You're probably very aware of this Hear it Local thing I've been blathering on about. (If it's news to you, I just posted a article about it and the launch party on examiner.com)
Always More to Hear is an official partner of the launch party and I've been asked to put together a playlist of local music for in between live sets and I've been having the best time rummaging through my sampler CDs and mp3 library looking for suitable music. Some you've heard before, some is brand-spanking-new (likes this fabulous Oakland band Bang Data) I'm going to post the playlist here for downloading! Stay tuned!
I'm super excited to be part of making the Bay Area less overwhelming for live music lovers and I'm honored to be part of such a vital community of smart, creative and passionate people who can make something like this happen.
This is Chasing the Moon's Quinn Deveaux podcast: both will be in attendance on the 18th.
Last week I randomly came across the music blog Unbounded Song and I'm really excited about it. The premise is that the blog will eventually feature one song from each country in the world, roughly 196 of them.
The details on who is publishing this blog are non-existent other than his name is Dylan. But one thing is for sure, I trust Dylan's taste in music. That sentiment really boils down any music blog: with all the music blogs out there, what keeps you coming back? What keeps you coming back to mine? I hope it's because you trust me and my taste in music!
Each song on Unbounded Song as been fan-fricken-tastic so far.
The actual text posts are short and to the point, which I appreciate.
The song I'm in love with right now is the Polish entry: "At My Mothers" by Warsaw Village Band. This is the kind of music I want to crawl up inside. You know that feeling? When you just want to get up in it? I have no other way of describing it.
Check out this blog if you like music from around the world. There's some good stuff coming at you.
Things are getting exciting over here at Always More to Hear!
Serena Bartlett's GrassRoutes Travel guide's to Portland and Seattle feature my mix tapes exploring a taste of music that has come out from those cities. Here I am on the new GrassRoutes website!
The GrassRoutes guides (also including Olympia, San Francisco, Oakland & Berkeley and the Northern California Wine Country) are basically all about "green travel" and how to either be a tourist in your own city or learning where the locals go when you are in a new city. The guides feature businesses and organizations that contribute to the sustainability of local economies.
(the weird bottom right corner is actually shiny silver, the scanner makes it look funny)
I love making mix CDs. And I love making the collaged covers that come with them. It's so fun collecting all this stuff and then seeing how it will be used in projects. I've noticed that my mixes are like the collages that dawn their covers: patchworks of sound, texture, color, pattern and language. Everyone has a style for making mixes, I guess that's mine.
I made a stack of CDs as thank-you's for the volunteers that came out to "Swab for Elissa" yesterday (which was a lot of fun). There is nothing purposely symbolic to/of/for Lissy in the tracklisting or in the images themselves; they are just what I felt like using at the time specifically for this event keeping in mind the folks I was making them for.
Feel free to download the CD here and grab the cover you like the best for uploading into itunes or printing out for an actual physical CD (imagine that)!
Here is the tracklisting insert:
(this weird multi-colored stripe is actually shiny silver, the scanner makes it look funny)
The Requiem is a commonly performed and beloved piece because of its absolute gorgeousness. Te Deum is not performed very often, and I think I have an idea why: IT'S HARD. Not only is it composed for double chorus (meaning there are eight parts: SATB times two) there are also soloists for each choir. On some pages there are 16 lines of music, so it's like reading a orchestral score. And the publisher of this particular score that we're using is very inconsistent and likes to change the organization of the score every two pages, so your part shows up in a different place every time you move to a different line.
But that's not even the worst part: the worst part is the chaos I feel while I'm singing the faster movements of Te Deum. The never ending lines of quarter and eighth notes make me crazy. Granted, we're still learning our parts, but today I just couldn't handle it. And I think I know why: this music is mirroring how I feel lately, CHAOS.
After this event for my friend Lissy is over (if you don't know, she has cancer and we're trying to find her a stem cell match) on Wednesday, I will hopefully feel better. But with all the other balls I have up in the air right now, the mental energy that I'm using trying to keep them all up there is making me a little nutty.
This is the last few movements of Te Deum. These people make it sound easy.
Back in 2000 when I was studying abroad in Sydney, I was lucky enough to get hooked into this performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Sydney Opera House with a bunch of junior high kids and teachers. There must have been something like 400 people stumbling through Bach's polyphony. No one around me was singing the same thing, so I just sort of made my way through the notes trying to sight-sing and follow the conductor as best I could. I can't even imagine what that must have sounded like out there in the audience.
The experience made me insane and I've had a bad taste for that sort of composition since; and this Mendelssohn is hitting me a little too hard right now. Hopefully as we get more confident in our parts, it'll start to sound divine like those folks up in the video there.
Does anybody else feel this way about this kind of polyphony? I'm okay with Renaissance polyphony like Palestrina, in fact that is one of my favorite genres of choral music. Why do I feel this way about this specific kind of composition?
This poster is so super awesome, I've printed it out and posted it at my desk with the idea that it'll make me laugh every time I look at it.
There has been much discussion on how to keep classical music alive in the 21st century. Opera companies and symphonies are doing all they can to make performances more affordable and appealing to younger people. The movement has been called "Alt Classical."
There are many ways to keep the music alive; and I think humor, awesome dark humor is one of the ways. What about a show poking fun at death and a horrible sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis that took the lives of so many great composers?
Classical Revolution is a national organization that's been popping up all over the country bringing live performance out of the symphony hall and into non-traditional spaces like clubs and restaurants. I wrote about one of these events in San Francisco last December.
This is the manifesto of Classical Revolution PDX:
We love classical music.
We love playing classical music.
We love listening to classical music.
We are tired of the elitist and inaccessible nature of the classical world.
We believe that there are many that would enjoy classical music if they could access it in a setting that is comfortable for them.
We believe classical musicians should be allowed to perform in a setting that is more casual - where the audience is allowed to have a drink, eat a scone, laugh a little, and clap a lot.
We believe everyone can enjoy the music that we love.
A co-worker of mine who lives in Portland is playing "Syphilis Night" tonight with Classical Revolution. It will showcase the music of composers who died of syphilis (including Schubert, Beethoven, Schumann, Wolf, Paganini and Joplin) and will be held at The Woods, a night club/bar that used to be a funeral parlor.
Volunteers will be handing out condoms, and in an email from organizer Mattie Kaiser announced that folks get "extra brownie points for dressing up like a sailor or a prostitute."
I'm sorry, but if this is not the coolest, most awesomely hysterical things you've ever heard, I don't know what is! Mozart would definitely approve. I wish I could get up to Portland for this.
I make personal collaged cards for friends and family when I can and I'm super proud of this one for my brother's birthday: David Bowie, Stephen Colbert and Flight of the Conchords all rolled into one. My brother scanned the inside of it (it just said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" on the front) and put it on facebook, so I figured I'd grab it and share.
You're probably very aware of this Hear it Local thing I've been blathering on about. (If it's news to you, I just posted a article about it and the launch party on examiner.com)
