Posts Tagged ‘music’
April 6th, 2012 | 
Author: 
Jaquandor, Buffalo’s favorite blogger, who answered so many of my questions that you’d think I was from New Jersey, writes:
(Sorry to be so late in the game with these!)
You’re not late. One can ask me questions anytime, though I specifically request them periodically. Hey, if anyone else has questions, ask away.
To what degree are you tired of “storage media creep” — meaning, the progression from LPs to CDs to MP3s or from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to streaming?
I am EXHAUSTED by it. I rant about it periodically, especially when it leads to what I like to call W.W.C.T.G.Y.T.B.N.C.O.S.Y.A.O. (the World Wide Conspiracy To Get You To Buy New Copies Of Stuff You Already Own). This is why I 1) still have an LP player, a CD player, a VHS player, DVD player, and 2) don’t jump on the next technology bandwagon very quickly. I’m not going to get all of those newfangled things, because of cost and some incompatibility with each other. I do have music in the cloud – I have no idea what that means – but it’s mostly stuff I got from Amazon for free or cheap Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | 
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, environment, hydrofracking, Jaquandor, language, music, Neil Diamond, Politics, questions, technology | 
19 Comments »
The Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is almost certainly the best known requiem, since its creation (and non-completion) was presented in the 1984 movie Amadeus. Here’s a segment in which Salieri helps Mozart write his Confutatis. Parts of the Requiem show up in some three dozen TV shows and movies, such as The Big Lebowski and Watchmen.
As noted in the Wikipedia, it was “composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer’s death on December 5. A completion by Read the rest of this entry »
I have never had the chance to perform the Requiem by my cousin Joe Green, I mean by 19th century composer Giuseppe Verdi, but I listen to it each year. The piece has an interesting history, Read the rest of this entry »
Do you know what is generally lost for me in downloading digital music? Reading the liner notes. That’s the info on the LP or CD that tells you who wrote the songs and who played on them, and often a narrative about the artist and/or the recording session.
As an active liner note reader, I well know the name Jim Keltner. If you are not, you probably do not. Here’s just an excerpt from the page about him on Wikipedia.
Keltner is best known for his session work on solo recordings by three of The Beatles Read the rest of this entry »
When Aretha Franklin burst onto the music scene in 1967, I suspect many people thought she was an overnight success. In fact, she had been signed by Columbia Records back in 1961, but because of the songs she was given to sing (“Rock-a-bye My Baby With A Dixie Melody”?), the producers she had and/or the label’s promotion, she was unable to break through.
It wasn’t until she moved over to Atlantic Records, and recorded with the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section, that her true gift came to fruition. And when her period at Atlantic came to an end, changing over to Arista Records in the early 1980s, had a few more hits.
Most of my favorites are from the Atlantic period, though one was from the Columbia era, and one was something else altogether. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m trying to figure out that moment when I stopped following current music.
Surely, I remember the start was when I was maybe three, in the 1950s. But the coming of age music was in the 1960s, with the Beatles and Motown, et al, and later Cream and Aretha, and the like. Still active in the singer-songwriter 1970s, and revived in the early 1980s with the Clash, the Talking Heads, the Police, and so forth.
Was it the 1990s when I didn’t “get” Nirvana initially? Read the rest of this entry »
This late 19th century piece, by composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), is probably my second favorite requiem. My current choir has performed it at least twice, in 2005 and 2009. It runs about 35 minutes, and consists of seven movements; the linked audios are from sundry sources.
I. Introït et Kyrie (D minor)
II. Offertoire (B minor)
III. Sanctus (E flat major) Read the rest of this entry »