When It Hurts So Bad / Why's It Feel So Good

Indianapolis has a radio station (WCIR 88.7 to be precise) that features a Concert Band Hour every Saturday morning from 7 to 8 in the AM.
Let me tell you from first-hand experience: it is a little jarring. (Although to be fair, it does wake you up.)

Anyway, my first (and probably only) encounter with Concert Band Hour concluded with a rousing performance of Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony. The part with the noisemaker had me pretty convinced the car was about to break down. Okay.



With dancers!



Or: mandolin orchestra version of the concert band piece.



And finally: The Remix. Obviously.

I don't know - if any unwanted holiday guests are still lingering around your house, I would play this on repeat for awhile and it just might do the trick!

Dream / The Impossible Dream

Peter Aidu plays Steve Reich's "Piano Phase."
Not Peter Aidu and friend.
Just Peter Aidu(!)
It kind of makes my head hurt.

Or as my dad says: I can see him doing that trick for drinks in a musicology bar somewhere. Hmm, yes...



(many (many) thanks to Kevin)

The One And Only

This video is:
1) a reward for turning in all those final papers (hooray you're done!)
2) preparation for an upcoming Madtown concert
3) (there might not be any singing/rapping, but check out that ostinato, right?)
4) Happy Holidays, etc etc.

And so, without further ado:
Snoop Dogg Reads the Grinch

Yeah Darling / You Wear It So Well

The Vienna Philharmonic is instituting a new uniform for its women musicians in the name of a more "homogenous, yet modern" look.
Translation: lady tuxes (picture).

A fun fact left out of the yahoo and jezebel articles? Turns out the women have reservations.

Sick Muse

I don't know if you're aware of this, but the British Medical Journal publishes a special Christmas issue every year. It's true! Relevant, too, because this year's issue includes "Mozart’s 140 causes of death and 27 mental disorders" by Lucien R. Karhausen. "The plethora of proposed causes of death and mental disorders suggested for Mozart," Karhausen writes, "stems from some obscure need to cut great artists down to size." Read all about it.

[Plus, I do believe paragraph five (detailing the major theories for cause of death) would make a wonderful Gilbert and Sullivan style patter. Ahem ahem:

It could be typhus, typhoid, measles, mycotoxin or staphylococcal /
Tuberculosis, trichinosis, or infection meningococcal /
Endocarditis, scarlatina, septicaemias, (not optimal) /
But let's just pause a tick lest we forget the streptococcal.


RIGHT?]

Four Tops

Take a deep breath: The Gerschwin Piano Quartet playing Tango-Fugue on a Theme by Astor Piazzolla by Stefan Wirth.



The world needs more piano quartets. I'm certain of it.

(via collaborativepianoblog. If you've never actually clicked through, maybe today's the day!)

Dance Dance / We're Falling Apart To Half Time

Published paper o' the week.

Dance and Technology: A Pas de Deux for Post-Humans
by: Kent de Spain
Dance Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Summer, 2000), pp. 2-17



Let it be known that I'm going to start calling all computers "post-humans."

Please Don't Leave Me

Holiday gift, anyone?
Adopt a cylinder.

(Ada Jones and Billy Murray's 1913 rendition of "I'm Looking For A Sweetheart and I Think You'll Do" is still available! As is Stanley Kirkby's "Don't Go Down In The Mine, Dad", or The United States Marine Band's "Marsovia Waltz." Full list.)

(metafilter)

She's A Lady

The news reporter is watching you! Right there from his 1984 vantage point!

Charlotte Moorman (who has a much thicker southern accent than I ever would have expected) plays Nam June Paik's TV Cello.

This would take place in 1984. What a woman! What an instrument!

But Today / I Have The Opportunity To Choose

Speaking of technology as a compositional tool...
(some of us were, I promise.)

How about this guy? Neil Cicierega uses youtube to make a MUSICAL create-your-own-adventure.



(via metafilter)