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Random Music Thoughts Thread

Stigmata

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Why create this, you ask? Because, reason!

This thread is NOT intended for simply sharing links to what you're listening to -- we have several threads for that.

This thread is meant to be a place to discuss our ideas behind artists/bands and how that music impacts us, out opinion of their work, and how it makes us think/feel.

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My musical tastes have been rather eclectic since my teenage years so I enjoy YouTube or other sites that use algorithms to present things I might like and I can easily spend an evening falling down a music filled rabbit hole.
 

Schrödinger's Name

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It's a shame that this thread is so silent. I'll come back with more serious posts once my exams are finished... For now, I give you this video. Look at the dude in the back (you'll know who I mean). This whole piece, and all I can look at is his face (he just does not stop). I imagine if my friend and I were there (either as spectators or playing the instrument,) we'd ruin the show with hysterical laughter. I wonder if he's always like that during concerts- and how his colleagues manage to keep a straight face while they have a clown sitting next to them. Love it.
Maybe the real question is why they are always so serious?


On a more serious note; I've posted this song a few times before. It fits here since it has a lot of hidden meanings/symbols. So if you want to analyze something; go have fun with this one:
(And share your interpretation/analysis if you'd like to.)



Thinking about more classical music like the first video; I wonder what 'draws' people towards it and what makes people dislike (or even repulsed by) it. I personally don't like the violin piece that much (I am used to listening to the Vivaldi 'Summer' piano cover. It sounds less 'classical' to me.)
 

Stigmata

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My musical tastes have been rather eclectic since my teenage years so I enjoy YouTube or other sites that use algorithms to present things I might like and I can easily spend an evening falling down a music filled rabbit hole.

My tastes have been similar. LastFM used to be a decent tool to find new music - It would essentially collect data from the bands you listened to and would recommend new stuff, often more underground stuff that wasn't as easily found on places like youtube, based on the profile you'd build as you listened to more and more music.
 

Coriolis

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It's a shame that this thread is so silent. I'll come back with more serious posts once my exams are finished... For now, I give you this video. Look at the dude in the back (you'll know who I mean). This whole piece, and all I can look at is his face (he just does not stop). I imagine if my friend and I were there (either as spectators or playing the instrument,) we'd ruin the show with hysterical laughter. I wonder if he's always like that during concerts- and how his colleagues manage to keep a straight face while they have a clown sitting next to them. Love it.
Maybe the real question is why they are always so serious?
I have sometimes seen persistently odd expressions like that on soloists. It is indeed amusing to watch and I wonder what is going through their mind as they play. I suspect the serious expressions are a side effect of the focus needed to play one's own part while following the conductor and listening to the other musicians. Have you ever played in an orchestra? Even accompanying a soloist can require quite a bit of focus, especially if the part is challenging and the soloist takes lots of liberties. More practice increases the comfort level, and a group that plays often together, perhaps lighter or very familiar music, may "loosen up" a bit more when they play. Think of an established jazz band. Members of a sports team will often have very serious expressions if the game is close or very important to win.

Thinking about more classical music like the first video; I wonder what 'draws' people towards it and what makes people dislike (or even repulsed by) it. I personally don't like the violin piece that much (I am used to listening to the Vivaldi 'Summer' piano cover. It sounds less 'classical' to me.)
What makes people like or dislike any music, or any other art genre or specific work? It all comes down to personal taste. Of course it is hard to like what you haven't been exposed to, so sampling different things can broaden your horizons. No genre is monolithic, though, either. I say I like classical music in general, but there is plenty that I don't like. I have preferred styles and composers within the classical genre, and even then I won't like everything a given composer wrote, and sometimes I find something enjoyable by a composer I generally dislike. I am not sure my tastes qualify as eclectic, but I do enjoy music from many different genres/styles. I have posted some of this in the various music related threads here. I like music that is "interesting", meaning it has a backstory, or has been arranged/interpreted in different ways, or merges different styles and elements to good effect, or has multiple layers of meaning.

One piece I have been listening to recently is this. First is the Liz Story piano version, listed as "Pavane" on one of the Winter Solstice albums.

I play an arrangement of this myself, based in part on this version, though a bit faster and with more emphasis on the repeated rhythm in the left hand.

This Pavane is actually from a larger work by Thoinot Arbeau called Orchesographie, a study of late 16th century French Renaissance social dance. That version sounds like this. The left hand piano rhythm of the above mirrors the original tambour part.


But this piece in fact has lyrics, apparently by the composer of the music - I can find no other reference. I heard it this way first, when I was only 11 or 12, sung a capella by the King's Singers. It is a song of courtly love called "Belle qui tient ma vie"; in English: "Beauty who holds my life (captive in your eyes)". Arbeau was a Catholic priest, but that didn't stop him and others in religious life at the time from writing romantic and sometimes outright bawdy material.

 

Jaguar

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Instead of jerking off on social media, go learn to play an instrument. Ah, yes. No discipline. No focus. Just . . . "Ooooooooh, shiny!" *click it*

Auto-tune your way through life, right?

Bite me.
 

Stigmata

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I'm liking Hail to the Thief more than I did when I first heard it -- I thought it was horrible upon first listen. It's almost like the Radiohead cheese sampler platter album; a mixture of the vastly different genres their music has spanned upto that point, made to be more accessible who thought Kid A and Amnesiac were a bit too much of a departure from their Pablo Honey/The Bends roots.

I still view it as such -- a bridging of the sounds, if you will. But I've really come to appreciate the latter half of the album.
 

Stigmata

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Instead of jerking off on social media, go learn to play an instrument. Ah, yes. No discipline. No focus. Just . . . "Ooooooooh, shiny!" *click it*

Auto-tune your way through life, right?

Bite me.

Man, there's a lot of "get off my lawn" in this particular post. While I don't care for most autotuned stuff, I can respect it's right to exist. I just think we're in an era where, with computers, music is more accessible and thus people have redefined what an instrument is and how it can be utilized.
 

Jaguar

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Man, there's a lot of "get off my lawn" in this particular post. While I don't care for most autotuned stuff, I can respect it's right to exist. I just think we're in an era where, with computers, music is more accessible and thus people have redefined what an instrument is and how it can be utilized.

I have no idea what you're even talking about.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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60s/70s bands and their 90s analogues

The Beatles - Oasis
The Rolling Stones - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Kinks - Blur
War - Wu Tang Clan
Love - Live
The Velvet Underground and Nico - Sonic Youth
Later Velvet Underground - Pixies
Velvet Underground after Lou Reed - The Breeders
Moby Grape - Pavement
MC5 - Rage Against The Machine
The Doors - Danzig
The Who - Smashing Pumpkins
Black Sabbath - Metallica
David Bowie - Marilyn Manson
Billy Joel - Ben Folds Five
Pink Floyd - Tool
Steve Miller Band - Dave Matthews Band
The Byrds - R.E.M.
Neil Young - Pearl Jam
Led Zeppelin - Soundgarden
The Temptations - Boyz 2 Men
Beach Boys - Weezer
The Stooges - The Offspring
Sly and the Family Stone - Lenny Kravitz
Deep Purple - Stone Temple Pilots
The Supremes - TLC
Marvin Gaye - R Kelly
Carly Simon - Alanis Morrisette
 

Peter Deadpan

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60s/70s bands and their 90s analogues

The Beatles - Oasis
The Rolling Stones - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Kinks - Blur
War - Wu Tang Clan
Love - Live
The Velvet Underground and Nico - Sonic Youth
Later Velvet Underground - Pixies
Velvet Underground after Lou Reed - The Breeders
Moby Grape - Pavement
MC5 - Rage Against The Machine
The Doors - Danzig
The Who - Smashing Pumpkins
Black Sabbath - Metallica
David Bowie - Marilyn Manson
Billy Joel - Ben Folds Five
Pink Floyd - Tool
Steve Miller Band - Dave Matthews Band
The Byrds - R.E.M.
Neil Young - Pearl Jam
Led Zeppelin - Soundgarden
The Temptations - Boyz 2 Men
Beach Boys - Weezer
The Stooges - The Offspring
Sly and the Family Stone - Lenny Kravitz
Deep Purple - Stone Temple Pilots
The Supremes - TLC
Marvin Gaye - R Kelly
Carly Simon - Alanis Morrisette

The Ne in this is overwhelming and I'm really glad you didn't do Nirvana.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Good. I like it that way.

It’s pretty telling of how eclectic their style was. I see traces of Bowie, Neil Young, early metal bands, Sex Pistols, but you can’t really pinpoint any one direct influence
 

anticlimatic

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Towneshwhw.jpg


How come most of your songs are sad songs?

Townes: I don't think they're all that sad. I have a few that aren't sad, they're like... hopeless. Totally hopeless situation and the rest aren't sad they're just the way it goes.

A good musician friend of mine used to rant and rave about this guy, cover his work, the whole bit- but it took me a while to get it. The guy's voice is kind of strange and monotone, and the music has an under produced generic 70s era country quality to it, but the writing- my god. Compared to most people, I live in a fairly heightened state of existential reflection. The good of it is that I get to enjoy the present, while I'm in it, but the bad of it is that I never quite consciously part from the grim realities of mortality, death, and loss. Townes was bi-polar, and was forced to have electro shock therapy when he was young- which broke his long term memory. As a consequence, he was similarly stuck in the present, so there is something about his lyrics that resonate very strongly with me. He lived in shacks and trailers most of his life, was a major alcoholic, adored by more famous singers but never achieved much fame for himself, and died of alcohol withdrawl on new years day 1997.


Tecumseh Valley

The name she gave was Caroline
The daughter of a miner
Well her ways were free
And it seemed to me
Sunshine walked beside her

She said she'd come to look for work
She was not seekin' favors
For a dime a day
And a place to stay
She'd turn those hands to labor

But the times were hard, Lord, and the jobs were few
All through Tecumseh valley
But she asked around
And a job she found
Tendin' bar for Gypsy Sally

She saved enough to get back home
When spring replaced the winter
But her dreams were denied
Her Pa had died
The word come down from Spencer

So she turned to whorein' out on the streets
With all the lust inside her
And it was many a man
Returned again
To lay himself beside her

They found her down beneath the stairs
That led to Gypsy Sally's
In her hand when she died
Was a note that cried
Fare thee well
Tecumseh valley
 

Stigmata

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I don't get The Beatles. I can, to some extent, understand how within a historical context how they were a groundbreaking thing and they quite commercially successful at a time when music was much less accessible, but they just don't really do anything for me.

Also, Pet Sounds is better than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and it's not even close -- Fight me.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I wonder why The Dream Syndicate didn’t hit bigger. Perhaps refusing to add synths and keyboards in their music put them at odds with the top 40 sound of the early 80s.

This song reminds me of The Velvet Underground and Joy Division. It also sounds like a forerunner to Pavement and most indie rock of the 90s and 00s. Maybe a touch of Sonic Youth


I actually prefer the previous version to the later album version.

 

Doctor Cringelord

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people praise Talking Heads as a great new wave or rock band, but can we talk about how they were also one of the great funk bands? I think they rank up with Parliament and George Clinton. Especially Speaking in Tongues and Stop Making Sense, which is them playing funk on hard mode and getting a perfect score. Plus they toured with funk heavyweights like Bernie Worrell, using an extended band lineup to replicate their layered studio recordings live

 

Schrödinger's Name

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For the people who play and don't play instruments; what made you choose the particular instrument(s)? Are there any (other) instruments you'd like to try out/advance in? How much knowledge do you have of all the instruments out there? Which instruments do you prefer to listen to?

Since my room is too small for a piano- I am considering to buy an Erhu. (I also considered a Guqin for a second but it still looks relatively big, plus I don't know if there's enough material out there to learn how to play it.)
 
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