fifths” style progression that is one of the most attractive, and therefore most common, progressions in tonal music. So I’m betting that at least some of those songs “based on” Pachelbel, are actually just following the same convention, a common one in 18th century music.
Love “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”!
9 October 2016 at 02:13 #54174@puroandson I’m not a metalhead, but lots are. No shame to Puricle there. Arbutus Jr. has a varied taste, about the only thing he really doesn’t care for is pure rap, as like his mama, he prefers a tune. One of his bands of choice is the American indy-rock band Imagine Dragons, and lately he’s been listening a lot to this track, which reminds me of nothing so much as some of the heavier arena rock of the seventies (or maybe even late sixties). He was interested when I told him I found it very retro. See what Puricle thinks of it.
9 October 2016 at 03:26 #54176thank you for that -good song, actually and reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Money: emphasis on the down beat.
Niiice.
20 October 2016 at 03:33 #54282@puroandson This might do, courtesy of Arbutus Jr.’s playlist. It might even be on one of the EA FIFA soundtracks, he has picked up a lot of favourites from those!
20 October 2016 at 05:26 #54283Thank you for that! I shall pass it on to Young Puro.
As for the youtube comments you made? It sounds that by linking to other sites you did a very good job indeed: I’d read it for sure. We get little Canadian news here. I’m always interested.
I fear that youboob tends to be a snarky place by ‘n’ large and I really need to stay away from ‘Below The Line’! Still, occasionally, there’s some good souls who have the same temperament as yourself and listen to others’ opinions calmly while offering sensible ideas for change.
The kind of calm that comes from good jazz -backed up by a nice dry wine 🙂
20 October 2016 at 21:25 #54287@arbutus @puroandson
Catfish and the Bottlemen are getting a lot of buzz here now. Name sounds American, is actually derived from an Aussie street performer, so naturally they are Welsh.
21 October 2016 at 00:26 #54288Ooh Hybrid likes this.
All the arguments I let slide -for mother (mind you I’m all over youtube too and want to civilise it myself)
All the
MondaysFridays I called in sick: is me.Thank you
Puricle.
21 October 2016 at 15:10 #54290https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/tears-of-rage/ If anyone’s interested, my thought’s on Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature…
21 October 2016 at 15:11 #54291My thought’s??? Jeez, and I’m usually the apostrophe police… My thoughts.
21 October 2016 at 18:57 #54292@cathannabel Thanks for linking, nice work. My son included Blowin’ in the Wind as part of a poetry analysis project he did a few years ago. Seriously, no one with any familiarity with Dylan’s work could say it wasn’t legitimate as poetry.
Tears of Rage is a gorgeous song, I was first familiar with it as done by The Band. Another lesser-known poetic gem is this one:
21 October 2016 at 18:58 #54293@pedant That’s a great tune. I love the 1970’s hairstyles on those guys, takes me right back to the day! 🙂
21 October 2016 at 19:41 #5429422 October 2016 at 00:23 #54297So, Puricle listened to the Karl Jenkins. At first it was “um, noo, it’s symphonic mum”. Two seconds later I think I did him a disservice. By the 2nd theme there were tears rolling down his cheeks.
“they’re singing “falling” mum. They’re falling?”
No love, it’s the evocative nature of the music.”
“It would have been so terrible.”
“yes”.
Anyway, he’s still a kid who loves his soccer but I make him stand up and listen.
As for Dylan he’s all “of course he should “win” Blowing in the Wind. Duh!”
And then he starts singing which means I go to the other end of the house.
He is no musician. But then I can’t kick a ball.
Loved Vague Rambings and also Cath’s Passing Time. Printed up and taken by Puricle to school this morning.
I know it’s Saturday -special pupil and teacher workaday.
22 October 2016 at 18:35 #54344@puroandson
The entire Canata is available on iTunes in the UK. Worth checking the Oz store.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/cantata-memoria-for-children/id1145390917
28 October 2016 at 06:16 #54437Ha! Well, looking for something to go with ‘Class Episode 1’ and I thought this was: thought provoking on a few levels.
Enjoy!
Puro and Son
29 October 2016 at 12:36 #54462ah – made it (having a few problems with those brute force attacks on the network blocking the site).
@puroandson – great Lehrer song! I really should listen to more of his work!
So for Class Episode One here’s a couple of songs that popped up on my iTunes
And I do love the “Holy calamity” sung through this!
29 October 2016 at 18:14 #54465@puroandson
Great Tom Lehrer number. My husband grew up in the Boston area, and his dad was a Harvard grad who was tone deaf but had a fondness for Lehrer’s humour. As a result, Mr. Arbutus grew up on his songs. I would have to think that some of them were pretty inappropriate for a little kid to be singing along with, but I don’t think my father-in-law thought about things that way. Anyway, I don’t suppose it was any stranger than me singing along to Tom Jones’ “Delilah” when I was 8 or so. (For those who don’t know, very melodramatic song about a man who murders his woman and her lover!)
@whisht Your tastes are nothing if not eclectic.
In a completely different vein from any of the above, I was listening to this last night. Gorgeous bass playing.
5 November 2016 at 15:02 #54572Hi @arbutus – eclectic? I think I’m more erratic but thanks!
That is a gorgeous bit of Haden. Maybe its because I’m listening on crappy headphones, but I could do without Metheny’s more angular plucking (at least early in the track) and just listen to Haden’s really warm, sensual playing.
Now, I think it was @missrori who wrote an elegant post about how unappreciated the Doctor might be.
I think that actually the Universe does appreciate him (as others have said).However, I think that the Doctor may have blue moments where he feels that nobody loves him and so here’s a song he may have hummed or strummed…
7 November 2016 at 00:05 #54589So, after @pedant mentioned “angry folk singers” elsewhere on the threads I thought ‘yeah, there’s a few’ so I went looking for something appropriate.
I googled for this track and the first result was it sung live on Breakfast TV.
BREAKFAST TV.
Probably around 8am some random morning on BBC1, this happened.
Fuck me but I wish I’d heard it at the time!
7 November 2016 at 00:16 #54590Oh, that is splendid! When the BBC still had some balls.
7 November 2016 at 00:35 #54592I hadn’t heard of Billy …Bragg. Billy Joel yes, but not Bragg.
Called the Mum: “heard of Billy Bragg mum?”
I shouldn’t have asked: “heard of Billy Bragg? HEARD of him? I dated a guy in university who was all about Billy. My God, don’t admit to the Wise Ones you’ve not heard of him. There is Power in the Unions! eh eh? ”
Okaaay.
Loved that performance on Breakfast Show. How come they didn’t clap? Or move a muscle?
I’ve listened to at least 4 trax now and proud of it. Actually he has a nice voice.
Nice. Bad word but still.
7 November 2016 at 01:14 #54593Hey @Thane15 – good to hear from you!
To be honest, you’re the first person who I’ve ever introduced Billy Bragg to who said his voice is “nice”.
“Awful” “urrgh” and “hmmph” is sadly more often the case!
(and that includes my sister!)Here’s a couple of his that may or not be on the sidebar of youtube (or spotify or whatever).
It might be interesting to first listen to the album version of this before hearing what sounds like a nervous early live TV broadcast.
I love listening to live versions but also – its just a great song!
;¬)And no mention of Bragg goes without linking to Levi Stubbs’ Tears or Waiting for the Great Leap Forward
Glad you enjoying it !!
7 November 2016 at 09:27 #54597@thane15 @whisht Billy Bragg is a great favourite of mine – was lucky enough to see him live at Sheffield’s Tramlines festival in 2015. Very powerful, emotional performance but also with lots of humour. I was reduced to tears of my own when he did ‘Levi Stubbs’, and also ‘Between the Wars’ which always gets to me. He also wrote a very interesting book about patriotism and national identity, The Progressive Patriot.
8 November 2016 at 20:29 #54603@whisht @cathannabel @thane15 @pedant Have always loved Billy Bragg and when I bought my guitar I bought the “Back To Basics” chord book (which included ‘It says here’). I think the lack of studio reaction is because they didn’t realise he would say “tits” at 8am! He’s as good a comedian as a musician and the book came with a ‘learn to play guitar’ record (yes, I’m old) with him giving tips. It ended with him saying something like “and that’s as much as I’m going to tell you or you’ll all be strapping on false noses and pretending to be me”.
But one of my favourite gigs, although bitter sweet now given what happened afterwards, was seeing him on the night of the 1997 General Election when Labour finally won power after so many years of Tory rule. It was at the Power House in Kilburn, which wasn’t very big, and he played for several hours in front of a big screen as the results came in. He’d be half way through a song and then something would happen, another Tory gone like Portillo losing his seat, a huge cheer would go up and he’d just turn and watch the screen, and do an instrumental and crack some jokes, then continue with the song. That was a magical night. Scotland went Tory free – not a single MP – and I got to chat to Billy in the bar about it as we watched the rest of the results come in after the gig finished.
This isn’t from that night but I love this song about unrequited teenage love, and it shows how he can sing, or just crack a joke, and start and stop the song whenever he wants, and it reminds me of that night.
8 November 2016 at 20:59 #54604P.S. @Thane15 If you like Billy Bragg you might want to check out Frank Turner, who was a Heavy Metal artist and lead in Million Dead, who then discovered a liking for Billy Bragg himself and turned to folk when he went solo. He’s got quite big now but I used to see him when he played down the road from me and drew about 50 people. Get me!
This is one of my favourites – about being too old to be bothered protesting anymore (we all get there).
8 November 2016 at 22:03 #54605One more Frank Turner before I go to bed and hope to wake to hear that Trump has been soundly beaten. “I won’t sit down. And I won’t shut up”. And the video is so cute, shot in his Mum’s school.
9 November 2016 at 18:31 #54627Feeling so terribly, terribly sad, discouraged, depressed this morning, after only about a half-night’s worth of sleep. Thinking about the large number of people who at some point in the next four years are going to wake up and understand how thoroughly they’ve been played, and will be very, very angry, I found this refrain running through my head: God damn them all, I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold. We’d fire no guns, shed no tears. Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett’s privateers. The immeasurably great Canadian icon Stan Rogers.
9 November 2016 at 23:25 #54635@craig – loved that school video! Cheered me up no end!
@arbutus – I’ve not heard Stan Rogers before. Enjoyed it (though I don’t the references).
Well, apparently life was better in the ol’ days so here’s a song by a great composer from the great ol’ days of America*.
*not actually sure which decade Trump wants to return to. But judging by his comments it was a more white one, where people spoke English not Spanish. Apologies therefore that this has no lyrics in it and was written by an incredibly talented black man.
I’ll try to do better.
Maybe this as its by a white man and has words in English.10 November 2016 at 04:30 #54644@whisht Great choices. 🙂 Stan Rogers died far too young in a plane crash, so his career was cut short after only a few recordings, but he is much loved as his songs really reflect traditional Canadian culture, from sea to sea to sea (although he was an easterner himself). Barrett’s Privateers doesn’t actually reference a specific historical event, although I understand that it’s very descriptive of the era of the privateers sailing out of Halifax. I’ve always loved the power of the refrain as a kind of anti-war voice, the anger of someone who was lied to, used, and discarded. I think it was that emotion that put the song into my head today!
11 November 2016 at 06:23 #54676Apparently 2016 has not finished kicking us yet. 🙁 I’ve just learned that we’ve lost Leonard Cohen.
11 November 2016 at 10:59 #54678@Arbutus- yes, just woke up to that. Fucking 2016…
11 November 2016 at 12:03 #54680Mum saw that! She was trying to get me to listen to him and I wasn’t really sure?
BUt I am going to listen because he died and because she did say to persist “listen” and also because, as a musician, you have a great knowledge of music @arbutus
@miapatrick. Yes, it’s awful isn’t it?
Thing is, when you talk to some of the younger people I know they forget SO fast who has died and what they meant. They were sad over Alan Rickman but then they forgot!
Not good.
12 November 2016 at 06:41 #54695There was just an interview with Cohen in the New Yorker Magazine — in it he said that he saw not conflict between his many years of Zen study and his recent return to Judaism, because Zen isn’t a religion: it’s a practice. So neatly put, and so true IMO (apart from people who insist on worshiping the Buddha as if he were a god, which I think would be anathema to the man himself). And also that he was still working on several projects, but ready to die if his number came up.
I love some of his songs, and his growly bass, and his soulful melancholy. Sorry he’s gone.
12 November 2016 at 06:45 #54696@thane15 Thing is, when you talk to some of the younger people I know they forget SO fast who has died and what they meant. They were sad over Alan Rickman but then they forgot!
Life runs very fast and wide these days; you have to *want* to hang back a bit and examine the depths. Maybe youngsters, in particular, forget so fast because there’s so much flooding in all the time, and they haven’t had time yet to build filters to help them concentrate and remember.
13 November 2016 at 09:39 #54708Trumpty Humpty sat on his Wall.
Trumpty Numpty had a great Fall
All of Trump’s Pence’s and all of his Men
Couldn’t put Trumpty together again.
It needs work. 🙂 Hard to improve on an original.
Gran is a member of the Right. She said Trump should be roasted on his Wall while people build bigger ladders and then take home pieces of it as paperweights.
I’d stand on that stupid wall one day and help people over. In 4 yrs will people jump over it because in 4 years it’ll be better in Mexico?
3 December 2016 at 10:36 #54819For no reason whatsoever, here’s a song for Deep Breath.
To be honest I’m sure I or someone must have posted it before but not sure.
Anyway, if I was being up to date I might’ve linked to the theme song from Class, but really no one here has seemed keen on it (including me!).
Only thing about it that I read somewhere is that its the first time a Doctor Who spinoff has used an existing song as a theme. /notveryinterestingaddendum.8 December 2016 at 13:07 #54851Fuckfuckfuckfuck. Another one falls. As if this song was melancholy enough. Thanks a bunch 2016, but this very secular Christmas song is still a classic.
10 December 2016 at 08:35 #5486017 December 2016 at 17:28 #54885@barnable – yeah, not a good year on all sorts of levels.
But I’ll play something I’ve played here before and that I know raises a smile with a few, because its christmastime and we really should try and feel….. christmassy.
And always happy to hear more from this awesome album, so I’ll do it if no one else does!
;¬)
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