Monday, November 23, 2009 6:50:05 AM
music, literature
A friend of mine is a singer-songwriter at amateur level and has a son who is a rather successful producer in the pop industry. This friend found out that I do a bit of writing, and he asked me if I could write a song text for him.
I had to decline, but his request brought back the memory from the endless list of might-have-beens in my life.
Read more...
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 10:08:42 AM
music
In the early weeks of the Obama presidency I read that, among other plans, Barack and Michelle Obama intended to arrange concerts with jazz and chamber music in the residence of the US president. I thought that this sounded great, and I wrote some suggestions. I left the community for which it was originally intended, and it has since been buried in my hard disk, until I decided to publish it here.
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Monday, November 10, 2008 9:35:23 AM
death, music
Miriam Makeba, who used to be the favorite South African for me and presumably many others,
died this morningRead more...
Friday, March 10, 2006 7:48:05 PM
music, psychology
I'm practising
humility for the moment and have been doing for some time. I have no doubt that I really need to do it, but this need is actually not my reason for doing so. I do it for a somewhat different reason:
Beauty. I bathe my soul in beauty.
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005 6:48:23 AM
music, psychology, to whom it may concern
What do you do if you want to tell someone something and for some reason you don't want to say it directly? Well, there are many ways. One of the most fascinating that I have heard of was used by a group of American jazz musicians.
Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers made a now legendary recording session in November 1954. One of the tunes was called
To Whom It May Concern and it actually was a musical message to some other musicians. A message so discreet that very few people would notice it at all.
The message was heard, understood and answered by those whom it concerned. How do I know? Can I hear and understand the message? Well, now that I know that it is there and what it is about I may be able to hear it, but I would definitely not have been able to do it on my own.
The reason that I know about this story is that some others heard and understood the messages too and later told about them.
Monday, September 26, 2005 8:10:29 AM
music, nature, health
I love complicated rhythmical patterns,
including those that really are beyond my conscious comprehension. Like in the song I am hearing now with overlying rhythms that partly run across the stable fundamental rhythm.
Many people are uncomfortable with rhythmical subtleties like that. They want something that is sharp and clear and very, very easy to understand:
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1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 etc.
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1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4
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1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4
But the natural rhythms of real life are not sharp and rigid. They pulsate and swing softly and there are several rhythmic patterns running at the same time. And they mostly do not count to 4. They count to 3, 5, 7, 9 etcetera. Or the long, complicated 28'ish rhythm that some of my readers know so well.
Music influences your life and your understanding of it. If you limit yourself to hearing music with very primitive and simplified rhythmic patterns you remove yourself from the inner forces of life.
If you want music to help you get in touch with those forces you need to hear lots of music with natural rhythms.
My Opera
