Sunday, October 24, 2010

Fight The Power

Cello fight by Christopher Stetson Wilson

Cello battle by Apocalyptica

Cello encounter
by Kristin Rule / Terrence O'Brien

Cello war by Zoe Keating

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Creature Feature

I'm starting a new semi-regular blog feature. Like a radio-feature, not like a Huron-feature. Maybe I'll call it a Feature.

TITLES
Of journal articles mostly, but I'm not ruling out book or chapter titles either. For those of you not in the university-loop: it's getting near final-paper-topic-choosing week and I've been spending some quality time with JSTOR. Sometimes it's fascinating, sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes I feel compelled to read my findings out loud to my unsuspecting roommates. I haven't necessarily read these articles, I don't necessarily know what they're about - but they fill a niche in musicological research, and so we salute them. And also sometimes laugh?

Today's offering:
Brechtian Hip-Hop: Didactics and Self-Production in Post-Gangsta Political Mixtapes
Author: George Ciccariello Maher
Source: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Sep., 2005), pp. 129-160


(From now on: I'll just give you title and bibliography.)
(And: aren't you kind of curious about this article?)

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I Whistle A Happy Tune

You've got to love Hindemith. Maybe not. In any case: I love this!

Paul Hindemith: "The Flying Dutchman Overture as Sight-Read by a Bad Spa Orchestra by the Village Well at Seven in the Morning" (1925).

Friday, October 15, 2010

It'll Be Just As Quiet When I Leave

I mean: the orchestra's just a construct, so why not deconstruct?

Concerto for Solo Conductor Without Orchestra
Composed: Francis Schwartz
Performed: Roberto-Juan Gonzalez

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Everybody In The Place Get Wild / I Know That You Like My Style

In the words of youtube user seamusfinnigan2000: "sir please clone yourself!! aaaaa!!"





(Richard Grayson's youtube channel will steal your time and never give it back.)
(metafilter)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

This Is A Gift / It Comes With A Price

I'm directing you to an archived post at 2'23" for a little bit of Tuesday-relief/classical-music-humor:

It's titled... Hunting Babbitts.

You laughed.

Monday, October 11, 2010

New Found Glory

You guys! One of Magnus Lindberg's early works (that would be: Kraft) requires the percussionists to pick out materials for the performance from a local junkyard. (That way every performance is unique and locally-based, see.) So here it is - percussionists of the NYPO finding their instruments:



I wish this was an everyday occurrence. Although maybe with an expanded hunting-ground; I don't spend much time hanging out in junkyards.

(via fileunder?)
("Kraft" would be such a great piece to hear live...in the meantime, there's always NAXOS.)

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Drop It Like It's Hot

What's in a name? Women's Division.

Pat Benatar - Patricia Andrejewski
Dido - Florian Cloud De Bounevialle Armstrong
Macy Gray - Natalie Renee McIntyre
Wynonna Judd - Christina Claire Ciminella
Chaka Khan - Carole Yvette Marie Stevens
Peggy Lee - Norma Deloris Egstrom
Mama Cass Elliot - Ellen Naomi Cohen
Joni Mitchell - Roberta Joan Anderson
Cat Power - Charlyn Marie Marshall
Joss Stone - Joscelyn Eve Stocker
Donna Summer - LaDonna Adrian Gaines
Tina Turner - Annie Mae Bullock
Bonnie Tyler - Gaynor Hopkins


*I got these stage/original name-pairs from sources of questionable repute: who even KNOWS if they're true!
(shoutmouth and digitaldreamdoor)

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Start To Push / Break Your Own Glass Ceiling

Ken Unsworth is an Australian artist who specializes in installation and sculpture works. "I'm not worried about meaning," he said in one interview. "I just like to make these strange things." Strange and often musical - turns out his late wife, an inspiration for many of his pieces, was a pianist. Examples A and B: "Rapture" (for piano, straw, burnt sheet music, and plastic mice) is a sculpture made of keyboard-stairs, and "Piano Trio (Teaching Three Pianos to Sing in Unison)" involves three grand pianos, motorized parts, three metronomes, and sheet music.

And then I give you Example C: Unsworth's 2009 exhibit "A Ringing Glass (Rilke)" includes an installation with twenty-eight toy pianos (I counted) suspended from the ceiling. The Schoenhut tinkle starts at 4:45, but the whole video is worth watching: even in the installations dealing with, oh you know, humanity and life and death and things, sound and music play a huge role:

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Messing With The Flavor / Oh The Flavor That You Savor

Nico Muhly: The Next Food Network Star?
(I really hope so.)

How composing is like cooking, and so much more.



(Muhly has two new albums out: A Good Understanding, and I Drink the Air Before Me.)

Monday, October 4, 2010

Art Of Listening

I haven't been this entertained by a music video in a long time.

(Extra credit: Did you spot Alma Mahler?)

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.



(via Neu Black)

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Yeah, I Want To Remake The Horizon


"While [Mahler's 10th Symphony] may even today still be as powerful and evocative as ever, it has, so to speak, entered the realms of the historical, where its relevance is limited to a gone-by era outside of our physical grasp. Herbert was fascinated by the thought of being able to listen to it as though the past 100 years had never taken place, as though our ears were still capable of perceiving its grandiose architecture without having been exposed to atonality, dodecaphony and the advent of electronic sounds. His intent was to beam the score straight into the 21st century, giving new birth to it through an act of digital re-contextualisation aimed at establishing connections between the "what is" and "what was"....[U]nderneath its veil of controversy, Herbert has recorded a work that is as heartfelt as it is free from any kind of novelty gadgets. His recomposed (or, more precisely, relistened) edit is both a wordless radioplay and a meta-Symphony, incorporating the piece, its reception and potential context all in one."
(From a Taruskin-heavy but really interesting review by Tobias Fischer at tokafi)

(Mahler: Recomposed By Matthew Herbert)

(Same series!: Ravel & Mussorgsky Recomposed By Carl Craig)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Pardon Me Boys / Is That The Chattanooga Choo-Choo

You've got your Train Whistle Blues, your Train Whistle Boogie, some Different Trains, a Train Song, oooh a Train Song with Mr. Waits, the First Train Home, the Last Train Home, and I'm pretty sure we used to bet pennies on who could come closest to identifying whistle-chords as those trains rolled through Northfield during Music Theory II.

(Common train chords: A Major 6th; A7; and c# dim7. Check it out: Train Horn Chords.)