Category Archives: Music

A little music geek humor

11 Replies

Sometimes, it’s irresistible.

I actually don’t appreciate “inside jokes” that exclude others. But when I received this from my friend Todd in Pennsylvania, I couldn’t resist posting it here.

Even if you’re not a musy, you can probably infer some rather indelicate suppositions about the composers listed.

THE MOZART EFFECT

A recent report now says that the Mozart effect is yet another
charming urban legend. The bad news for hip urban professionals:
playing Mozart for your designer baby will not improve his IQ or help
him get into that exclusive preschool. He will just have to get
admitted to Harvard some other way.

Of course, we’re all better off listening to Mozart purely for the
pleasure of it. However, one must wonder: if playing Mozart
sonatas for little Tiffany or Jason really could boost his or her
intelligence, what would happen if other composers were played during
the kiddies’ developmental time?


LISZT EFFECT:
Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything
important.

BRUCKNER EFFECT:
Child speaks v-e-r-y slowly and repeats himself frequently and at
length. Gains reputation for profundity.

WAGNER EFFECT:
Child becomes an egocentric megalomaniac. May eventually marry his sister.

MAHLER EFFECT:
Child continually screams–at great length and volume–that he’s dying.

SCHOENBERG EFFECT:
Child never repeats a word until he’s used all the other words in his
vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop
listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand
him.

IVES EFFECT:
The child develops a remarkable ability to carry on several separate
conversations at once, in various dialects.

GLASS EFFECT:
The child tends to repeat himself over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over again.

STRAVINSKY EFFECT:
The child is prone to savage, guttural and profane outbursts that
often lead to fighting and pandemonium in the preschool.

BRAHMS EFFECT:
The child is able to speak beautifully as long as his sentences
contain a multiple of three words (3, 6, 9, 12, etc). However, his
sentences containing 4 or 8 words are strangely uninspired.

CAGE EFFECT:
Child says nothing for 4 minutes, 33 seconds–exactly.

Heh. Maybe they’re not so funny after all. But I actually laughed out loud at the Philip Glass one. Nixon in China, anybody?? (I know, that was John Adams, but the whole minimalist thing just tickles me to death for some reason.)

Fink out.

PS – Happy Valentine Day! Buy your hunny something sweet.

Various & Sundry IX

Leave a reply

Yikes, I overslept this morning. Had a great time with fiends last night, watching The Godfather II. Awesome.

So, Vince Gill’s still got it after all these years. I’m not a huge country music fan (not that country is bad, mind…I just don’t listen to it so I don’t know lots about it), but this voice has impressed me since “Let Me Love You Tonight” from 1980, when he was with Pure Prairie League.

Anyway. He’s been married to Amy Grant (yawn) since 2000, and they’re both still recording, which is cool. I read this morning that Gill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame a couple of years ago. Also impressive.

But this is how I remember Vince Gill:

Ten years ago, he released what I think is one of the most beautiful ballads I’ve ever heard. The style reminds me of the music my mother loved — lazy, heartfelt country songs with lots of strings and tinkly piano. Classic stuff.

I carved out a clip of the song if you want to hear it:

If You Ever Have Forever in Mind

(Boom-Boom — is this tune in your rep? If not, it should be! You’d sound great on it.)

I leeched this vid off Gill’s website — looks like Amy is attempting to cross genres again. But Vince’s weightless tenor is still there. Very nice. (Sorry about the commercial…I’m too lazy to edit this morning.)

OK, enough stalling. Time to study. Have a fab Monday.

Fink out.

Photo credit: cmt.com

Various & Sundry VII

4 Replies

Whoa, I slept in until 6:25! Half the day’s gone now. OK, what’s in my reptilian brain this morning? I have six tabs open in Firefox. What’ll it be? Ahh….

Kanye West. I remember the first time I heard the Auto-Tune vocal processor on a recording. It was ten years ago (I looked it up), on Cher’s “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” Kind of a cool effect.

This morning, I listened to four tracks from West’s new album, Heartless. I kept listening, thinking, “OK, there’s got to be an end to this effect; he’s going to revert to his real voice any second now.” Nothin’ doin’. There isn’t a single moment of those four songs when Auto-Tune is not (over)used.

For those who may not know, Auto-Tune is a device used in recording studios (and increasingly in live performances) to alter a voice. It corrects bad notes so it sounds as if the artist sang in tune. Engineers can also monkey with Auto-Tune to give a voice a robotic sound.

As with every other in-studio sweetening gimmick (delay, reverb, phase shift, doubling, and a hundred other effects I don’t know about), Auto-Tune should be used like salt; a little bit goes a long way. Too much of it and the whole dish is ruined. And so it went with my four-course Kanye meal. It is apparent that the boy can’t sing in tune, but at least has the wisdom to use technology to cover up the fact. Unfortunately, the “annoying” factor still comes through loud and clear.

“Paranoid” has a nice hook in the chorus, but cripes I can’t get away from the Auto-Tune that I know is coming on the next line and the next and the next. And regarding “Amazing” — props to Mr. West for being a mega-hitmaker, but son, it sounds like a couple of my middle school boys experimenting with a 4-track recorder and a sampler in their attic. The singing is so bad, not even Auto-Tune does a decent job of covering it up.

The lyrics weren’t especially ennobling, either:

Tawk & tawk & tawk & tawk ~ Why don’t we just knock it off ~ They don’t know what we been thoo ~ They don’t know ’bout me & you

Troof.

But hey, to each his own, right? If the music speaks to you, it’s all good, because in my book, that’s what music is supposed to do. And here ends my foray into popular music criticism — an endeavor best left to those who know the business. But seriously, anyone can recognize delusions of grandeur/self-aggrandizement when they see it. Brother needs to be careful. It’s all fun & games, painting yourself as bigger than life and greater than everyone and everything, until you can’t back it up. Heartless didn’t help Kanye’s quest for world domination.

Fink out.

Photo credit: Time

Music at random

4 Replies

As I enjoy my quiet time on this day after Thanksgiving, sipping my DD coffee and listening to 60s/70s music on pandora.com, my neurons precipitate many random thoughts, resulting in random comments as the tunes roll.

What the world is the meaning of the song, “Mrs. Robinson,” by Simon & Garfunkel?

Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes.

Laugh about it, shout about it, when you’ve got to choose.

Any way you look at it, you lose.

Hmmm. I mean, I’ve seen the movie (although it was years ago) The Graduate, and I know it was included on the soundtrack. I went to songfacts.com to try to find out more about it — which I did — but I didn’t see a definite conclusion regarding what exactly the lyrics mean. I hate that.

You know, speaking of Paul and Art…there are some groups that just invite a sing-along. You know what I mean? I remember singing with their voices on the radio when I was in junior high school, adding a third layer of harmony on as many of their tunes as possible. I was such a little rock star.

I loved playing “Sound of Silence” and “The Boxer” on my guitar while I sang every memorized word. The hours I wasted sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of that record player…

Ah, Queen is on the playlist right now. There are two groups of people: the group that knows “Bohemian Rhapsody” from Wayne’s World, and the group that was at that party in 1975 where somebody bought the new record and put it on full blast ten times over so everyone could learn the words.

She packed my bags last night, pre-flight. Elton John, “Rocket Man.” Michael, my friend from high school (actually, he was my boyfriend in high school) who reads RtB might recall a kid in our graduating class who was so obsessed with John’s music and persona, he wore the glasses and platform shoes and everything. We called him “Elton Tom.” Remember him, Mike?

Credence Clearwater Revival — another band that helped me learn my basic guitar chords and strumming chops. Mavis and I loved them. “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” is on right now. Anyone else like CCR back in the olden days?

Ah…perfection. “Something” by the Beatles. Great way to start your day, mate. I’m off to shop for chocolate molds — hope the Food Dock’s open today.

Happy Black Friday!

Photo credits: simon-and-garfunkel.com; poster.net

Bel Canto

19 Replies

I love beautiful singing, obviously, because I’m a choral director, but it doesn’t stop there. A song has to say something to me in order to be meaningful, or else it’s just so many wasted measures. I love it when a student or friend tells me that a certain song makes him or her cry or feel empowered or angry or whatever. That’s what music is supposed to do: make us feel love, sadness, joy and peace — four of the most extraordinary emotions in the human experience.

I have to find an ethereal combination of lyrics, melody and harmonic structure in order to love a song. [There are exceptions for dance music, however, which I often love simply for the groove.] In other words, music has to talk to me. I cannot have music playing “in the background,” because it’s always in the foreground for me. Strange to say because I’m a musician, but I rarely have music playing in my house when I’m trying to accomplish things (which is often, unfortunately). The music always takes precedence and I can’t get my work done as efficiently.

So what songs “speak” to me? The list is so long and varied that it’s hard to even start it, but I will gi’ it a go.

For this particular little exercise, I will focus on individual singers only, not bands in general.

Bien. Vamos.

A Few of Fink’s Faves, in No Particular Order

  1. James Taylor – “Only One”
  2. Annie Lennox – “Walking on Broken Glass”
  3. Stephen Bishop – “Same Old Tears on a New Background”
  4. John Lennon – “Girl”
  5. Frank Sinatra – “Only the Lonely”
  6. Diana Krall – “Charmed Life”
  7. Stevie Ray Vaughan – “Pride and Joy”
  8. Bonnie Raitt – “Nobody’s Girl”
  9. Bobby Darin – “Beyond the Sea”
  10. Ella Fitzgerald – “Miss Otis Regrets”
  11. Jimmy Witherspoon – “Time’s Gettin’ Tougher Than Tough”
  12. Sting – “Roxanne” (although every time I hear it, I can’t help but think of Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours)
  13. Luciano Pavarotti – “Nessun dorma” from Turandot – quite possibly the most perfect aria in the history of opera. Click the link and watch it.
  14. Anita Baker – “Giving You the Best That I Got”
  15. B. B. King – “Payin’ the Cost to Be the Boss”
  16. Paul McCartney – “Maybe I’m Amazed”
  17. Dean Martin – “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”
  18. Bryan Adams – “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman”
  19. Billy Joel – “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”
  20. Tony Bennett – “Isn’t it Romantic”
  21. Sade – “Smooth Operator”
  22. Don Henley – “Desperado”
  23. Michael Jackson – “Remember the Time”
  24. Glenn Frey – “Heartache Tonight”
  25. Timothy B. Schmit – “Love Will Keep Us Alive”
  26. Harry Connick, Jr. – “Come By Me”
  27. Tom Petty – “Won’t Back Down”
  28. George Harrison – “Something”
  29. Paul Simon – “Still Crazy After All These Years”
  30. Elvis Presley – “Such a Night”
  31. Jamie Cullum – “These Are the Days”
  32. Alanis Morissette – “Uninvited”
  33. Etta James – “A Sunday Kind of Love”
  34. Michael McDonald – “Minute By Minute”
  35. Mel Tormé – “My Foolish Heart”
  36. Johnny Depp – “Epiphany” from Sweeney Todd

Yikes. This was a bad idea. I’m out of time and only about a third of the way done. What does this say about me? I’d rather not know. I might be mental, after all.

If you have a chance, list some of your fave songs and the people who sing them.

Now go and recognize you some beauty today.

Fink out.