What Are You Listening To Right Now? #25

There are a few of us who've posted outside of pop/rock genres. (Though my memory won't be able to distinguish between this thread and the one with alphabetical song titles), I have recently seen a couple of different people post Debussey's Claire de Lune, for instance. I myself have posted Chopin's Sonata #3 (b minor), and Ballade #2 (F Major). I've also posted material from Medieval music, to Experimental Modern music, as by Pauline Oliveros. There has not tended to be much of a response, when I have, though the Chopin Sonata got a couple of likes. Or, when you say "classical," are you speaking strictly, as in limited to the time frame of Mozart, Haydn, Shubert, & Beethoven?

Let's see, I've also posted work by Kodály, Varèse, Rachmaninov, & Respighi, off the top of my head. Oh, and I posted one piece by Borodin (who is one of my favorites), but it has been hard finding quality versions of his work, on You Tube. I've even included a bit of sacred music, in the form of Hindu chant, and Santeria drumming. And, in line with your vocal prodigy, a couple of us have posted precocious singing talents-- in my case, Jackie Evancho (who was more impressive at 12 than your offering here, IMO-- though not as mature looking). So, forgive me if I am not overly sympathetic to your complaint, after this single offering of yours. I would suggest that the best way to bring out others' "classical" posts, is by posting more of them yourself; there may be others who have similar tastes, but who believe, like you, that no one else shares them, so are shy about posting. Since I have a sense that most members don't customarily check out this thread, I think that providing an ongoing string of encouragement, would be the best way of coaxing from their shells, these closeted fans of classical music.

 

Been feeling kind of seasick lately but the crowd called out for more. So here's some Procol Harum.

 

There was a quality about the piece that you'd chosen, with your young singer, which put me in mind of this piece. Hopefully, it's something that you, or somebody, will find pleasurable.

Even though I've not found much operatic work that I care for (too repetitive) yet, there are a couple of composers, known for their operas, whose instrumental work I enjoy. This is Georges Bizet, best known for Carmen. This piece, is from his opera The Pearl Fishers. I couldn't find the full orchestral version, without the vocal part, I had wanted, but these I think are also easy to like. The first is just a string quintet:






This is a student version, but it is interesting, and provides a bit of variety & contrast, from the more standard versions.






And here is the piece with the vocals. This is the version that most appealed to me, but this is a song for which the singing works well, and there are numerous good versions on You Tube, for those who are interested (as well as for another duet, in the opera).

 

Some famous rocker-at this point I cannot recall-claimed this was the most perfect strong. Another great band that is strangely missing from the Hall of Lame. My favorites from Gary and the boys:

 

Thanks. I love the opera and particularly the duet where the two reminise. Au fond du temple saint.

I'm British and was stationed in what was Ceylon many years back while in the RAF. Beautiful country - or was then.

 

Tried to find a live video of them doing this song. Failed miserably.

 

Funny, I don't recall ever seeing images that I knew to be of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon). I would guess that the weather there, though, would be overly warm, to my taste, for a long term stay. Yet, tangent to your appreciation for that island nation, to me the islands of Indonesia, like Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, a bit further east, look in pictures to be especially beautiful places (some also say Bali, is nice). But concerns about the government & laws there, would give me pause, about visiting.

Here is some traditional music from Indonesia.
I'll start with a nice sounding instrument they make, with a bamboo body, which sounds something like a harp, called a sasando. The funny thing is that this odd looking headwear, seems to go with the instrument; I've yet to see anyone playing the sasando, who wasn't wearing that unusual style hat.










Then there is the instrument most connected with Indonesia, in the popular mind, the gamelan. It has a distinctive sound, with a hypnotic quality to the music, though l definitely have a limit, of how much of it, gives me my fill. Though it is a percussive instrument, it puts me a little in mind of the utterly different, calliope-- the musical wagon, associated with carnivals-- which produces sound through wind pipes; but maybe combined with a music box.

In the first song, with the dancers, it is easy to sense the ritualistic element in this music, as it was originally used in that religiously devotional way. In my next post (since I've too much to fit in one) will be a young dancer who also suggests a trance-like element, in her performance.












And I'll end this post with another percussive instrument, the kulintang, which is wooden, and a lot like a xylophone. Here is a good, rhythmic presentation of that instrument.

 

. The prime Mountain Line up didn't last long: Felix had bad tinnitus but for those few years they were pretty much the biggest and baddest hard rock act in the states. Saw them at Crosley field as a young boy-that was part of a cincinnati Pops festival. Grand Funk and the stooges were also participants NSR highlights Pappalardi's wonderful bass playing and vocals.

 

Some more Mountain Live. Mississippi Queen with Leslie's vocals and then the Jack Bruce composition-theme for an Imaginary Western with Felix on lead vocals. Felix produced some of Cream's records and played bass on some tracks so Jack could play piano

 

INDONESIAN MUSIC, continued.

Each of the islands has its unique traditional style & melodies (&, I would guess, rhythms). Here is a traditional Javanese piece, updated with a modern electronic organ.






A Balinese song, played on an 8-string, microtonal guitar (meaning that there are more than 12 chromatic half-tones, in any octave, as is standard in Western music).






Here is a relaxing tune from Bali, in which an Oriental flavor is very evident. This is interesting, because the musical scale common in the Far East, the pentatonic, five-tone scale-- the piano's black notes-- is not typical, I read, of the modern gamelan, which uses the Western diatonic scale (7 tone scales, comprising 5 whole steps, & 2 half steps).

It seems probable, however, their scales may take various forms, much as Europeans used, before our standardized scales. That is, the arrangement of spacings, from "C" to "C," on the piano, using just the white notes, is the Ionian mode, which became our Major scale. From "A" to "A," using just the white notes, is its relative, natural minor scale, which used to be known as the Aeolian mode. Of course, these patterns can be transposed, and then use mixtures of white & black key notes. If, though, one uses just the white keys, but makes the tonic, "home" key, the note "D," instead of "C," then you would have the Dorian mode, which has a distinctive "Egyptian" sound. I mention it, because I heard that, in the first, Javanese song, at the top.

After all that talking from me, this soothing tune is coming just in time:






And here is a more modernized version of the traditional sound, but which is just as cheerful and mellow, as the one above.






There are still interesting, modern fusions with the traditional sound, that I've yet to share but, since I'd mentioned in my last post, this gamelan dance piece, with its movements stylized to the point that the dancer embodying them, seems almost entranced, I will follow through.
I remind the listener who wants to share in the entrancement, that accessing such a state, requires patience.

 

I like their energy. They have a good vibe (if not good dental work ) for a live performance.

 

You're being much too hard on yourself-- getting to see those costumes, definitely counts for something.




And the version of the song, was a good one: that it is a slow tune, didn't stop me from listening all the way through.

 

Sri Lanka has 2 different temperature areas. The low lying warmer area and the beautiful interior mountain area with a cooler climate. It is also subject to monsoons which which come down the east coast of India from the Himalayas.
Sri Lanka

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Sri+L...ig=70e177ed411741d6812c6ec3b6728592&mkt=en-gb

Your music posts are interesting in their right background. As is Western music. As a young man in the 1950/70's until now I have seen Western popular music tastes vary through, to me, the 'acceptable' to the 'meaningless' and back to a variation of the musical songs of the early days. Classical music of the Western ilk has changed little over the centuries. The composers were able to combine the various instruments in a myriad different ways and achieve beautiful music. From Bach's organ music and through different leading instruments - Bruchs/TchaikovskysMendlesohns violin Concerto's - to Wagners Ring cyle. For me there's music
I have a son living in Japan and have heard Japanese music. In Sri Lanka almost every shop in Colombo had Indian music blaring out.
Eastern music is, in my opinion, often limited.

Still, it is what gives one pleasure.

'Music hath charms to cool the savage breast '- Congreave

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” – Kahlil Gibran

 

What a lucky man he was. I've seen luckier but very few like him in my lifetime.

 

its sad that Greg lost his voice fairly young-when ELP started, he had-what i consider-the best voice in rock-even ahead of Ian Gillan and David Byron. He wrote this song at 12. in the heyday of ELP (WTF they aren't in the Hall of Lame is a travesty) Lake normally did an acoustic version since the album version feature him playing 2-3 guitars. Here is an example

 

This song has been coming into my head, recently: Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles."

Along with it, I am including a cover of the song "Fade Into You," (originally by Mazzie Star). Everyone who has listened to radio, has probably experienced the phenomenon of song bleed: when one can hear two songs, simultaneously. I have found that there are certain times, when the song combo is right, and they are intersecting at the proper points, in relation to one another, that it is actually interesting to do this on purpose. That is something which this forum facilitates, making it easy to try various pairings, at different points in each other's course, and to start & stop these, at will.

Either of these songs can be listened to, on its own. But, for variety's sake, for anyone willing to experiment, there are points in the two songs, in which they create something worth listening to, IMO, played simultaneously.

The reason, Btw, I am beginning with this combination, is not because it is particularly good, but because of a strange policy by You Tube, about music made for minors, that it won't allow me to save on a playlist. This cover by Riddle, which I've just come across, falls within that policy. An interesting wrinkle to the rule, is that just because a song is considered to be "content made for kids," does not mean that You Tube considers the material to necessarily be appropriate for kids. A couple of songs I'd posted earlier, of Victoria Vox and another adult woman, each of whom vocally imitate a trumpet sound, in their respective songs, are further examples of songs that I am not allowed to put onto my You Tube playlists, perhaps because of the potential sharing aspect of the site (but which playlists I use for myself, and don't know that anyone else has ever checked out).

Anyway, here are two songs that, at least, provide a nice contrast to one another.







13 yr old Aubrey Riddle-- Fade Into You

 

Two more songs that can be listened to separately, or which can be blended at various points, for a different effect: Ringo Starr's "Devil Woman," and Bush's "Everything Zen." As a miscellaneous, curious note: You Tube does allow me to save this version of "Devil Woman," but there's another version, which "video," is only a picture of Ringo's face, which is considered "content made for kids." Obviously the way this policy is applied, is irrational. (Speaking of which-- enjoy the song blending!)

 

Van Morrison doesn't like his stuff getting out there on the internet for free. That's where I found this.

 

Haven't heard this one in a while. My Forth of July contribution.