The Good Musician

After a long time, I managed to get back into the musician habit again. This was hard for me because I had a lot of other obligations going on at the same time, and music wasn’t on my priorities list.
I’d hardly have finished one project when the next project rolls in and you’re time is once again consumed by non-musical things. This lead me to a realization:

If you can’t do something, it’s because you don’t want to do it.

If you think you’d play more music if you had the time, you need to MAKE the time, or you’ll never get …read more

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Today, I’ve got a tasty little bite for you guys that you may already have heard in various places.
The piece is “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and I encourage you to listen to the whole work if you can, because of all pieces, O Fortuna isn’t necessarily the best , in my humblest of opinions.
Enjoy, and have a great weekstart. The video here shows the aforementioned piece as the finale, preceded by the ominous “Ave formosissima”.
Also check out Sir Simon Rattle’s excellent conducting (he actually stops doing anything and lets it flow at one point) and watch for …read more

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It’s one of the things I like about Apple. Yes, I am a fanboy, and many musicians are, because of the simple reason that Apple frequently decides to include new and upcoming artists in their ads, on iTunes, or in product demonstrations.
I myself thank them for showing me Imogen Heap back in the day, and this time, with the introduction of the Macbook Air, (at which Randy Newman played as we discussed), Apple demoed an advert featuring Yael Naim, an Israelite-French artist who has an amazing debut album which includes a mix of hebrew (or yiddish, I’m not sure) and …read more

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It’s a lazy Sunday again, and time to go back to the old stuff. Here’s some Bach. Mixed with Gounod. Sung by Bobby McFerrin. And his audience.
I know, unbelievable.
Enjoy, and have a great weekstart.

I love the way he entertains the public. He obviously displays his competence as a chorus leader by showing how much he trusts this whole experiment to work.
I also am stunned by his singing every time, though I’m not sure I like the fact he dissects pieces the way he does.
Obviously, McFerrin manages to bring classical music and jazz to a common ground, and to a wide …read more

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Unless your a Mac-Nutcase like I am, you might have missed watching Steve Jobs’ latest keynote at Macworld 2008. He presented us with the delight of one very distinguished musician who performed at the end: Randy Newman.
As Gruber points out, the first song he sings is “chock full of ‘I can’t believe he just said that’-lines”. The Good Musician won’t keep this from you, so watch and learn:

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One thing that’s common practice among bands, or at least should be, is the concept of group listening.
In a band, playing together is simply not enough. It’s equally paramount to make time to simply listen to songs together and exchange ideas. Here’s how it usually ran during my high school sessions:

Have the equipment ready: In our band room, which had a PA, this meant having the right cables to hook up an iPod over the speakers. It’s double fun at double the bass levels

Get anyone to suggest a song he or she likes. It’s important to listen to …read more

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This article is part of the Basic Repertoire Project.
In Jazz music, there is a (fairly large) pool of songs we consider to be “jazz standards”. Kenny Burrell was one of the all-time greats in Jazz music, and he contributed at least this one jazz standard that, in my opinion, everyone should know.
The piece I speak about is “Chitlins Con Carne”, a standard I love jamming to myself. Kenny Burrell plays the guitar and achieves one hell of a legendary solo in the original (which, unfortunately, I couldn’t find, but you can buy it off iTunes!)

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This article is part of the Basic Repertoire Project.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the most recognized composers of all time. Born in 1756 to a well-to-do Austrian family, his father, a composer himself, brought this prodigy forward to become the composer of some brilliant works.
As you know, child prodigies scare the hell out of me.
Mozart wrote a couple of great operas, one of them being The Magic Flute. His early works weren’t as well-received as his later ones, and this last opera of his is considered on of his greatest.
To understand the basics of an opera, it essentially is …read more

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Photography byyuan2003
Beginning with this article, I would like to ignite a feature here on TGM to showcase some of my favorite, and in my opinion most recognized songs, pieces, musical performances and artists in the world.
The point of it is to bring you closer to the world of music as it is recognized by fellow musicians world-wide, as well as build up a set of pieces “everyone should know about”. Knowing a bit about music history gives us enormous perspective of our own work, plus takes you a long way in conversations.
It’s a part of our culture, and I …read more

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Here’s a little gem I found yesterday: Clarion, from Red Sweater Software, is an application for Mac OS X that will help you learn music intervals.
Learning to hear and sing intervals is important as it can empower you to write your own compositions with ease, and also gives you a lot of insight into how music is built. Intervals are, effectively, the building blocks of any music.

The application offers a free trial, so you should check it out. I like the fact that it uses a simple interface, as I personally like to train my intervals in breaks. I …read more

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