Doge

I have to watch that monthly.
Some of my favs for Guitar work...
I always have to re-watch this: This old 1988 (thought it was 85, video says 88). Both pick and figures. They were playing this at the last bike race I was at in Longmont, CO.

More Mark - so smooth...

mollusk

I have been listening to Courtney Barnett, Lucinda Williams, and Buster Poindexter aka David Johansen lately.

topflightpro

How about the NY Dolls?

TMonk

always a winner

big john

Thursday it will be 10 years since Gil Scott-Heron passed. Just realized that while listening to him today.

TMonk

Been a Scott Joplin kick recently, as a pianist often does. I enjoyed listening to my mother play the rags growing up, and I still do today. But more specifically, I've been into listening to them performed by Joshua Rifkin.

After listening to many rags on Youtube, I found myself gravitating towards this Rifkin character, and the recordings on this album in particular. Turns out it was quite significant historically. I was drawn to it because he isn't rushed in his approach to the music, which I find is the case far too often for my taste in concert pianists.

Rifkin is a professor of music at Boston University, and a quite accomplished pianist and scholar, especially is it pertains to Bach. Turns out he was into Joplin as well, who wasn't quite as widely celebrated at the time. Today, children across suburban America will recognize the tune to "The Entertainer", and start asking their parents for spare change to buy ice cream. Perhaps this is Rifkin's fault.

This album was responsible for a Joplin revival of sorts, even striking high on the Billboard charts in the 70's. He brought Scott Joplin and his music back to the limelight among classical musicians and popular American music at large.

This particular track below is a bit slow and morose for a ragtime piece, but is perhaps my favorite along with the Bethena Waltz, which can also be considered a ballad. The section shortly after 4:00 in this one gives me chills:


And the Bethena Waltz, which while not overtly sad in my opinion, is quite depressing in context. It was written for his deceased wife, and also is truly tragic when put in the context of the other major key, jovial rags:


My mother has informed me that Joplin was quite an accomplished purely classical pianist at the time, and even wrote some symphonies. His work in this regard was largely ignored and tossed aside by the general public, in part due to heavily racist overtones - he wasn't taken seriously as a Black musician. But what he was doing with this ragtime thing was truly novel. It did directly result in the stride piano movement (Art Tatum et al), who in turn directly influenced my favorite pianist, Thelonious Monk.

Hermes

Decades ago, I started to learn the Entertainer by Joplin inspired by the theme song from the movie, The Sting. Some of Joplin’s music has a baroque sound.


My Bach concerto is progressing at a snails pace although I am learning it.

hubcyclist

I guess one of the benefits of being of a certain age is the recent trend of bands releasing anniversary editions of their classic albums. 91 was a huge year and metallica is releasing the 30th anniversary of their black album and posting content on their YouTube. I’ve always been into early editions of songs, it’s fascinating to see the writing process evolve, so these rereleases always come with a bunch of demos and early versions. This one is pretty far along in the process but still differing from the final version

big john

Heard this recently for the first time in years.

big john

Almost a billion views here.

carpediemracing 

I'm so simple. Fast energetic music. This is on forever repeat in my head right now. Or actually playing if I'm in front of a computer.

carpediemracing 

This one too.

TMonk

cute little simple track, from my signature's namesake. Also one of my favorite to play with the boys on jazz nite:

TMonk

On a separate note, we've been on a bit of a modern (progressive) Country kick - a lot of Kacey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson going through our home receiver lately.

TMonk

This chick rocks my socks off

Doge

New (old) family members.

Fisher 400cx pre and Marantz 8

TMonk

Sorry for the re-post, but this is like, peak piano for me. It's more than excellence; it's perfection. What a genius. This has been heavy on my playlist for the last couple years.


It all started when I recognized it in a radio segment into on a classical KUSC show, and called my mom and hummed the first measure so she could "name that tune" for me. We are both quite good at that (melody recognition), but her mental classical "library" is much larger than mine.

TMonk

heard this instantly recognizable and quite pleasant Boccherini on KUSC yesterday. the link below is the best part (middle movement)

Hermes

Piano lesson yesterday. I have been working on Bach’s Art of the Fugue for months. Today, she says, you play that very well. So now we have to work more on the voicing and interpretation. And you need to be able to start and stop the piece at any point. What happens in a complicated piece when playing, when something goes wrong (and it always does), is that one has to be able to smoothly continue from where it went wrong without anyone knowing.

The drill to practice this technique is to play every other measure on time while singing the count out loud using one of the voices - their are four voices in a fugue. The counting singing keeps track of where one is in the piece. By playing every other measure, muscle memory cannot be relied upon - effectively one stops playing and the music continues.

TMonk

damn that is so technical - I know I can stumble when I make a mistake or lose track mid piece like most lowly pianists. bravo Hermes

Hermes

Here is the Art of the Fugue played by a brass ensemble. The notes and structure are the same as the piano piece. The different voices are very pronounced due to being played by different instruments albeit in the same family. On the piano, we play all four voices. One way to differentiate the voices on the piano is to slightly separate the notes or increase the volume of a voice for some time. The possibilities for us on piano are infinite.

Hermes

TMonk I found this versus of Art of the Fugue Contrapunctus (counterpoint) I - IV played by a chamber orchestra and these guys are really good. Bach offers no hint of tempo, volume or any markings on the music. He only offers structure and lets everything else up for grabs. In this video Contrapunctus IV is amazing as the musicians pluck the strings and sing the notes.

The simple theme of the D minor broken chord that commences Contrapunctus I is used in the three other Fugues that follows. If you listen to the four pieces the theme will be in your head. You can probably improvise a jazz piece from this stuff.

Hermes

Piano lessons progressing. Teacher wants me to start a new piece. Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata. I asked her why that piece out of the countless choices and she said, it has some techniques that she wanted to introduce. She is always looking after my hands and technique - constant feedback. She sent me this link by an artist that she thinks performs it well.

Hermes

Beethoven’s Tempest progressing and much easier than Bach. And I would have never predicted in a million years that I would use the words easier and Beethoven in the same sentence. She wants me to play certain parts with a different hand. Come on, I just learned to this way. The assignment this week is to play all 24 keys scales, chords, arpeggios and cadences. Do 4 to 6 keys per day. That is a lot of technical work and memorization.

TMonk

Well, my classical remains at a standstill... working on our new home seems to be all the rage at the moment. At least I am still playing 2/month with my jazz group. My piano needs to get tuned, but we will do that in another few weeks after it has settled in.

Speaking of Beethoven Hermes, Liz and I will be joining my parents at the LJMS summerfest on August 3 to watch a nice program featuring Beethoven's "Ghost" piano trio, which has a lovely, haunting second movement. I'm excited for the show!


edit: link here:
https://ljms.org/events/shakespeares-world/