How important has music been/is in your life?

TheVat said:
Not sure what my life would be without music. I play piano, a bit of guitar, banjo, blues harp, and one sad month trying to get proper sounds from a sax. Spouse and daughter are both professional musicians and it's been a privilege to hear them join others in making classical, folk, bluegrass, rock, musical theater, and liturgical music. I can't even begin to number all the good things music does for your brain and your heart. Instruments that have lived under our roof: piano, organ, bassoon, oboe, English horn, guitar, bass (electric), banjo, violin, cello, coronet, drums, synthesizer, and zither. Hey, I ended with Z.
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Ещё аккордеон красиво звучит.
 
TheVat said:
I've heard (so many times, so it feels truthy) that science, math, and music all use closely related brain areas, and have noticed that science groups usually have a fair number of musical people. Richard Feynman IIRC traveled to some remote Asian locale to study throat singers. Einstein was crazy about violin, owned several. Brian May, of Queen, became an astrophysicist. Etc.
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I didn't know Einstein was a violinist. But then so many Jews are. I think I read somewhere that the violin evolved from a Middle Eastern string instrument. Perhaps there is some atavistic attachment to it. At any rate the number of top violinists who are Jewish seems to be significant. (I still remember Itzhak Perlman performing Bach's D Minor Chaconne, in St. John's Smith Square. His face underwent a change in the course of the performance, the lower lip protruding, sweat dripping off his nose, and one really felt he was channelling JSB.)
 
TheVat said:
You might enjoy silk and steel strings, like Ernie Ball makes. Less time spent tuning than with nylon.
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Went to nylon after some RSI hand problems using the steel string guitar - although poor technique may have contributed. I wasn't aware of steel strings being made to suit classic guitars, may have to give them a try - have seen what regular steel strings do to a nylon string guitar, a way to make kindling; I hadn't fully appreciated the guitar I have until I tried some others, would hate to ruin it. Of course I have just bought a couple of spare sets of strings - good timing. Did try some some made of a different polymer than nylon, supposedly mimicking the sound (and possibly feel) of gut strings but I didn't think they added anything.

TheVat said:
I've heard (so many times, so it feels truthy) that science, math, and music all use closely related brain areas, and have noticed that science groups usually have a fair number of musical people.
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People with a busy brain perhaps, that need as well as appreciate more activities that occupy and exercise it? I say busy rather than more intelligent in my case.
 
Ken Fabian said:
I wasn't aware of steel strings being made to suit classic guitars, may have to give them a try - have seen what regular steel strings do to a nylon string guitar, a way to make kindling; I hadn't fully appreciated the guitar I have until I tried some others, would hate to ruin it.
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Oh God so sorry I didn't catch that you had a classical guitar. No, you definitely can't put any steel strings on it, not even silkies, without severe overtension and, as you say, potential kindling. I somehow misread your post as nylon strings on a standard acoustic. (backing out of room quietly, to go knock my busy brain back into some sort of alignment)
 
exchemist said:
I didn't know Einstein was a violinist. But then so many Jews are. I think I read somewhere that the violin evolved from a Middle Eastern string instrument. Perhaps there is some atavistic attachment to it. At any rate the number of top violinists who are Jewish seems to be significant. (I still remember Itzhak Perlman performing Bach's D Minor Chaconne, in St. John's Smith Square. His face underwent a change in the course of the performance, the lower lip protruding, sweat dripping off his nose, and one really felt he was channelling JSB.)
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Yeah there's that whole Fiddler on the Roof thing, too. I met violinist Yehudi Menuhin when I was a child (having a journalist father was sometimes helpful in meeting people), after he had performed at a small venue in Kansas. I promptly started begging for violin lessons, but for some reason the strings teacher (a Mrs. Levenson, also Jewish) my parents talked with suggested cello and gaslighted them into thinking cello was the way to go. A miserable few months of me trying to love the cello ensued, until plants and then pets in the house started dying, and back to piano it was. I later learned that the bizarre cello gambit was simply that my parents didn't want to purchase an instrument and the only loaner Mrs Levenson could track down was a cello. Arghhh.
 
TheVat said:
Oh God so sorry I didn't catch that you had a classical guitar. No, you definitely can't put any steel strings on it, not even silkies, without severe overtension and, as you say, potential kindling. I somehow misread your post as nylon strings on a standard acoustic. (backing out of room quietly, to go knock my busy brain back into some sort of alignment)
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Don't be embarrassed; I had a look online and turns out there are steel strings made for nylon guitars, with the correct tension... but haven't found much in the way of recommendations as well as mentions of the very fine gauge unwrapped strings eating into the bridge. I'll give them a miss. But I do still have a steel string acoustic - just used rarely now.
 
exchemist said:
I didn't know Einstein was a violinist. But then so many Jews are. I think I read somewhere that the violin evolved from a Middle Eastern string instrument. Perhaps there is some atavistic attachment to it. At any rate the number of top violinists who are Jewish seems to be significant. (I still remember Itzhak Perlman performing Bach's D Minor Chaconne, in St. John's Smith Square. His face underwent a change in the course of the performance, the lower lip protruding, sweat dripping off his nose, and one really felt he was channelling JSB.)
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Einstein loved Bach. He used to hang out with his philosophy guys and play a little.
Imagine those nights out?
 
I'd like to use a quote from the Jefferson Airplane.

While your records line the shelves
You're fighting amongst yourselves
That's a hell of a lot of dues for you to pay
 
If my father's piano playing would not have melted my -then still single- mother's heart in 1930, I would not be writing this. also, if
our solar system would not in part be stabilized by the 6 octaves (doubling in size of planetary orbits) , we all might not be here either.
 
Every second or third day, and when time allows, I plonk myself under my pergola, grab my Son's "magic music box" (and via bluetooth, I believe) connected to my mobile, I listen to a range of music from Dean Martin and Frankie Laine, to Teresa Brewer and Patti Page, to Buck Owens and Slim Dusty, to the King Elvis, and the killler Jerry Lee Lewis, to Johnny O'Keefe and Lonnie Lee, all interspersed with my favourite Greek Angel, Nana Mouskouri...
All while sucking on a can of VB, or two or three, washing down a mouth full of peanuts!
 
Me and my son have similar tastes because I basically brain washed him as a child.
I am quite proud of that, I think he is ok with it, I remind him often enough.
He recently text me and asked about bands I should listen to from the 1960s and 70s, he was updating his iPod thing.
That was a long conversation, he knew the obvious stuff but didn't know other key bands.

So essential albums and bands? 1970-1980

Meddle - Pink Floyd, they play a fair bit in the Pompeii film so that was one.
Wish you were here - "Have a cigar" was always my favourite but the whole album is a masterpiece.

"Deep Purple in concert" That album is pure carnage. The best singer on the planet, the greatest rock drummer and Richie Blackmore!?

Steely Dan, Supertramp, ELO, Blondie, Jethro Tull, ABBA, Elton John and of course the unparalleled genius of Kate Bush.
 
Pinball1970 said:
So essential albums and bands? 1970-1980

Meddle - Pink Floyd, they play a fair bit in the Pompeii film so that was one.
Wish you were here - "Have a cigar" was always my favourite but the whole album is a masterpiece.

"Deep Purple in concert" That album is pure carnage. The best singer on the planet, the greatest rock drummer and Richie Blackmore!?

Steely Dan, Supertramp, ELO, Blondie, Jethro Tull, ABBA, Elton John and of course the unparalleled genius of Kate Bush.
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You were doing so well there until those last six words. LOL. I would add:

Zepp, Meatwood Flack, (early) Meat Loaf, Van Halen, XTC, Chicago, ZZ Top, REO Meatwagon.
 
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Worst band of the seventies:

Starland Vocal Band

(And sadistic DJs kept spinning their insipid POS, "Afternoon Delight," over and over until you wanted to repeatedly stab yourself in the face if you were trapped with some dweeb who insisted on keeping the radio on during those insufferable three minutes of witless sexual innuendos.)
 
And who can forget that incredible group that in the space of 2 years, had numerous hits and a great sound...Buddy Holly and the Crickets!
 
Pinball1970 said:
So essential albums and bands? 1970-1980

Meddle - Pink Floyd, they play a fair bit in the Pompeii film so that was one.
Wish you were here - "Have a cigar" was always my favourite but the whole album is a masterpiece.

"Deep Purple in concert" That album is pure carnage. The best singer on the planet, the greatest rock drummer and Richie Blackmore!?

Steely Dan, Supertramp, ELO, Blondie, Jethro Tull, ABBA, Elton John and of course the unparalleled genius of Kate Bush.
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Others that I think are worthy of a mention...

Queen - their early stuff, especially the first 4 albums (up to "A Night at the Opera") are exceptional imo (the rest of their oeuvre is great as well).
Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells". 'Nuff said.
Jean-Michel Jarre - "Oxygene" and "Equinox", both seminal albums.
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds - the first album I ever actually wanted to own.
Meat Loaf / Steinman - "Bat Out of Hell"
Tom Waits - I love his early stuff, especially his debut "Closing Time".
 
Sarkus said:
Others that I think are worthy of a mention...

Queen - their early stuff, especially the first 4 albums (up to "A Night at the Opera") are exceptional imo (the rest of their oeuvre is great as well).
Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells". 'Nuff said.
Jean-Michel Jarre - "Oxygene" and "Equinox", both seminal albums.
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds - the first album I ever actually wanted to own.
Meat Loaf / Steinman - "Bat Out of Hell"
Tom Waits - I love his early stuff, especially his debut "Closing Time".
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I forgot 10CC
 
TheVat said:
And Mike Oldfield was an interesting blast from the past - had sorta forgotten his great Exorcist track. Worth spinning again.
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He didn't write it for that film, but it did suit it well. Maybe in the US that is how the track/album is recognised?
Queen, like The Who, did material that rose to the level of the operatic.
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Queen moreso than The Who. Mercury was very much someone who took inspiration from everywhere, but loved Opera, especially the voice of Montserrat Caballé, one of the best opera singers of all time. They had a great relationship and he got her to co-sing on his Barcelona album, a pop/opera cross-over, and a fun album.
 
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