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The Good Musician

Archive for the ‘Ethnomusicology’ Category

July 30th, 2008

A woodwind quintet isn’t

All woodwinds, that is. The so-called woodwind quintet is a flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and french horn. The latter, however, is frequently included in small chamber consorts, especially in the Baroque, as they play those lovely hunting calls and stirring royal fanfares.
The Baroque sonata form often contained a 3/4 or 6/8 meter movement, and […]

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July 29th, 2008

Saraswati and Kay Gardner

I’ve been reading Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as Medicine by Kay Gardner. She references Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of music and the sciences. I once had a teacher who said that music was like mathematics in technicolor.
Gardner also illustrates the relationship of the chakras to the overtone series. When you produce a pure […]

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July 16th, 2008

The Mozart Effect debunked

From the February ‘08 issue of eSkeptic comes a feature from Will Dowd entitled

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July 13th, 2008

Top five film soundtracks from The Good Musician

The Good Musician loves great film music. Growing up with 50’s musical extravaganzas through the evolution to electronic and digital of today, I’m aware that what I hear in the movies is just as affecting as what I see. A great music and sound staff can pull a mediocre movie up to a decent one. […]

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July 6th, 2008

The beautiful blue Danube

Not so very blue, yet an important river, whatever color it may be.

Here’s Herbert von Karajan wafting down The Blue Danube Waltz.

Tags: , Budapest, Danube River, Hungary

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July 3rd, 2008

John Cage: ORGAN2/ASLSP

John Cage composed music that regularly transgressed the boundaries of convention. A pupil of Schoenberg and Cowell, Cage came into his own during the 1960’s while teaching at the U of Illinois. He invented the prepared piano, a compositional technique to alter the sound of a single or several notes by using non-conventional items directly […]

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June 30th, 2008

Prague Museum Night

King Wenceslas (Szent Vraclav) statue, Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic.
Photo by TGM.
Prazska Muzejni Noc
Web designers: Czech out this gorgeous Web site!
Anniversary of 5th Prague Museum Night, a collaboration among the National Museum, Prague Public Transport Company Inc., and Association of Museum and Galleries of the Czech Republic. 25 cultural institutions and 51 sites were […]

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June 24th, 2008

AVAE choral tour — Budapest, Hungary

Castle Hill, Budapest, Hungary. The largest spire is the Basilica of St. Mattias, one of the venues where AVAE was privileged to perform.
A bit of background
The Danube River separates Buda (west, Castle Hill) and Pest (east, government and commerce). Built in the first century B.C. by Celts, the Romans occupied the town as the […]

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June 2nd, 2008

Artur Rubenstein, Bo Diddley, and Villa-Lobos

If The Good Musician were to travel due north from Budapest, she would cross the Polish border and explore Warsaw, birthplace of Anton Rubenstein. I was privileged to hear him in a 1963 concert, a high school graduation gift from my parents.
Actually, I was thinking of Bo Diddley, saying a fond farewell to […]

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May 29th, 2008

Slovenian composer got it done

Jacobi Handl (Lat. Jacobus Gallus Carniolus), 1550-1591, is perhaps the best known Slovenian composer. Writing primarily masses and motets (374 of those mamas), he worked with a printer in Prague to ensure his compositions were printed before his death. Pretty remarkable in any period.
Here is a fascinating Web site that gives a run-down on […]

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