Interesting sounds from a giant gong

YouTube link.

The long and winding road...

... is 24Crankle-Stilwell Road in Guizhou, China (photographed during a hill climb rally.

Credit: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media, via The Telegraph.

Reposted from 2011 because I realized I've never blogged the song, which is one of my all-time favorites:

YouTube link.

"The Long and Winding Road" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1970 album Let It Be... When issued as a single in May 1970, a month after the Beatles' break-up, it became the group's 20th and last number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. It was the final single released by the quartet.

The main recording of the song took place in January 1969 and featured a sparse musical arrangement. When preparing the tapes from these sessions for release in April 1970, producer Phil Spector added orchestral and choral overdubs. Spector's modifications angered McCartney to the point that when the latter made his case in the British High Court for the Beatles' disbandment, he cited the treatment of "The Long and Winding Road" as one of six reasons for doing so. New versions of the song with simpler instrumentation were subsequently released by McCartney and by the Beatles.

Paul McCartney said he came up with the title "The Long and Winding Road" during one of his first visits to his property High Park Farm, near Campbeltown in Scotland, which he purchased in June 1966. The phrase was inspired by the sight of a road "stretching up into the hills" in the remote Highlands surroundings of lochs and distant mountains. He wrote the song at his farm in 1968, inspired by the growing tension among the Beatles.

"He Stopped Loving Her Today" - George Jones

YouTube link. 

I understand that not everyone likes country music - at least not when they're sober.  But this is a classic that I've just added to a CD of favorite music.  The most extensive discussion of the artist and the song I could find was at Mix:

Born in 1931 in Saratoga, Texas, Jones was the youngest of eight children. During the Depression, his family was the kind of poor that no one born post-World War II can really imagine... In the late '60s, Jones met and fell in love with Tammy Wynette, who also became his third wife... By the time he met Wynette, Jones already had a serious drinking problem...

“In the 1970s, I was drunk the majority of the time,” Jones writes. “I had drunk heavily for years and had pitched benders that might last two or three days, but in the 1970s, I was drunk the majority of the time for half a decade... By the end of the decade, Jones was psychologically and physically a shadow of his former self; he was broke and alone, and his pitiable condition was being perpetuated by managers and pushers who were living off of what was left of him. It took a career record... to help Jones begin to climb out of that hole...

One thing kind of funny about it was that the melody was so close to ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ [by Kris Kristofferson] that George kept singing the melody to ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night.’ He couldn't get that out of his head. That gave him a bit of a problem early on, and they took their time to get the narration just right.”...

The narration part of the song consists of four lines Jones speaks rather than sings: “She came to see him one last time/And we all wondered if she would/And it kept running through my mind/This time he's over her for good.” “Pretty simple, eh?” Jones asks in his book. “I couldn't get it. I had been able to sing while drunk all of my life. I'd fooled millions of people. But I could never speak without slurring when drunk. What we needed to complete that song was the narration, but Billy could never catch me sober enough to record four simple spoken lines. It took us about 18 months to record a song that was approximately three-minutes long.”...

“I went from a twenty-five-hundred-dollar act who promoters feared wouldn't show up to an act who earned twenty-five thousand dollars, plus a percentage of the gate receipts. That was big money for a country artist 16 years ago… To put it simply, I was back on top. Just that quickly. I don't want to belabor this comparison, but a four-decade career had been salvaged by a three-minute song.”

“He Stopped Loving Her Today” earned Jones a Grammy Award for Best Country Male Performance in 1980. It also resulted in CMA Awards for Best Male Vocalist of the Year in 1980 and 1981, and it was the Academy of Country Music Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1980.

Reposted from 2012 to commemorate George Jones' death today at age 82.  And reposted again from 2013 because it's still one of my favorite songs.

Denez Prigent & Lisa Gerrard - Gortoz A Ran

YouTube link.

I originally blogged this song in 2009 and 2010 when it was used as the background audio for a tsunami video and for a Black Hawk Down video.  Reblogging now because the original links have undergone linkrot.  This version has the advantage of including the lyrics (in Breton and English) at the YouTube link.

Re-reposted from 2016 because the song continues to fascinate me.  I have challenged several friends to identify the language while listening to the song; nobody has been successful.  I doubt that it would help even if I had let them view the written lyrics:

Gortozet 'm eus, gortozet pell
E skeud teñval tourioù gell
E skeud teñval tourioù gell

E skeud teñval an tourioù glav

C'hwi am gwelo 'c'hortoz atav

C'hwi am gwelo 'c'hortoz atav

Un deiz a vo 'teuio en-dro
Dreist ar maezioù, dreist ar morioù

'Teuio en-dro an avel c'hlas
Da analañ va c'halon c'hloaz't

Kaset e vin diouzh e alan
Pell gant ar red, hervez 'deus c'hoant

Hervez 'deus c'hoant pell eus ar bed
Etre ar mor hag ar stered  

More about the Breton language.

Eric Clapton's version of "How Deep is the Ocean?"

YouTube link.

 
I listened today to the 2010 "Clapton" album; mixed in with all the blues pieces was his version of an old song with refreshingly upbeat lyrics:

How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie -
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?

How far would I travel to be where you are?
How far is the journey from here to a star?

And if I ever lose you how much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1932.  I found videos of covers by Peggy Lee/Benny Goodman, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Etta James, Nat King Cole, and Ray Charles, among others, but I like Clapton's the best.

Reposted from 2011 to replace the original video and delete other links which had undergone linkrot over the years.

Early rock music

YouTube link.

"Archaeologist Dr. Jean-Loup Ringot specialized in prehistoric music demonstrates a Lithophone."

Other relevant videos here and here (stalactites).

Rami Malek and Freddy Mercury - side by side

YouTube link

Rami Malek is said to have viewed Queen's Live Aid show 1,500 times while he was preparing to re-enact the performance.

"Kulning" explained

YouTube link

Kulning is an ancient herding call that Swedish women have practiced for hundreds of years. But in recent decades, Jinton says, it’s been largely forgotten.

According to Susanne Rosenberg, professor and head of the folk music department at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and kulning expert, the vocal technique likely dates back to at least the medieval era. In the spring, farmers sent their livestock to a small fäbod, or remote, temporary settlement in the mountains, so cows and goats could graze freely. Women, young and old, accompanied the herds, living in relative isolation from late May until early October...

The herds grazed during the daytime, wandering far from the cottages, and thus needed to be called in each night. Women developed kulning to amplify the power of their voices across the mountainous landscape, resulting in an eerie cry loud enough to lure livestock from their grazing grounds...

Rosenberg, who’s researched the volume of kulning, says it can reach up to 125 decibels—which, she warns, is dangerously loud for someone standing next to the source. Comparable to the pitch and volume of a dramatic soprano singing forte, kulning can be heard by an errant cow over five kilometers away... Some women have even learned the far-carrying cries as a form of self-defense...

Via Neatorama.

"Who by fire?"

YouTube link.

Last night I watched American Animals, a sort of true-crime docudrama about four inept students who try to steal rare books from a university library.  I'm not going to review the movie, but I did want to feature the bit of soundtrack in the clip embedded above.

This was the penultimate song, accompanying the apprehension of the students by teams of FBI agents.  As I watched the movie, this song sounded medieval, like a chant by monks or witches.  It was unfamiliar to me, and I had to search the lyrics online:

And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May, who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt
And who by avalanche, who by powder
Who for his greed, who for his hunger
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident
Who in solitude, who in this mirror
Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand
Who in mortal chains, who in power
And who shall I say is calling?

The song is by Leonard Cohen, who explained it as follows:

"The melody on which this next song is based I first heard when I was four or five years old, in the synagogue, on the Day of Atonement, standing beside my tall uncles in their black suits. It¹s a liturgical prayer that talks about the way in which you can quit this vale of tears. It’s according to a tradition, an ancient tradition that on a certain day of the year, the Book of Life is opened, and in it is inscribed the names of all those who will live and all those who will die, who by fire, who by water…"

"Trombone suicide"

YouTube link.

I thought for sure I must have blogged one of these routines before, but apparently not.  This one via Neatorama.

Hard to believe these clips are from 40 years ago

YouTube link.

Hat tip to Neatorama.

Pink Floyd's "Time"

YouTube link.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

Home
Home again
I like to be here
When I can

When I come home
Cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones
Beside the fire

Far away
Across the field
Tolling on the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell

High school pep rally - updated !!

 

YouTube link.

When I was in high school, a pep rally consisted of two or three girls waving pom-poms and trying unsuccessfully to get a small crowd to yell "Win team win."  Times have changed.

Some serious planning, choreography and hundreds of hours of practice must have gone into this routine at Walden Grove High School, Sahuarita Arizona.  Worth a few minutes of your time unless you are a complete grouch. 

Via Boing Boing.

Reposted from last year to add this year's equally-spectacular production:

YouTube link.

If you're going to watch, you should definitely click the fullscreen icon in the lower right corner

This link goes to another view of the performance filmed from closer to the court.  And if you search YouTube you can find a "making of" interview video.  These kids practice every day for a year to prepare these performances.

Via Neatorama.

"Blade Runner Suite"

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

Piano arrangement of Bohemian Rhapsody

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

Boomwhackers

YouTube link.

"American Craig Ramsell reportedly came up for the idea for his boomwhackers in 1994 while at home recovering from radiation therapy. While cutting cardboard tubes into shorter lengths for recycling he happened to notice the different pitches resulting from the different lengths and decided to investigate their creative potential. He experimented with various plastics before settling on plastic mailing tubes.

Boomwhackers produce musical tones when struck together, on the floor, or against nearly any surface. They can also be grouped together and struck with mallets in different configurations, in specialized holders (homemade or available from the manufacturer), similar to a horizontally-aligned xylophone. When one end of a Boomwhackers tube is covered with what the manufacturer calls an Octavator Cap, the pitch it produces is lowered by an octave.

Boomwhackers are most commonly used in elementary music classrooms as an inexpensive alternative or supplement to traditional pitched instruments such as xylophones and metallophones. Boomwhackers are often used by performance artists and other musical performance groups to add an element of spectacle. They can also be used by people with intellectual and developmental impairment to develop sensorimotor skills, social skills, and creativity."

"Are You Going With Me?" (Pat Metheny Group)

YouTube link.

Filmed at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, but the audio is obviously from a studio recording.  This video has just the music.

"At the time of the song's recording, Latin American and especially Brazilian music had begun to influence jazz in the United States, and when Brazilian musicians such as Nana Vasconcelos came to play with American artists, this influence, in the case of the Pat Metheny Group, became overt. The "Brazilian" quality of "Are You Going With Me?" is frequently noted; and it has been considered by some to be "obviously samba-based"."

Interesting story about Pat Metheny:  "While playing at a club in Kansas City, he was approached by Bill Lee, a dean at the University of Miami, and offered a scholarship. After less than a week at college, Metheny realized that playing guitar all day during his teens had left him unprepared for classes. He admitted this to Lee, who offered him a job to teach instead, as the school had recently introduced electric guitar as a course of study."

He is apparently the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards in ten different categories.

A more recent performance, with the Metropole Orkest (Netherlands jazz/pop orchestra):

YouTube link.

Alma Deutscher - musical prodigy (updated)

YouTube link. 

As reported in The Telegraph:

Deutscher's father said she could name the notes on a piano by the age of two. She was given her first violin for her third birthday, and was playing Handel sonatas within a year.

Earlier this year, Deutscher composed a short opera called The Sweeper of Dreams, which narrowly missed out on making the final of a contest run by the English National Opera to unearth young, talented classical musicians.

Reposted from 2012 (the embed above shows her performing at age 6) to add this incredible video:

YouTube link.

Scott Pelley selects four notes, and the now-12-year-old young lady takes less than a minute to compose and play a piano sonata based on those notes.

Via Neatorama.  Her Wikipedia page.

A young girl covers Led Zeppelin's Good Times Bad Times

『Hit Like A Girl Contest 2018』Good Times Bad Times - LED ZEPPELIN / Cover by Yoyoka , 8 year old drummer from よよか on Vimeo.
Brief bio on the drummer at the Vimeo source.

The first-ever performance of "Purple Rain" - 35 years ago

  YouTube link.

Feel old yet?  Filmed at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis in 1983.