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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 30, 2009 16:45:43 GMT -6
Some Further Notes & "Corrections" ~~~
I was making some generalizations and assertions in one of my earlier posts, which I have been reconsidering ---
Like when I mentioned how, as when I was a young child listening to Nat "King" Cole sing "The Christmas Song", I was listening to music that was Jazz-inspired, or had ( at least ) evolved from a Jazz Tradition ---
In a way, I still stand by this assertion, but at the same time, this thesis needs to be modified ---
That is to say, there is what you can call: "American Mainstream Popular Music"
And then there are traditions like: Classical, Jazz, Folk, Bluegrass, and so on...
In more recent times, ( say, over the last forty- fifty years ) it has become more common for AMP Music to "borrow" elements from some of these traditions - or to become "influenced" by these traditions ---
This had already been true in the case of Jazz Music, starting way back in the 1920's, but everything that was "Pop Music" from then on was not always really necessarily Jazz, even if it was mostly "Jazz influenced" ---
A lot of Pop Music, throughout this period ( say, from the 1920's & into the 1950's ) could be very "watered down" Jazz - or perhaps that "Sweet Jazz" sound ( like the kind of sound coming out of bands like the Guy Lombardo & Lawrence Welk organizations ) - & there were still other influences that were prominent in this "Mainstream Music" ---
One of the biggest of these was the Broadway Musical - ( where many of the melodies and lyrics wound up being heard on Radio & in the Movies - or, sometimes, songs in this tradition were written to be premiered directly in a movie ) ---
Jazz musicians wound up "borrowing" from the Broadway Musical tradition over the years, certainly more than the other way around --
That is, Jazz musicians used these melodies for the basis of their interpretations & improvisations, and Jazz vocalists would use these songs in their "repertoires" ( also often offering their own interpretations, as well ) ---
Many of these Broadway Musical melodies & lyrics wound up in what is referred to as: "The Great American Songbook"--- Which also contained songs written by some composers who were not writing specifically for Musicals, but who were composing them to be performed by the Jazz Orchestra they were associated with -- for instance, Billy Strayhorn, for Duke Ellington ---
Anyway, getting back to Nat King Cole & "The Christmas Song" -- Well, Nat Cole himself had Jazz roots - he began his career as a Jazz musician, as a pianist, and the leader of the "Nat King Cole Trio" -- but by the time he had become so famous for his vocals, the kind of songs he was singing could be labeled more accurately as "Pop Music" ---
Which makes this all actually just a roundabout way of saying the same thing I had said in the first place, but with more details;
Actually, it was Duke Ellington, ( I believe ) who didn't believe in all this musical "pigeonholing" & "categorizing", who said something along the lines of: He only knew of two different kinds of music - Good, or: Bad (!) --
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Post by Stormrider on May 30, 2009 22:59:58 GMT -6
Hi Ardo:
Categorizing music sounds like it might be a difficult thing to do with all the different influences and diversions of any particular sound by any group or musician. There are so many types of music that stemmed from something else and has a bit of that essence in it while still diverging into a different direction at the same time and becoming a class in its own!
When there are so many offshoots from the main musical classifications, I guess I might have to agree with Duke Ellington when he just classified music as either good or bad! That is an easy classification to make. But everyone's opinion is different--what I might say is good another might say is bad. So it just depends on what one likes. From our discussion hear, it sounds like both you and I have kept an open mind on music and we both enjoy a wide range!
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 3, 2009 6:41:54 GMT -6
Hello Again, Stormrider { & Everyone } ! ~~~
[ As an aside, I just want to mention, I've been "away" from the boards here for just a few days, ( although it seems longer ) == For a little while now, I have been feeling positively bone-tired, (much of the time) & I have been coming down with a cold == My wife and I have both been feeling stressed out, trying to deal with some problems, so she's been all worn out & tired, as well =
Am feeling a bit refreshed at the moment, however, so here I am... I've been gratified to see that I've been uplifted, already, to the status of "Hobbit"... I'd rather be a hobbit than an orc... Yes, I would... If I only could... ]
I have to confess, I kind of enjoy being able to categorize & pigeonhole pieces of music, even though the true enjoyment of any music "transcends" any of this categorization... Categorizing can take on the aspects of a game of sorts, & appeals to my pedantic side...
You put it very well, as to why it becomes so complicated, assigning all these labels to various pieces of music; It makes it somewhat easier, having all these "hyphenated" titles to choose from now : "Folk-Rock"; "Blues-Rock"; "Celtic-Rock"; just for examples...
Which also attests to the greater variety of music that has become available to everyone in recent times === Whereas, at one time, people were more likely to only be exposed to their own local colloquial music -- or else to the piano-in-the-parlor music, or perhaps to small-scale recitals [ of course, if you happened to live in a "cultural center", like a large city, you might be able to attend the Opera or a Symphony Orchestra performance, although that was still reserved for the more "refined" well-to-do folks ( & the "upper classes" ) -- more egalitarian were the big "Bands" like John Philips Sousa's - & almost every city and town had "bands" of their own... This tradition was carried on even into modern times - when I was quite young, my mother took me to Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA, where there was an old, large cement bandstand smack- dab in the middle of the park, at the bottom of a bowl-like natural amphitheater area, where the civic band gave free concerts on Sunday afternoons during the Summer - the bandstand is still there ( it had to be shut down for a while after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, until it could be structurally stabilized ) and the last I heard, the Summer concerts were still going on - we went to one, some years ago - I believe we brought our daughter with us, that time ]
Then the phonograph and the phonograph record came along, & then Radio certainly "opened up" the realm of possibilities for everyone, although, even yet, there was a large amount of music that still went unheard by many ( if not most ) people == Radio stations mostly wanted to just play either music that could be considered "safe and respectable" ( like in the Classical vein, perhaps ) or else, music that was at least "commercially viable" - music that was already becoming popular, or was already selling a lot of records == But for a long time, many varieties of music were still being ignored - for example: Real 'Down Home' Blues; Hillbilly Music; Folk Music & Folk Music from foreign cultures ( even the more 'acceptable' European cultures ) -- Unless these forms of music could be "co-opted" into something made more palatable and acceptable for the tastes of the general public - as long as it could be "Americanized", popularized, or borrowed from, without being presented "full-strength" in its original raw, crude form ...
At one point or another, there were what could almost be described as "Music Anthropologists" who went around ( tape-recorders in tow ) scouring the countryside, finding old -aged Blues artists and others, and documenting some of these musics in their purist forms...
I'm not exactly sure where the "dividing-line" ( or "cut-off mark" ) should be placed as to where all this music was getting "rediscovered" --- ( and of course, some of these traditions [ Cajun, Zydeco, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, etc. ] were going to be continuing on by themselves, whether the general public was aware of their existence or not - [although, in the case of some of the "True Blues Legends" who have since passed on, their particular personal styles and intensity will never be replicated] )===
But, anyway, since those days, there has been more and more of this "opening up" of the World of Music, and all the new varieties and combinations of varieties and styles of music from all over the world have been intermingling and have become available for all to hear ===
Often, it is still the case where it is the "Popular Music Artist" who is largely responsible for introducing some of these musical styles to the general ( American/Western European ) public === It was The Beatles who "turned us on" to Indian Sitar music - Ravi Shankar is now world famous ( in his own right ) for his sitar playing, but it was the Beatles who first acquainted Westerners to that Sitar music by exploiting it in their wildly popular "Pop" music ( and in their movie, "Help!" ) --- Then, there is the case of Paul Simon and his excursions into the realm of African Music -- incorporating some of its essence in some of his Pop tunes - and going to Africa to perform there ( in collaboration with African singers and musicians ) ---
There are some people who say they have an interest in "World Music" on its own merits, [ and straight from the source ]and I'm sure this is true, but I have a hunch this is a relatively small group of listeners - almost like a "fringe" group out of the general pool of music listeners - which is actually the same way Jazz fans are considered - Jazz has become almost like a small "cult" following on the perimeter of the commercial music world - where everything is based on numbers ( music is judged by the sheer volume of its sales numbers ) ===
Pop Music continues to be BIG in this country - & Country Music is VERY BIG right now... But anyway, getting back to this "opening up" idea, that does seem to be accelerating on its way, which is wonderful... Music Festivals have been flourishing, the Internet must be aiding in this international "music-sharing" trend, and all kinds of recordings from all over are available ( and can be heard on the radio, at least, on non-commercial radio stations ) ---
Just as an example, listening to some of that Celtic Music last Saturday, there was a group of musicians who had noted one of the style of one of their songs had been partly inspired by some Mongolian throat-singers they had heard performing previously!! ( and whom they had seen and heard somewhere over in France, if I recall correctly ) ===
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Post by Stormrider on Jun 4, 2009 6:00:09 GMT -6
Ardo: Don't worry if you can't post everyday at Tolkien's Ring. I don't think anyone can do that continually! I hope you and your wife are feeling better. I've been pretty tired myself with long hours and many days in a row of work without a day off myself. I hope I don't need to work this weekend again.
* * * Zydeco? and Mongolian throat-singers? What are those?
Sparrow (I think it was she) had introduced us way back in the old days of Tolkien's Ring to the Didgeridoo of the Aborigines of northern Australia. From Wikipedia: "It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe". Musicologists classify it as an aerophone. The instrument is traditionally made from living Eucalyptus trees, which have had their interiors hollowed out by termites. Contrary to popular belief, logs are not stuck into termite mounds for the termites to do the hollowing."
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 8, 2009 18:28:28 GMT -6
Hello & Good Day, Stormrider { & Everyone } ! ~~~
I know it is not mandatory to post everyday to Tolkien's Ring, however, several days ago, disaster struck : ( well, only a small disaster, but for me, it's still a catastrophe ) I had moved our computer system off of my drafting table yo another spot, unplugging all the connecting cables to the computer tower beforehand - & when I plugged everything back in & tried to pick up where I left off, nothing was working properly at all, at all...
Everything ( computer-wise ) was all screwed up ( I couldn't even get to the "desktop", let alone to our Internet connection ) --- Man, have I been bummed out over this! -- I've tried everything I could to revive the machine ( short of building a shrine, up kneeling down in front of it with offerings and supplications, [ although this was considered ] ) I think we were were supposed to create a "back-up disk" when we first received the computer, ( which was a gift from one of my wife's co-workers ) - it is a slight possibility that the donor may have given us one of these disks when they gave the system to us - but if they did, we don't know where it is... ( so I'm back at the library - but this the first chance I've had to do even do that in several days ) ===
I am feeling better, but my wife is still a bit down - mainly from stressing about her mother, ( who is ninety-one years old, & has been staying at a nursing home for over a year & a half ) ===
They played some of the Howard Shore "LOTR" music on the Classical Radio Station today ( they do that relatively often there ) which I always enjoy hearing...
Actually though, I was sort of "boycotting" KDFC for a while, after my favorite Dee-Jay got fired, presumably on account of "Budget Cuts"...
I wound up listening to the Jazz Station [ KCSM ] all the time, instead, although I have found myself drifting back towards KDFC again just recently...
Actually, for a very long time, ( close to twenty years ) my "routine" went something like this: I listened all day to Classical music at work ( because that was what on the shop radio ) but when I got home, I turned on the Jazz - the Jazz station was on continuously at home -- When I acquired a "Walkman", I used to switch back & forth from Classical to Jazz - when the commercials came on the Classical station, I'd switch to Jazz, when the "pledge drive" business came on the Jazz station, I'd switch to Classical -- ( & also just depending on what mood I was in )...
When I was growing up, I never really had a record album collection of my own - my mom had all her old 45rpm records, [ I still remember trying to describe and explain just what "45's" were to a younger person who in that "History Of Jazz" class I took before - I think even then, ( over ten years ago at least ) most younger people were only familiar with cassette tapes and CD's - I know that about fifteen years ago, that's all they had anymore, in the new "record shops" ) ] === We heard all our music on the radio, until about the time I turned sixteen, we finally bought a portable "Stereo System" cheaply from "Radio Shack" --- That's when I started going to the library & checking out LP's from the Art & Music Room --- Even back then, I think my tastes were eclectic - I checked out a lot of Folk Music ( Sea Shanties & other "authentic" Folk Music- Buffy Saint-Marie, Simon & Garfunkel [ when they were still heavier into the "Folk" side of their "Folk-Rock" musical style - Judy Collins, and etc. ) Some Classical - & some offbeat stuff ( like "Loudon Wainwright III" ) & some Comedy & Spoken Word, ( but also Janis Joplin & Big Brother & The Holding Company ) and some Jazz ( Herbie Mann - "Live At The Village Voice" - and others )...
Well, I'm running out of time, so I'd better just get this in, and seeyalater, ---Ardo style ]
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Post by Stormrider on Jun 9, 2009 19:02:20 GMT -6
I have a bunch of 45's still! My kids all know what they are and I think they even showed my grandsons some. I wish I had a phonograph player. sigh
I have some really ancient very thick albums from my grandfather from way back in the beginning of the 1900's with old songs and an old comedy act. They are really difficult to listen to and the speed is 78 rpm. They have a picture of the old hand crank victrola on it with the dog looking in the big horn on them. I went and dug them out.
These are all Victrola albums: Wenn die Schwalben heimwarts sieh'n (When the Swallows Homeward Fly) by Alma Gluck and Efrem Zimbalist -- dated Sept. 22, 1903
Favorite Irish Reels-Medley by McConnell's Four Leaf Shamrocks -- dated Aug. 11, 1908
My Old Kentucky Home by Bing Crosby with the King's Men and Victor Young and His Orchestra - dated (I can't read the date it is too small--Was Bing Crosby singing in the early 1900's?
Strawberries from Little Miss Fix-It--Nora Bayes with orchestra - dated Jan. 3, 1905 (this one has a piece missing along the outside edge
The Prisoner's Song - Guy Massey Vernon Dalhart - no date
Laroo Laroo Lilli bolero by Perry Como with Russ Case and his Orchestra - no date but Perry Como must have been a baby or a kid in the early 1900's
Virginian Judge (Southern Court Scenes--First and Second Sessions) Walter C. Kelly - two albums I believe these are the comedy records - both dated Jan. 5 1903
Other album companies: The Call of the Missions - St. Viator Boys' and Girls' Choirs A Capella (80 voices) - Agency Recording and Film Service in Chicago - no date - This one sounds interesting--I would like to listen to it.
Khachaturian - Gayne Ballet Suite - Sabre Dance - Oscar Levant, piano, with the Columbia Concert Orchestra conducted by Lou Bring - Columbia Masterworks - no date - this sounds interesting too!
I HAVE to find an old phonograph! I wonder if the McHenry County Historical Museum has one. Maybe I will give them a call and see if I can have these played.
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 10, 2009 18:13:07 GMT -6
Wow! Those are some really old records! Bing Crosby wasn't singing until the 1930's, I believe...
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 12, 2009 17:59:21 GMT -6
I only have ten minutes in squeeze in a message here so I'm writing fast & probably sloppy...
I suppose Old Bing could have been singing as early as the 1920's, but no earlier than that, for sure... He had at least one brother ( "Bob" ) who was also a singer, but I don't think that there was that much difference in age between them...
Zydeco, I think, is some kind of Cajun/Creole music, with a lot of accordians in the mix - used to be played at parties for dancing, etc. ---
I have never heard any Mongolian throat singers yet, so I'm not sure just what exactly they sound like...
I have seen some phonograph players for sale at a "Target" store in our area - they have a faux- Old Fashioned veneer, & I'm dubious of the sound quality, but they do have a turnatable on top -- Some of them are fixed up so that that you can "convert" your old-style phonograph records into modern-day CDs...
They used to sell these little plastic adapters, round in shape, to fit the large hole in the middle of 45rpm records, so that you could play them on a regular turntable - ( the round plastic "adapter" discs had a small hole in the middle, to fit over the small spindle on a phonograph player that usually played 78rpm or 33&1/3rpm records ) == I don't know if any of these are still being sold anywhere, anymore...
( the old 78's are not a problem, because they have the small hole in the center, just as long as there is a 78rpm speed setting on the phonograph machine or turntable...
( it did seem like turntables themselves were trying to stage a comeback, recently - I assume you simply need to hook them up to an amplifier and speakers to be able to hear a record played on one of these ) ~~~
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 13, 2009 17:57:56 GMT -6
Good Afternoon, Once Again, Stormrider ( & everyone )...
Once again, my allotted time is rather limited, so it's going to be all fast & sloppy again...
I think the date that you couln't read ( on the Bing Crosby record ) must be in the 1920's or 1930's, but not any earlier than 1920, certainly, and most certainly not in the first decade of the 20th Century, as some of the other old records in that collection are dated...
It sounds like quite a varied collection, with representatives from varrious genres of music and that comedy record sounds intruiging as well...
In something unrelated, as I was sitting and sketching in a coffee-shop the other day ( I was there for about three hours, waiting for my wife ) I decided to try my hand at a sketch of Bilbo Baggins sitting in front of his hobbit hole, pipe in hand, on a beautiful warm Spring day - I was mostly just sastified with my drawing of his face, although I think overworking the drawing, and trying yo "ink in" the face, ( after I had lightly sketched it with drawing pencil ) sort of ruined it a little for me...
I think perhaps another drawing attempt will be called for - this sketch wound up having a lot of color in it - but it was very sketchy on "details" ... I gotta go now... maybe I can talk about it later...
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Post by Stormrider on Jun 15, 2009 6:19:28 GMT -6
Maybe I should try my luck at eBay and see if I can find a record player that plays 32, 45, and 78 rpms. I am itching to listen to these albums.
Keep up the sketching! I just re-read The Hobbit and I have all kinds of picture ideas in my head now. I just have to get the pencil and paper out and see what I come up with!
Adding ink can change the appearance of the sketch. Fredegar does a comic strip character, Rowena, and the sketches can get altered a little by adding ink. I commented on the different "looks" of one of his characters in one of the issues.
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 15, 2009 19:46:57 GMT -6
Good Afternoon & Evening Again, Stormrider { & Everyone } ~~~
Yes, I wish you success in hunting up some kind of phonograph apparatus so you can listen to these old records...
Way back sometime in the late 1960's or thereabouts, my mother enjoyed a music program that came on a local radio station, KPFA ( an independent non-commercial radio station ) on Saturdays - called "Old 78's" ( which was hosted and programmed, curiously enough by that same person who was turned out to be my teacher in that History Of Jazz class I took about 30 years later: Phil Elwood ) ==
The kind of "Old 78's" that Mr Elwood played were all Jazz & Blues records - my mother had a particular fondness for the old Billie Holiday recordings - she was a big Billie Holiday fan long before Diana Ross & "Lady Sings The Blues" turned Miss Holiday into a cultural "Icon"...
Mr Elwood had a negative opinion about the new technology of CD's - he brought only vinyl records to his class, which he played on a small phonograph system...
"Where did they put the music? Where are the grooves?" he said - which sounds silly, but he explained that: when you are listening to a record being played, it is a much closer experience to hearing the music as it was made - that it is to say, the way records are made - the sounds are directly transferred into a disc, from which the "master" disc is produced ( at least, I think it works this way ) the sounds make their "impressions" on this disc, ( sort of like an engraving process ) and on the master-disc, it has raised impressions which, like the reverse-impressions on a mold-form , when "stamped" on the blank records, will reproduce the original grooves that were made by the original sound as it was being made, if you see what I mean...
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Post by Stormrider on Jun 16, 2009 6:08:20 GMT -6
Making a record album would be interesting to see. I wonder if the History channel has something about that in it programs. Modern Marvels or How Its Made--or something like that! they could take recording from way back to the present methods. I would love to watch that!
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on Jun 16, 2009 18:13:03 GMT -6
There was an episode of the PBS program "History Detectives" which I saw recently, where someone had some old 78 "masters" & was trying to find out what was on them... There was a special machine used to "listen" to what was on these masters, as the impressions on the masters are "raised" - as opposed to being "engraved" as on the regular records - so you need this special device to convert what's on the master into something you can listen to... It seemed like what came out of the machine still sounded like it was backwards, and the sound quality was poor, so it still needed to be enhanced and straightened out via computer...
There was a mention that when the record factory where these masters were produced had been closed down ( way back in the 40's or 50's ) disgruntled employees dumped most of these masters into the river nearby, & they have since been washed downstream, lost forever, it seems )...
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Post by Andorinha on Jun 17, 2009 11:22:17 GMT -6
RE Ardo's: "They used to sell these little plastic adapters, round in shape, to fit the large hole in the middle of 45rpm records, so that you could play them on a regular turntable - (the round plastic "adapter" discs had a small hole in the middle, to fit over the small spindle on a phonograph player that usually played 78rpm or 33&1/3rpm records) == I don't know if any of these are still being sold anywhere, anymore..." Bet they still have them in a lot of music shoppes, if not, online, try: www.sleevetown.com/45-adapter.shtmlFairly recently, tried "getting-into" European classical opera, had to get a translated libretto to make sense of the stories, then read up some of the histories of the eras involved, and novels by Balzac/ Zola for the flavor of the times. Puccini's "La Boheme" finally "worked" for me, love it! Now "doing" Tosca, and Mde Butterfly. Will try to follow the story rather than just the music of Wagner next. Getting used to new forms of music at my age, with my established prejudices is hard, have not yet tried to "enjoy" street-rap music, but do like traditional bag pipes now, and Chinese erhu. Seems like the music types you hear when you are 4 to 22 years of age will be your "default" types for life. We did not listen to country western back then, so I still tend to avoid it today, something else I should try to learn to appreciate? "Your cheaatin' heart..." I tend to "howl" along with it.
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Post by Stormrider on Jun 17, 2009 21:02:07 GMT -6
Andorinha:
Ha! Good one! howl along with country and western! yes, indeedy, some sure is howling music.
The 60's and 70's was when I was big into listening to music being from the "flower child era" so the rock music and others from that time are my default listening types but I have always tried to enjoy some other genres of music as well. And since having played the flute, I've always liked classical.
I have to give you credit for trying to learn and enjoy opera. That is one thing that I don't think I can learn to like. The singing gets in the way of the music and since it is usually in another language, I find it hard to listen to. I understand that there usually are translations so that people can follow along and understand what's going on.
Carmen is actually an opera and what I usually hear on the radio is the orchestrated score without the singing. I've actually seen Carmen on TV in its opera form and I had a hard time sitting and watching it. Whereas the Nutcracker is a ballet and I remember seeing it with a narrator speaking every now and then and that was rather enjoyable.
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