Monday, August 31, 2009

14. Jewish HIGH HOLY DAYS begin September 18th





One of the most famous Jewish partisans in WWII was 23-year-old Hannah Szenesh. Hannah had been born in Budapest, Hungary but as a Zionist had emigrated to Palestine before the war. She was one of many Palestinian Jews who returned to Europe to fight the Nazis and organise rescue operations for the Jews still stranded there.


In March 1944 Hannah was parachuted into Yugoslavia along with 30 men and one other young woman. For two months she fought with a band of Yugoslavian partisans, until she reached the Hungarian border on June 7. By then 289 000 Hungarian Jews had already been deported to Auschwitz, but her mission was to help organise rescue for those remaining.

Captured, then imprisoned and tortured to reveal her mission, she never broke, nor requested any mercy or a pardon. Tried and convicted of treason to Hungary, Hannah Szenesh was executed on November 7 1944. Here is her song.... Eli, Eli sung by Regina Spector in Hebrew. We will be singing an English translation.

Monday, August 24, 2009

13. Wintley Phipps - Some Thoughts On Spirituals


One of the great things about not being like everyone else-- watch the video.
I will be talking about some of his examples in the choir - and will add my comments to this afterwards.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

12. LEARNING BY LISTENING


1. Sound, Music, and the Environment What do different cultures mean by music? This program explores the definition of music from the sine wave to poetic metaphor, and the impact of the cultural environment on musics as different as Bosnian ganga and becarac singing; Tuvan throat singing; Irish, West African, Trinidadian, and Japanese musics; and Western chamber music, jazz, and rock.

2. The Transformative Power of Music Music can inspire religious devotion, prepare individuals for war, motivate work, enrich play, and stimulate the passions. The musical healing ceremonies of the Kung people in Namibia and Botswana, Epirote music in traditional Greek weddings, and modern rock, gospel, and folk musics all reveal music's power to transform lives.

3. Music and Memory As a dynamic link to the past, music allows us to recall and revive our different cultural heritages through the performances we participate in now. West African griots, the Walbiri people of Australia, folksingers of Ireland and Appalachia, and modern practitioners of early music show us how our musical pasts live again today.

4. Transmission: Learning Music How we learn musical traditions and how we maintain, modify, notate, teach, and perform them for a new, younger audience are exemplified here in Indian classical music, African village drumming, and modern jazz and gospel.

5. Rhythm Marking time and moving through our bodies, rhythm has a special relationship to both musical form and worldwide dance traditions. How rhythm structures music is examined through the American marching band, North Indian tala, Japanese shakuhachi tradition, West African drumming, and Afro-Cuban dance music.

6. Melody Melody — the part of music we most often remember — is examined here both scientifically and poetically, from a strict sequence of pitches to a group of notes "in love with each other." We see and hear melodies shaped, elaborated, and developed within Western classical music, the Arabic maqam tradition, Irish dance music and sean-nós singing, and Indian raga.


7. Timbre: The Color of Music The tone color of music — or "timbre," as we call it in the Western tradition — is influenced by both technical and aesthetic factors. This program examines the creation and effects of timbre in jazz and Indian, West African, Irish, Bosnian, Indonesian gamelan, and Japanese musics.

8. Texture The way different voices and instruments work together to produce the overall sound gives music its texture. This program examines texture in Japanese shakuhachi, Trinidadian steel band, Bosnian ganga, West African percussion, and modern Australian choral music.

9. Harmony When two or more notes sound together, harmony occurs. This interaction of pitches, understood in vastly different ways around the world, is analyzed here in jazz, chamber music, Bosnian ganga singing, early music plainchants, and barbershop quartets.

10. Form: The Shape of Music Form — the way music is organized and structured from beginning to end — guides composers, performers, and listeners in all musics. Here, the traditional Western sonata, the blueprints behind improvisational jazz, the narrative structure of traditional Japanese music, call-and-response forms in West African music and American gospel, and Irish fiddle tunes exemplify worldwide variations in musical form.

11. Composers and Improvisers How are a composer and an improvisor alike? How are they different? The marriage between fixed elements and new variation is examined in American rock, Indian raga, classical and contemporary Western music, jazz, and Arabic classical music.

12. Music and Technology New instrument types and new electronic media for distribution are obvious results of technology, but so were the first bone flute and the first stretched catgut. How technology affects music is examined here in a case study of the flute, and in an examination of developing recording and composing technologies where the roles of composer, musician, arranger, and conductor begin to fuse.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

11. RHYTHM Resources

As with all other posts on this blog... be sure to right click on the link to open in a new window or you will be taken away from the blog when you close the video. I have done that at least 30 times so far.....

After you look at this video called How Music Works 2 - Rhythm - Part 1 please look around at whatever interests you and take some notes about what you like or would want to learn more about. Share those thoughts with me and we will cover them.

This is the second of the videos How Music Works 2 - Rhythm - Part 2


10. Some thoughts about Rhythm

Ralph Lalama is a member of the jazz studies faculty at New York University’s Steinhart School. An accomplished saxophonist and clarinetist, he has performed with the bands of Buddy Rich and Woody Herman.

He currently plays with the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the Joe Lovano Nonet in addition to playing and recording under his own name.


Here is a short interview about the importance of rhythm.



Here is Ralph Lalama's website: http://ralphlalama.com/

Friday, August 14, 2009

9. Listening to the BEAT - Importance of: one - TWO - three - FOUR one - TWO - three - FOUR

This is a series of several youtube videos that show the importance of listening to the beat. The first ones are with an accent on the second and fourth beat.



This video is of Doobie Brothers - "Listen To The Music" 1972

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVgMzKMgNxw



This video is Michael McDonald "I Keep Forgettin" 1982








http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvEpsDNQ75g

The Maroon 5 - Very contemporary - listen to the drum to hear where the beat is.