Due to the very serious illnesses of a family member, I’ve been unable to post much for over a year. Music over the house speakers tends toward jazz, since that is his preference, and I’ve always felt that music can be a vital element in the healing process.
There hasn’t been the kind of leisure needed to search out new music. If I find something, it is purely by accident. and tonight, as I went looking for the version of Bolero that is featured at the beginning of the Antonio Banderas/Rebecca Romijn move, Femme Fatale (Ryuchi Sakamoto), I discovered Kurosawa’s soundtracks.
So, now that the house is all quiet, and it’s been a good day because there were no doctor appointments, no hospital trips, no new crises, I am scaring myself silly by listening to the first part of the Seven Samurai OST.
Quite by accident, I found this late last night, which is near perfect for a weekend with a cold rain falling. And through the past and coming days, as a soundtrack for all those haunting and achingly sad visuals of the scenes from Japan that none of us will ever forget.
Last night, I spent some time buying some Dave Brubeck. This being a favorite of mine.
And then, because way leads on to way (who wrote that - quick now*), I found Brubeck meets Bach. A stormy, cold Saturday became a little warmer, a little brighter.
I’m not quite sure when I first heard her sing. She appears on an old playlist or two, maybe I heard her on internet radio. But recently, and because life has been a blur lately due to a family member’s serious illnesses, I happened upon The Ice Hotel and I Wish I Could Go Traveling Again, both from her CD, Breakfast on the Morning Tram.
It’s as if suddenly, there are real lyrics in music again.
Don’t know about you, but I’ve given up on this sort of thing. Modern music and intelligent writing no longer go hand in hand. And then I wondered, who writes like this today?
Kazuo Ishiguro, Man Booker Prize winner, that’s who. He also wrote So Romantic and the title song of the CD.
A critic or two might quibble about Ishiguro’s songwriting endeavors, but I find them totally enchanting, interpreted beautifully by Ms. Kent.
It makes me think of my Mom, gone for five years now, whose birthday is this month. She lost a son when he was still an infant, and no one remembers my parents visiting his grave. They had no car, and in those days there wasn’t much money. A couple of years ago, some distant relatives said that they know where he is buried, and they bring flowers each Easter.
Once again, I’m looking through my library for mournful music. It’s a good thing I listen to this sort of thing on a regular basis, and have little difficulty locating the pertinent pieces. But I can’t make it through very many selections before succumbing to the inevitable.
Even though I tweak the playlist a bunch of times, and should be used to the music, I still blubber my way through. And then at the actual event, I act as if I’m hearing it all for the first time, and dissolve into a mess.
Men in my family don’t cry. This is true in many families, and it’s the challenge I face each time I do this. My sibs desperately need to let go of their emotions this time, and since I won’t be able to observe, I have planted an emotionally-detached spy who will be reporting to me.
The most wrenching track is Mary Chapin Carpenter’s ‘10,000 Miles’, whose lyrics are right on target.
It’s 90° and rising fast, summer coming at last to the Bay Area. The rest of the country has been suffering for some time while we’ve shivered in our hoodies and sweaters. Not to complain too much, the tomato plants are stunted, and refuse to produce much.
But a perfect time to step back from the hot laptop (despite a cooling device), and listen to the man and some Chinese Dub, especially the track Solitude.
Must have been awesome to experience, although many appear to be nonchalant. Be sure and watch the video of the beach scene. Get the kids! Get them inside! Now! Via the Daily Mail.
Family members are heading back to the airport and SF on a hot night. And now I have to work. My desk is off the kitchen, and there are percussive sounds on this that make me think a pot is boiling over.
Even though I’m not a religious person in the usual sense, I do listen to a fair amount of what at least one family member considers ‘religious music’. In times of sadness, especially.
Recently, that same person was diagnosed with a very serious illness. It is terminal, but if you consider that life is terminal, then it is easier to accept.
For the last few days, I’ve found Faure’s Pie Jesu comforting at the same time that it is excruciatingly sad. It is said that Faure did not write his Requiem out of sadness, although he lost both parents during the period that it was written. He said he wrote the piece for the pleasure of composing.
Late on a rainy Saturday night, I went looking for more Cinematic Orchestra music after buying their soundtrack to The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingoes. When I found this, I just played it over and over till I got too sleepy to listen anymore.
Last weekend, I stopped by an Asian store where most of the help speak little English. As I picked through the oxtails, the stock clerk beside me chimed in on the ‘I love you’ parts of Joanna. At Safeway, the butcher raised his arms in supplication as he sang the refrain to Amanda.
When the kids were young, they both took piano lessons from a teacher who also taught violin students. At recital time, the violin contingent went first more often than not. This meant the piano parents had to sit through an hour or so of sincere beginners.
One day, the teacher introduced an older student, who had decided to take up violin in high school. He looked out of place in a room full of 6 and 7-year old kids. After the painful scrapings that preceded, few of us knew how he would do.
To my untrained ears, he was a revelation. I’m sure most musicians would say he merely sounded like a competent first year violin student with better motor skills than the average 6-year old. But to hear this piece in the context of an elementary school recital was breathtaking.
In those days, one did not simply go online, and buy music while it was fresh on the mind. Time passed, recital programs were lost. Quite possibly, I taped a version from a classical radio station. Cassettes did not stand the test of time either. Once in a while, I would pick out the melody on a keyboard. I could not make myself stand before a music store clerk and hum the piece, which I was able to do in its entirety, I loved it so.
Then, for a long, long time, I got away from classical music.
Today, I was going through some tracks, wondering which to buy, and there it was! Now I have it forever, Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D Major: Gavottes I & II. I know that whenever I hear it, I’ll see that young man in the recital hall, throwing his whole being into the music, not at all embarrassed at being surrounded by youngsters.
The neighbor behind us has a possibly autistic child. We don’t know for sure because they don’t like us. How do I know this? Our backyards are divided by a fence topped with ivy. There is visual privacy. However, if I go in the backyard and the woman hears me, she immediately goes into her house and slams the door. Not so bad in winter, but the rest of the year, it gets tiresome.
I understand some of the stress, having a mentally-challenged relative. It is a lifetime commitment, and guarantees that life will never be normal again.
The child is now grown. For several years, her favorite music was the theme from Peter Gunn. But only the very beginning of it. For a time, it sounded like she brought a record player outside and cranked it up at top volume. None of the neighbors complained, because it takes a village. Sometimes, this music blared out at night. At other times, she would bounce a ping pong ball on their patio for hours.
Yesterday, I went out back to clean the spokes of an old bike in order to take photos. The music was familiar, but not as loud as usual, so it took me a while to figure it out. Beach Boys, I Get Around. I have this on a playlist. Aha, I thought, I won’t be so irritated this time.
But then it was only the ‘It wouldn’t be right to leave their best girl home on a Saturday night’ part. It did speed up my cleaning chore.
So I’m eating dinner and watching Samurai Fiction with no expectations, no idea what it’s going to be about. Right away, the music takes on a big role, and as comic moments keep coming, we realize that this is no ordinary samurai movie. After I finish eating, I leave the film and look up the musician behind the soundtrack.
It’s a bit pricey and out of stock at Amazon. Meanwhile, here is a video of Howling from Electric Samurai.
The hairs on the back of my neck are still standing out.
At Rancho San Antonio last weekend, it took quite a while to find a parking place. This morning, we got an earlier start, but alas, others were earlier. Parking was not so bad. The family member accompanying me selected a hilly trail. I had misgivings, but we took off. People, lots of people passed as if we were standing still. Older people.
But since we had only recently started this regimen, we planned on maybe an hour’s trek. The soundtrack went something like this:
Woman talking to two other women: So do you have a regular IRA or a Roth?
Woman to a younger woman and an adolescent: These Masai dudes, they pick an animal like an antelope and they follow it all day.
Family member who also serves as a spotter: Look, there’s a hawk! (It was too far away, but I got footage.)
Woman to man: So my inheritance . . .
Two older men speaking in what sounded like Yiddish. At this point, two paths converged and I was forced to follow these fellows for some time. I actually didn’t mind since I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking. It was very soothing, their voices soft and reassuring. They eventually took a bike path, paved, while I went on a dirt one.
A chubby woman with her music on too loud, Asian pop, I think.
On a parallel path, I heard the Yiddish again. I wanted to go over and ask them if it was, but hung back. They were deep in conversation.
After an hour and a half, we headed to the parking lot. The gentleman ahead of me was rail thin, making some sort of keening noise. It was very much like the sound coming from sidewalk musicians in Chinatown who play ancient instruments. As I got closer, the melody came up.
He was humming the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria, getting slightly louder at the appropriate parts. I laughed in delight. Forgetting how tired I was, I wanted to say something to him, but respected his privacy.
Recently, a priest has come forward to complain about the use of pop music at funerals. Further, he states that there’s little religion at these services. I won’t go into the latter, but there’s a lot of online space devoted to the former.
He came down pretty hard on Tina Turner, whose Simply the Best he found particularly galling. I think most will agree that funerals are very personal, and there’s quite a mix of ages and backgrounds sitting there dressed in their good clothes in a most uncomfortable setting. At the average funeral, there is the deceased right in front for the duration. To buffer this, an appropriate selection of music is comforting and cathartic at the same time.
For my mom’s service, several pieces were picked for their sorrowful qualities. The menfolk in my family bottle up most of their emotions, and one, especially, needed to let go of some of this. At the end of the ceremony, you guessed it. The only dry eyes belonged to the guys.
I was a mess. But then I cried all through putting together the playlist, which included some of the songs in the above links. But if a person had specified that certain songs be played, however enthusiastic and supposedly out of place, then I sure think those wishes should be honored.
When the kids were old enough to trust in a bookstore without worrying about them racing up and down the aisles, we would sometimes visit the old Tower bookstore in Mountain View. For a time, the fellow in charge of the background music was our hero. ‘What’s that playing? What is that?’ We wondered to ourselves and to each other, and finally one night I went up to him and asked.
And that is how we were introduced to darkwave/neoclassical music ( Arcana, back in the day). In turn, our lone CD was loaned out to at least one other young man, who found it led to a whole new world of Gothic sounds.
Then there was the time we wandered into a store in North Beach selling various exotic artifacts. The music was primal, mysterious and wildly percussive. Mesmerizing. I was the official asker, and I did. And that is how I learned about X-Tribe. Best played in a dark, musty store full of masks, bones, skins and primitive but very sharp weapons. Excellent elsewhere too.
Back up a few years, the kids were small, and a piano recital was held in a parent’s home. Now as a rule, recitals were not something I looked forward to, being a fidgety person. But the second we walked into the house, I got into that zone of unknown but ravishing music in the background. What is that? Who wrote that? It was classical, and not the usual suspects, but so infused with holiday feeling that I was desperate to find out what it was. We didn’t know the parents well. As the evening wound up, there was the usual mayhem and excited confusion whenever a group of children congregate at Christmas time. And before I knew it, the opportunity was gone.
I never saw the parents again. I have never found that music.
See previous post. The more I think about it, the worse I feel. Because today I got an email from the person who can’t stand to have things in her ear. She thanked me for being understanding about how the iPod was a ‘bad fit’ as a gift for her.
I had been so taken aback by her remarks the other day that I didn’t think to tell her how she could just plug her iPod into her stereo system or her car, thereby getting around using earphones. And it wasn’t that I was understanding, it was more that I was. . . silent.
But I’m not sure I could ever tell anyone their present was inappropriate. Perhaps she saw endless iTunes gift cards in her future. (I did explain she could put the music on CDs.) But can you imagine? Endless iTunes gift cards?
Last Christmas I gave iPods to two people I felt would never buy one for themselves. One recipient has no computer and no access to one, so I added 200 songs from my music library with the stipulation that I would remove any or all that were not wanted.
The other recipient does have access to iTunes. Both are incredibly difficult to buy gifts for, and selfishly, I had in mind very easy future gifts of iTunes gift cards, at least for the computer user . Hah.
Both were initially pleased with having a nifty Apple gadget. However, the first giftee soon made it clear that he did not want any more songs added (his nano has a 2,000 song capability), nor did he want any of his music collection on the iPod. I got what amounted to a lecture on why he felt this way, and how the gift was basically useless. He said he didn’t want to hear songs over and over again.
The other person bought one iTunes song, and that was that. She also gave me a lecture on why it was an inappropriate gift, although she did give consideration to my feelings. So I got to see someone hold an iPod in their hand, and go on and on about how they can’t stand to have something in their ear. Or how they could never do yard work with something like this because they want to know if someone is coming up behind them. And I think maybe I should just ask for it back and hold a giveaway for Cooltunes.
I’m going to assume that she did not appreciate the iTunes gift card I just gave her for her birthday. Pre-lecture.
Suppertime is when I caught up on old episodes of M1-5, known as ‘Spooks’ in the UK. I called a halt to such fare sometime last year when I realized that much of the time was spent, mouth open, fork in air, totally immersed in the incredibly tense, rapid-fire action. Heroes always in peril. Heroes killed off regularly (oh no, not her! oh no, not him!)
But as these things go, I was curious. Last night, after dinner, I got back into it all. They’ve stepped up the pace, I think.
But at the first sound of the music, I remembered. I’d been wanting the soundtrack forever, and last night at iTunes, I found the early one by Jennie Muskett, plus the more recent by Paul Leonard-Morgan. Just what I need today to ramp up the production that I got behind on in the last few days.
It’s not all adrenaline-driven, there are slower tracks as well - remember all those deaths - that are ethereal and transcendent. In other words, perfect work music for me.
For some years now, I mist up whenever I hear the national anthem. The furious blinking, the lump in the throat - public or private, I’m sniffing away. Around lunchtime today, I found this, and now that I’m sufficiently recovered, I can share, unless you knew of this months ago.
I’m a Sarah Vaughn fan, though I tend toward the remixes these days. ‘Round Midnight’, ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’ and ‘Summertime’ from Verve or Jazz Lounge pop up in my workday playlists.
But I wasn’t familiar with her version of ‘Just a Little Lovin'’ till I read this and did a search. A song that remains powerful after a decade-long hunt is certainly worth looking into.
As usual, go to http://www.bugmenot.com for a path into the NYT.
Today when my iPod quit playing via the stereo speakers, there was an battery icon I hadn’t seen before. After hurriedly checking to make sure it could be revived, I set about recharging. Apparently I had never let it run down to this level before, wherein it ‘is not able to connect with your computer or appear in iTunes’. Well, at least for 30 min. or thereabouts.
We’ve all been to concerts where certain members of the audience should have stayed home in bed due to their severe upper respiratory illnesses. (At least one sitting very close to you.) Now the BBC has revealed their solution to keep the noise down at Radio 3 concert recordings: cough drops.
Even the annoying sounds of unwrapping cellophane have been banished by using waxed paper instead.
It used to be a pain to try and listen to tracks of a CD. I never had the right player, or the right version of the player. In time, I gave up, doing my sample listening elsewhere.
Today, I checked out the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant album Raising Sand (see previous post for one of the tracks), and found that when I clicked on ‘listen to samples’, it took me right to track 1 where I could indeed hear it. Kudos for a much-needed feature!
Listening to Queen Latifah’s version now, also have Nina Simone’s. The song was written by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who wasn’t always a screamer. But during a session which turned into a drunken party, the direction of the song changed. Then he discovered that the wilder version got lots more attention. His performances inspired the shock-rock acts of Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent and others.
Here’s the song, don’t know the origin of the video. Gaze out the window instead, if you have one.
Probably gives away a lot of Fly Away Home if you haven’t seen it yet, but an excellent example of a song that is an important part of a film, instead of just being tacked on in the hope of getting an award nomination. In this video, you don’t see the scene in which it is actually used. For that, you’ll have to find a copy of this 1996 movie.
I put in a few livelier tracks that force me to get up and move around.
I Put a Spell on You - Queen Latifah
Yellow - Coldplay
Happy Ever After - Julia Fordham
Body Heat - Alicia Bridges
Get Me Through December - Alison Krauss
Wild is the Wind - Nicolas Bearde
Gula Matari - Quincy Jones
California Dreamin’ - Bobby Womack
Don’t You Worry, Baby - Melody Gardot
The bug that has me very lightheaded is slowly succumbing to the antibiotic. Meanwhile, I take a look at the info sheet from the HMO that has in all caps, MAY CAUSE DIZZINESS.
Speaking of people stuck in a musical rut, a friend falls in the same category as the relative. The shuffle I got her is only a little bigger than my camera’s memory card. But she has a Mac, newer than mine even.
So I’ll put a bunch of music on CDs and let her son do the loading. Because she’s kinda fearful of computers, even Macs.
After learning recently that a relative has not been exposed to music much past the 60s, I decided to get him a nano 8g. He does not have internet access, and chooses not to sample music through headphones in a record store due to his fastidious nature.
Over the next few days, I will load up the nano with a wide variety of music, the likes of which he has never heard. He’ll probably hate a lot of it, but then there will be happy discoveries.
And because he doesn’t have a computer, I will also have to buy a wall charger.
This promises to be lots more fun than filling up a basket with various foods as I did last year.
Another exceptional bonus to online shopping is the fact that the music coming through the speakers is mine (but not Christmas music just yet, I’m not ready). My misfortune last night was to enter a store with Burl Ives’ Holly Jolly Christmas.
When I don’t concentrate fully on my current playlist, back comes Burl, always in the background for another day or so. Oh, please stop.
Of all the versions of Dindi that I have, this is my favorite. I’m sure I’ve mentioned A Twist of Jobim before, several excellent tracks there.
The mix of talent seems pretty near perfect, and while there are many videos of Debarge singing his better known songs, this is the only full version of Dindi that I can find online, and it’s mostly showing the album cover. But you’ll get the idea, if you’re unfamiliar with the song.
And yes, this is the Art Porter of the Art Porter Law. More on that in a bit.
Over the weekend, we’ve been catching up on the series. A family member looked up cast info, and quickly found too much information, as in who gets bumped off. He listened to the soundtrack, but refused to learn the names of the individual tracks, saying that spoilers were there as well.
I was curious about the use of so many different music influences. The juxtaposition of Celtic sounds and Taiko drums is surprising and dramatic, for example. My search took me here, and if you’ve seen the whole series, you won’t mind reading it. I exited after a few paragraphs. Don’t. Like. Spoilers.
Caught up in airport traffic on the freeway, we listened to this last night as a family member headed back to the city. He thought it would be great field show music for a marching band. Here is a portion of the track:
Being several days ago, I have forgotten the dinner part. The movie is wonderful, the story of an Egyptian police band stranded in a tiny Israeli town. Wariness on all sides, and high awkwardness as a few Israelis extend food and other hospitality to the visitors. But, as all the principals discover, music is a universal language, never more than when seated around a somewhat hostile dinner table, singing ‘Summertime’ in English.
After watching two episodes of State of Play tonight, I went looking for the soundtrack by Nicholas Hooper. Not much luck there, but I did find a blog about the movie, The Girl in the Cafe, starring Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald, who also star in State of Play. Hooper did the soundtrack here too. There’s a link at the blog to a free download of this song:
A family member has remarked that attending a concert that consists solely of the performer onstage with his laptop lacks a certain visual excitement.
In the world of classical music, technological advances are moving the usual group-of-musicians-with-conductor scenario into a more futuristic realm. Nowadays, a concert-goer might see the conductor decked out in a specially wired jacket that allows a Wii-minded directing of an orchestra.
This orchestra would include a section that is not visible to the audience, but gleaned from a database of digital sounds that gives an unprecedented depth and range to the listening experience.
When experts listen to samples of computer-generated music embedded in a Beethoven symphony performance, they find it difficult to tell the difference from the real thing.
According to the link, a Queen song also fills the bill - ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. However, some might feel this one might not be as appreciated by patients.
His parents were opera singers, and his singing style has been compared to the sound of a tenor sax. He wrote Solid Air in remembrance of his good friend Nick Drake, another singer and songwriter.
At the height of her career, she took time out to care for her severely-brain damaged child, Valerie, at home. Thirty-one years later, after the death of her daughter, she has an album out, ‘Live’, and is touring once more.
‘You’re My Girl’ is the song she wrote for her mother back in the 80s, and with a few changes, has become a song about Valerie. When you know the context of the song, it is almost unbearable to listen to, but so beautiful.
One of my dinner companions last night was a young man who has spent the last four or five years serving his country in remote areas. He was out biking near the junior high one day when he too became aware of loud music blaring over the playing fields. As far as he could tell, this was meant to serve as motivation for the running of laps.
Since lap running is an integral part of junior high, I expect the bombardment will continue.
For more days than I want to consider, music has been coming from the direction of the junior high. Most of it is hip hop-related, and seems to occur during lunchtime and recess. We neighbors don’t understand.
Today, I’m happy to say that the music of choice is by the Chipmunks, as in Alvin. To hear this blasted over powerful speakers is soul-destroying.
At his site, you can see and hear some of the instruments he’s developed, including the phonoharp, much loved by the Kronos Quartet. There’s a wind-powered turntable, another turntable that can play a composition powered by an earthquake, and many other fascinating devices.
Just as some can see colors while listening to music, others can hear the sounds of a moving image, such as a screen saver. Kind of a crossover of the senses, as it were, called synaesthesia. This article contains a test you can take to see if you have this ability.
