18. Towards Midwinter - The King's College Choir

The Choir owes its existence to King Henry VI, who envisaged the daily singing of services in his magnificent chapel. This remains the Choir's raison d'être, and is an important part of the lives of its 16 choristers, who are educated on generous scholarships at King's College School, and the 14 choral scholars and two organ scholars, who study a variety of subjects in the College.

Please watch the singer's mouths and see how they move them to project the tones that are lovely and expressive. This is mostly to listen to and watch... just click on the picture above.

This is more like what we would do. You may watch it here. It includes the music for those of you who read so you can follow just how the piece is done.

The song is Coventry Carol and the url is here

17. NEW IDEAS - NPR Jazz

"Maybe it was the economy or maybe it was a curatorial decision, but the 11th annual High Zero Festival in Baltimore, Md. didn't have the "star power" of previous years. There was no Tony Conrad or Joe McPhee, but in a city with a solid bed of new music practitioners -- organized by the keen ears of the High Zero organization -- you really couldn't ask for a more creative line-up.
As always, High Zero puts local Baltimore musicians, artists and dancers on the same stage as international veterans to completely improvise "new music," a rather loose term for sound with little connection to established forms. As a recent set of a CDs documenting the festival's 11 years reveals, High Zero Festival is the premier showcase for spontaneous sound.
The documentation here begins on Saturday (I missed both Thursday and Friday night's concerts) and is slightly out of order. Why? Because the fine folks at High Zero generously provided A Blog Supreme with a free download of my favorite set, which is right below." --Lars Gotrich

Download the concert here.

16. OPEN YOUR MOUTH - Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughn (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". She had a contralro vocal range.

--"Nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One" Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989."--

15. WADE IN THE WATER

Harriet Tubman sang this spiritual as a warning to runaway slaves. The song told them to abandon the path and move into the water. By travelling along the water's ege or across a body of water, the slaves would throw chasing dogs and their keepers off the scent.

The seemingly innocent spirituals, as the slave songs came to be known, were more than simple hymns of endurance and a belief in a better afterlife. As sung by slaves and their descendants, the spirituals allowed the slaves to communicate secret messages and information to each other about the Underground Railroad.

~from Owen Sound's Black History Website

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/the+importance+of+rhythm

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

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.

8. Latest Videos from Perpetuum Jazzile

Jan Trost just posted these on YouTube. Perpetuum Jazzile does Libertango in a Buenos Aires restaurant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrwtmk-imwQ and Prisluhni školjki (A Song in a Seashell) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9nzHkCceY0

7. WHAT LANGUAGE DOES THE CHOIR SPEAK?

Here is the native country of the singers and a video of them singing in their language.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5uTfvbaGbE


https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/SI.html

6. Creative VOCAL VIDEOS

So now you are ready to hear this. Be sure to note the facial expressions of the choir.... and the movement and general feeling of the performance. The next blog entry will show you what these people really speak...... (hint---it's not ENGLISH)

This one just went over 1,000,000 views. The most from their country ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbpwlqp5Qw

Here's their newest video.... about the million win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDUBhLXi2LA


and of course ... here's their website.
http://www.perpetuumjazzile.si/en/


DON'T you dare look ahead to see what these singers really speak.... It will be in the next entry.
;-)

5. CREATIVE MUSIC (sound) VIDEOS

The first is of the rehearsal for a HONDA CAR commercial. Using a choir of 60 (more is better)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyayFJ5Qzjs


This is the completed commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjyWP2LfbyQ

4. BREATHING EXERCISES

The breath is more than a little important. Using the right breathing method will help your singing.
If you can.... you should read and print the following out. It shows you how important the breath is.
http://www.amsa.org/healingthehealer/breathing.cfm

The following are a couple of videos that will take you from the beginning a couple of steps further along towards breathing well.
Try to watch them in order.... and write down some notes to share with me (e me or respond to this post)

ONE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69IrVCenhQQ

TWO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4r6geLz1JE&feature=channel

THREE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqmwA0m7e6s

3. JOHN CAGE September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992

This next video is of John Cage and a 1992 documentary
Listen : John Cage - in love with another sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aYT1Pwp30M


Then..... a John Cage piece called 4' 33" (four minutes thirty three seconds) that will really make you wonder what on earth I am trying to accomplish. 735,998 people have watched this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

2. GETTING OUT OF THE BOX

Here is a rather unique way of playing music. You may not like or understand it.

But I feel that I have a responsibility to give you the opportunity to decide on your own. So, with that as a basis... here is more. Keep your mind and ears open... try to experience what you hear..... you are not being asked to like it.

Here is Eric Lewis's facebook site. He is a friend of mine on facebook and you can add him as well if you wish. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/eleww?v=wall&viewas=1216306313

Here is the performance video.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_lewis_strikes_chords_to_rock_the_jazz_world.html

1. Listening

We have great opportunities ahead of us as a choir - a wonderfully expansive experience that I hope will inspire you.

This first video is from TED.... the speaker is not a pianist, but a percussionist. The talk is about listening.

http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html