The centuries-old struggle to play in tune, by Jan Swafford:
There have been some 150 tuning systems put forth over the centuries, none of them pure. There is no perfection, only varying tastes in corruption. If you want your fifths nicely in tune, the thirds can’t be; if you want pure thirds, you have to put up with impure fifths. And no scale on a keyboard, not even good old C major, can be perfectly in tune.
Two band names for your consideration:
Brett Dennen sings a relaxed, brilliantly-written song with a lovely melody called Desert Sunrise:
Desert moonrise, into the night
Before we lay our heads
I wish to walk under the splendorous starlight
Sesame Street: Feist sings 1,2,3,4. I think this is really good.
I just have to write this right now: there’s a guy in the library who comes in here and just sits there and burps to himself. I mean COME ON. This is bunk. He needs some medication, or to NOT EAT before he comes in the library. Luckily, I’ve got Jónsi rocking on the iTunes, so the burps just barely penetrate the heavenly, joyful melodies I’m enjoying. Here, try the song Hengilás.
Katy sent along this really seriously great rendition Gershwin’s “Summertime” by Billy Stewart. As tends to be the case with these things… the video doesn’t add a whole heck of a lot to the music. So queue up the music on this beautiful 60° Wednesday (while you are trying to do some work and avoid thinking about the outdoors) and enjoy the sweet stylings of Billy Stewart.
I’m frequently looking for songs to play that can be described as achingly beautiful. Thankfully, I’ve the perfect example of that today. It’s a song by José González from his 2007 album In Our Nature called Fold.
NPR’s Guy Raz interviewed William Fitzsimmons a week after I got married… William Fitzsimmons: A Songwriter With Vision:
RAZ: You were a counselor and you dealt with all kinds of grief, people who were dealing with it. I mean, you are writing about a divorce, and you’re essentially revisiting it over and over and over again, as you tour through the country.
Do you think as a counselor, you would give somebody this kind of advice, in a sense, to sort of revisit what they’ve been through?
Mr. FITZSIMMONS: No, I don’t think I would.
Keith Jarrett and neuroscience. Sympathetically innervated sweat glands are the exception when it comes to neurotransmitters — their transmitter is acetylcholine, but you would expect norepinephrine! Whoah!
It’s the Köln Concert.
Gomez has a song called “Bone Tired”. Ben Ottewell’s singing makes the lyrics sound much more poetic than they look in print. Anyhow, it’s an interesting song from my perspective of early semester exhaustion.
I always thought it was “threw the rock away”. Mykala corrected me: it’s actually “do the rockaway”. The latter does make more sense.
John Mayer: ‘You can’t make music as a famous person’ | The Guardian:
“It’s very, very difficult to want to give 14 hours a day [to making a record], to continue to choose music over a lifestyle,” he admits. “This is the part in a lot of people’s careers where they usually come in to the studio for four hours a day. I’m not a four-hour-a-day guy, but I can definitely feel the pull: do you wanna go into a room where you’re basically gonna excavate, emotionally, for 12 hours? Or do you wanna go to a restaurant where everybody gives you golf claps for what you’ve already done?
Best use of plinky piano counter-melody: “The Brilliant Dance” by Dashboard Confessional. That album was released 8 years ago. 8. Years. Bad things have happened since then, but I can remember nothing but good things. I think that means that nothing truly bad happened. That’s interesting.
Get Me Right by Dashboard Confessional.
I tried the acoustic and… non-acoustic version. The latter rocked aggressively. Some viciously catchy countermelodies in the final chorus.
I have high hopes for John Mayer’s Battle Studies. It comes out this Tuesday, November 17.
A bit more from Bobby McFerrin’s Live in Montreal combo teaching/performance show: Bobby McFerrin - Drive.
Holy. Crap.
If you’re short on time, video gets CRAZY AMAZING at 1:55 (preferably with some headphones, to hear the incredible range).
Gotan Project - Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre). Tango with an attitude.
If you’re in Germany, in Hamburg specifically, then you should check out an amazing concert hall rising above the port; it will house the Elbphilhamonie Hamburg in 2012. Called the Elbe Philharmonic Hall, the building appears to float atop an old structure from 1963 called Warehouse A.
One of the best trance build-ups this year is brought to you by Oceanlab and remixed by Daniel Kandi. (This video is from a radio show, and I’ve got that “record of the week” whispering voiceover stuck in my head.) You can start making fun of me… now.
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