Clever, and fun. First time I’ve seen it. Loved the music, which I have heard before. Someone should take this same approach to a list of the highlights from Biden’s administration. Would need a shorter piece of music. Something by Jefferson Airplane.
Didn’t happen to catch La Trahison des Images somewhere in that blur of light (nor any other Magritte for that matter) . . . but maybe no-one needs reminding it’s all a ruse of one sort or another, whether built for pleasantries, follies or worse, as the case may be. Still, such a one (“ruse” or plain ol’ “lie”) is “culture” itself, an epitome of devious art / techne on the loose.
Kind of reminds me of the tests in Art History classes that I took in college. We had identify Artist, Name and something else that I have forgotten. Loved the classes. My Major was History and I took the classes in Grad School. We have gone to museums as much as possible when we traveled. To walk into a Gallery and see for real a painting I had studied in class was a real thrill.
Yesterday, when thinking about the discussion of music through the decades of the 20th century I realized something obvious which had not occurred to me before. The 20th century is the first time humans had musical recording media and popular music was dictated by the boundaries of that media. A 78 rpm record, then a 45, then, finally, albums played at 33 1/3 rpms.
I was wondering if dancing also limited song length. Someone referenced Benny Goodman’s cover of Prima’s, “Sing, Sing, Sing” in the comments. It’s a popular song for swing dancers, and at the pace they dance could it be much longer than 4 or 5 minutes? Prior to recorded music dancing music was “longer,” right? I’m thinking of dancers in the 1800s dancing to a Minuet, or some such thing.
With the advent of the 33 1/3 album “album rock” became a thing. A lot of artists continued to put 2 and 1/2 minute to 4 minute songs, one after another, on both sides of their albums, but some FM radio stations would play longer songs and some artists started filling entire album sides with 1 song.
Prior to recording technology we had composers writing short pieces, Etudes and Concertos, but there were also Symphonies and Masses. Now that music is most all digital, and radio airplay with interstitial commercials is not much of a factor in the music industry, will we see more, long songs like Billy Joel’s, “Piano Man,” and sea shanties of old? Aren’t Beowulf, Gilgamesh and the Odyssey “long songs” at their fundamental nature?
What is the natural length of music humans tend to create when not confined by technology?
Just another open-thread comment about something I read.
For the past few days, I’ve been reading about new Canadian legislation that would turn American leftists green with envy. Coming soon from a Marxist Democrat near you?
Supported by Trudeau, Canada’s Justice Minister has introduced a bill called The Online Harms Act. The bill would empower the government to lock up people for life, if they use the internet to say objectionable things. This ambitious bill would not only criminalize speech, but also thought. If the Canadian government decides that someone is thinking about committing a speech crime, then the pre-offender can be placed under house arrest.
Luckily, for Canadians, their national health care has expanded its assisted suicide service, so they still have some good options.
Watch it again, but this time, reduce the playback speed to 0.75 (click the little gear wheel in the tray) to appreciate the grandeur and elegance of both art and music.
Did Tom and Dick miss Egyptian, Babylonia, Indian, Inca, Aztec, etc art? Not enough paintings & graphics? Guess Cave art would’ve been too old. 🙂
Consider the music of the spheres. Not a human made phenomenon, yet a human object of desire to behold; a dance eternal, unceasing.
Gives some people the wilies [wink] merely pondering on. Natural — this term — natural . . . wants an eternity of unpacking. So let’s just sing, instead.
Karmi,
I just clicked a few times throughout the video, capturing maybe 3, 5 second snippets, but one of the sections I randomly chose did appear to have some cave art flash by.
Rufus T.:
Yeah, didn’t think Tom and Dick would’ve missed classical Cave art! 🙂
They did not identify the clans and factions but said Hamas’s ability to rally such groups behind it over security showed it retains influence, and that efforts by Israel to build its own administrative system to keep order in Gaza were being resisted.
Guess rumors of a split from Hamas were wrong…
The Asian (Japanese?) paintings at approx. 1:15 are so different from European art. Some things are outsized and I noticed color is not used as much as most paintings. There are also frequent use of action in the frame, possibly with samurai warriors. Is there a name for this style? It’s interesting.
In his series, “Howard Goodall – The story of music” he talked about how Asians tuned their instruments differently. Hence the completely different sound, tempo, etc from European music. Any art/music experts reading this?
P.S. I forced myself to watch the 1st episode of Goodall’s series just to get the foundation for music’s history. The 2nd and 3rd were very good. The rest I liked about as much as I like today’s pop music. I’m a product of the Beatles/Who/Everly Brothers/BeeGees era I guess. (That last one was a nod to you Neo.)
Trump Trolls Biden With ‘White House Senior Living’ Ad
How long before AI can create animated films in the style of famous painters? All of the scenes in Giotto’s chapel or Michaelangelo’s ceiling tied together into a film with characters moving from scene to scene. Would that be great or horrible? Better perhaps to copy the style, but come up with new narratives.
The next step would be to create a videogame where you are Gauguin or van Gogh. You down from a street in Arles past a sidewalk cafe into a bar and start engaging with the regulars, like the old postman. But what would winning involve? Living a long life with all the riches of the world or dying young and immortal?
Shirehome – As a grad student I took an upper-level undergrad Art History Class. Grad students who were not art or art history majors could get grad credit for it, but we also had to do a final project which consisted of visiting the local art museum (It was Columbus, Ohio) and writing a paper about a painting there and then presenting it in class. There were grad students in architecture, theater, history, film, and English in the class and it was EXTREMELY interesting to see how VERY different the presentations were. The professor (who had done this for a number of semesters) encouraged people in different disciplines to use the same painting, knowing how different the results would be. While I was not an art student, I had a background in painting and I wrote about the brush strokes, the colors, the textures, opacity/translucency/transparency of layers, and the light. The history student barely wrote about the physical painting but wrote more about the history of the artist, the period in which the painting was done, and the history behind the subject matter. The architecture students wrote about the composition. Three of us wrote about the same painting, and it was three very, very, very different papers. It was a great class and I really enjoyed it. I regretted not switching to art from my already useless major.
… [Verse 2]On the stone an ancient hand
In a faded yellow-green
Made alive a worldly wonder
Often told but never seen
Now and ever bound to appear
On the sea and in the sky
Every man and beast appeared
A friend as real as I
[Chorus]
Before the fall when they wrote it on the wall
When there wasn’t even any Hollywood
They heard the call
And they wrote it on the wall
For you and me we understood
[Verse 3]
Can it be this sad design
Could be the very same?
A wooly man without a face
And a beast without a name
Nothin’ here but history
Can you see what has been done?
Memory rush over me
Now I step into the sun…
Rufus T, Firefly — Excellent point about Beowulf, the Odyssey, and Gilgamesh — and for that matter, much of the Hebrew Bible. Chanting helped people memorize those works. And I have heard some very mellifluous chanting of the Masoretic cantillation of the Hebrew Bible. (It usually isn’t done quite that mellifluously. Unfortunately.) It is pleasant to listen to, and makes it easy to understand the text. and I imagine listening to someone chanting Homer was probably a very similar experience.
But it is not quite like sitting through “Carmen” for entertainment value. I know polyphonic music came much later, which certainly made music more interesting, IMHO.
I still smile whenever I hear a long song on the radio. back in the day, the DJs would play a long tune when they had to use the bathroom. “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” still makes me thing that a DJ is going to the bathroom or taking a smoke break.
CC™ will not be amused.
LIBERTY is losing again, it seems.
In July 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in the Murthy v. Missouri case barring administration officials from contacting social media companies in order to have content removed.
IS IT TRUE that SCOTUS doesn’t know about the Schellenberger and Taibbi Big Brother revelations?
They don’t know about the lab leak origins of the CCP virus that the CDC and IC and most of the Federal government lied to us about? The pointlessness of mask wearing lie?
It seems all of Big Brothers Big Lies must be enforced by a Federal State Praetorian Guard of liars to protect their lies from exposure to factual testing and Truth.
Safetyism will rule these Paper Jockey’s as The Bill of Rights burns. Same at the border.
It’s High Time for the Texas Governor to just ignore their blatant Treason to The Constitution. A French Revolt-style barbecue could be in the works for the Biden Army of Slave Driving thugs.
I had my hopes that SCOTUS would come to rescue Sweet Liberty. No longer. The case will die by a Chinese Fire-Drill of rationalizations for Big Power and Big Brother. In short, a God Damned mess of it.
1.5 minute video explaining the evil One Party State ambitions of the “Democrats”. Saul Alinsky would be PROUD to see this (as would Clowen-Piven)!
chazzand @ 12:41pm,
It’s hard to explain briefly, but any instrument used to make music, including the human voice, is creating sound waves and human hearing is designed within certain parameters. Regarding taste, this is easiest to understand with chords (more than one note played at the same time). Most all humans find notes with wave patterns that share wave peaks and valleys pleasant; or at least do not find them unpleasant. (The more peaks and valleys shared the less “discordant” the sound.) Singers “harmonize” around these patterns, as do instrumentalists.
For single note progressions; you are correct that different cultures standardized much of their music around different patterns. This could be for any number of reasons, including something as mundane as, “the King likes this song, let’s make others like it.” There are an infinite number of vibrations (sound waves) one can produce within the range of human hearing so there is no “right” answer. Just as there are an infinite number of shades of yellow Van Gogh could have used in his painting of sunflowers.
You can see this in American music in the 20th century. the 1900s began with much of it centered on Western, classical music with its standard major and minor scales. Then Jewish and African scales made their way into popular music and began to sound “normal” to Americans as more and more music incorporated those scales. “Rhapsody in Blue” is a great example of an early, incredible mix of these three elements.
An interesting side story to this is the artistry of making instruments and humans’ abilities to consistently make instruments in tune with one another and capable of producing “pure” notes consistently. There is a reason there wasn’t a Mozart equivalent writing symphonies in the 12th century. Artisans were not capable of making a symphony worth of instruments capable of playing a Mozart symphony at that time. Part of the cultural standard of what is acceptable music is dependent on what local artisans can consistently reproduce, instrument-wise.
Lee Also,
I have the same thought when I hear a long song on the radio! (Although I don’t think DJs exist anymore. It’s mainly pre-programmed playlists.)
I don’t know if you’ve been to a Catholic Mass, but there is a tradition of a Cantor taken from the Jewish service. And, Priests do sometimes sing their utterances and the congregation sometimes sings in response. I notice this happening more regularly the past, several years. I find it beautiful and adding to the mysticism.
I imagine the tradition of sitting as a group around a fire for safety and warmth as our peers sing oral traditions of our tribe is deeply imbedded in our DNA over hundreds of thousands of years of practice.
Not sure about the art…but I know this young artist and his family. Enjoy a teenager doing something useful.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to block a Republican-backed Texas law allowing state law enforcement authorities to arrest people suspected of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, rejecting a request by President Joe Biden’s administration.
Rufus T. – thanks for the Steely Dan link!
Rufus T. Firefly
Thank you for the intro to music. Although I can enjoy music, I haven’t a clue as to the creation and understanding of it. For example, what the aitch is F sharp major???? LOL. My recently retired PCP who plays in a band (and wanted all his life to be Eric Clapton) told me that yes, some people are tone deaf. I can tell one note from another if they’re on opposite ends of the scale. Any two notes beside each other sound the same. I suspected it but he confirmed it. Now I mostly just listen to and enjoy music. I envy people who can look at a sheet of music and “hear” the sound as intended. To me, that’s magic.
AFTERNOON UPDATE via Just The News, citing various sources. SCOTUS decides that the Texas law can go into effect, and that police can arrest illegal aliens there.
“The court rejected an emergency request from the Biden Administration that claimed states don’t have authority over immigration and that it’s strictly a federal issue.
“The law in question is Senate Bill 4 and it allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border and give judges authority to deport them back to Mexico.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation last year, but it was blocked by a federal judge last month.
” ‘HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court. Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court,’ Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote on the social media platform, X.
Rufus T. Firefly, I am glad to hear Catholic parishes are beginning to recover some chanting in church. In my high-church Anglican parish, we sing psalms and canticles and the Sursum Corda, Benedictus, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei, although in English, not Latin. We also chant the Lord’s Prayer, to a very ancient tune.
I saw that on the Smothers Brogthers Show during the 1967-68 season.
In Eric MeTaxes biography of Martin Luther, he said that the Roman Catholic Church of Martin Luther’s day did not have congregational singing. Only the clergy sang at the church. Martin Luther made a big deal out of congregational singing, even writing Hymns . ” A Mighty Fortress is our God”, perhaps being the most famous.
The decline of the U.S., an unforced error.
Having acquired a couple of History degrees (from reputable academic institutions before the leftist mind virus infected Academia, and began the process of effectively destroying their brand), I am very well aware of the rise and inevitable fall of all past civilizations, and the general conditions in them.
Moreover, how, when compared to how we live here in the U.S today–in terms of our health care, personal safety, access to food, and adequate or better shelter, our longevity, literacy, and access to knowledge, to literature, and to “entertainment,” access to travel and communications, our personal freedom, general living conditions, and having some measure of say over the course of our lives–their lives were, almost without exception, “nasty, brutish, and short”–their rulers ruled their lives, and usually took advantage of and despoiled them at every opportunity, they were very often tied to the land, poor, subject to all sorts of diseases, accidents, wild animal attacks, random violence, invasions, extremely high infant mortality rates, plunder, inferior shelter and cold leading to death from exposure, and they often lacked sufficient food, suffered the effects of deficiency diseases, and died of starvation.
All in all, in past eras life expectancies were a third, or perhaps even far less, than ours today, and they were generally miserable lives.
In other words, far too few of us here in the U.S realize just how incredibly lucky we are, how we live in material circumstances whose heights have never been reached or occurred in past civilizations; material circumstances which are superior to how those rulers of past civilizations lived.
(It has been remarked that the average middle class person here in the U.S. lives in material circumstances better than those of many of the upper classes in Europe.)
Thus, I observe, with great sadness, how far too many of our supposed “leaders”–infected with the Leftist mind virus, and lacking a knowledge of history, vision, or true patriotism and, above all, lacking in wisdom—are very determinedly and systematically dismantling and sabotaging their and our own civilization, leading, it seems inevitably, to the U.S.’s likely premature decline.
thanks sdferr, I could never get the notes part of the deal,
that joke in Amadeus where the Emperor tells him if he could hold the note longer,
no it’s quite deliberate, like sappers they thought about bringing the republic down, did it start with dewey, thats what one leading source suggests, or was it socialists, like gramsci and alinski, a small part was played by appleman williams, a larger one by frankfurt school sages like adorno and marcuse, I first heard of the frankfurt school from allan Bloom, in closing of the American Mind although it was elaborated by one of my left profs, who has long since passed,
add to this boulibaisse, the likes of crenshaw and bell, the sowers of critical race studies, precursors of DIE, who influenced Obama, Zinn and his lost scrolls of Category error
Always loved “Classical Gas.” Hearing it decades later, I wonder whether Williams could have been inspired, with that pulsating opening followed by the rising passage, by the opening segment of the “Lacrymosa” of Mozart’s Requiem (the only part of it that Mozart himself wrote, apparently). The first 40 seconds or so of this:
I thought they had left out Rembrandt’s Man in the Golden Helmet so I had to re-watch it. It is very early in the clip. I was amazed at the number of images I recognized the first time through. Probably couldn’t name them even at a slow speed but have seen them. My mom had a print of Man in the Golden Helmet hanging in our living room when I was a kid. That was why I wanted to see if it was there.
did that know that about requiem, it really hits home
I think I must have seen the montage at some point,
Snow on Pine wrote:
(It has been remarked that the average middle class person here in the U.S. lives in material circumstances better than those of many of the upper classes in Europe.)
Here’s a chart of the average income in about 90 nations:
“Worldwide, around 4 billion people live without social security.”
About half of those listed countries fall below the USA’s Federal Poverty Level—for individuals, including China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, Iran and India.
2024 Federal Poverty Level (FPL):
For individuals $15,060
For a family of 2 $20,440
For a family of 3 $25,820
For a family of 4 $31,200
And I have heard some very mellifluous chanting of the Masoretic cantillation of the Hebrew Bible. (It usually isn’t done quite that mellifluously. Unfortunately.) It is pleasant to listen to, and makes it easy to understand the text. and I imagine listening to someone chanting Homer was probably a very similar experience.
~ Lee Also
In HS and college Greek class we had to recite passages from the Odyssey, Euripides, etc., sometimes singly, other times engaged in so-called stichomythia, quick back-and-forth dialogue (which could be kinda fun, in a Preston Sturges sort of way).
Here, tackling the Iliad, is a born showman if ever there was one:
Col. Daniel Davis had an interesting session “live streaming” the House committee investigating the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Davis had concluded in 2010 that the war was unwinnable and we should leave.
He explains in detail the events leading to the final rush to leave that proved disastrous. Many of our leaders performed poorly.
Canada to stop arms exports to Israel — Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Trudeau government intends to comply with non-binding resolution calling for the end of arms sales to Israel.
And: Israel advocacy superstar Eylon Levy suspended after diplomatic incident — UK government enraged after Israeli government spokesman says Foreign Secretary Cameron ‘factually incorrect’ in appeal for more trucks to enter Gaza.
@ miguel – thanks for the C&C link, that had the most detailed analysis I’ve seen of any of the three Trump cases, and he tackled all of them!
And it’s always interesting to see what El Gato Malo thinks about the world.
“ketanji brown and the template of doom” — trading literally everything for “a little safety”
Best lines out an excellent post: “it does not matter if those prevented from speaking were wrong. what matters is that the state suppressing their speech is wrong. always.”
And there were some great memes.
@ sdferr – thanks for the Bach link.
For anyone familiar with the piano but wondering how you can get 6 sharps with only 5 black keys, the e# (7) is actually f.
That one always throws me.
And the pianists I know HATE that key.
In re the topic: I don’t remember seeing that episode on the Brothers’ show, although I probably missed a few back in the day.
I would have liked it better if all the art had been in chronological order, so we could see what we got for our 3000 years.
The music is, well, classical.
I’ve always enjoyed it — never gets old.
Well, maybe after 3000 years it will.
FEDERAL COURTS INDUCE WHIPLASH in Illegal immigration disaster.
That’s my conclusion from my topical contributions to this thread with this morning’s update on the latest emergency court order. Fox News is on it, but without good contextual explanation, it seems.
Here’s the Gateway Pundit’s clear takeaway headline and first paragraph:
Appeals Court BLOCKS Texas from Arresting and Deporting Illegals Hours After Supreme Court Ruling – Bush and Biden Judges Cast the Deciding Votes
By Cullen Linebarger Mar. 20, 2024 6:42 am165 Comments
Tom Homan, the former ICE director, interviewed about all this on FNC, before the top of the hour, says none of this matters because the Biden regime still has the last and final say on release or deport questions.
All illegal problems will fester, regardless of this legal wrangling dispute.
How very likely, I say.
Thanks, Rufus, for the Steely Dan link, and the Beato link a few days ago. I’ve been busy listening, mostly in background, to a 756 playlist of VEVO Punk & Emo Rock, from the last 3 years. In YouTube, where the category is Pop Punk.
What I like to more often listen to, and maybe sing sometime. Often fun with some anger and bouncy, danceable, tho not always. Heavy metal, starting with Iron Butterfly, has long been popular, bought, but seldom radio played much, and
I don’t care for most of it, tho often such groups have great ballad songs, with some powerful music. My first 3 kids liked it.
With internet like algorithms, there are huge numbers of ok to good songs (6-8 of 10), in my preferred style, which I’ll usually like more than even very good or great songs (9-10) in less liked styles.
I smiled a lot at the full list of bad songs, many of which I knew from Dr. Demento, like Martian Hop. Which I just heard and the next song is the interesting Flobots – Handlebars, tho also pompous. My daughter told me of it last night. I used to ride my bike with no hands.
Mason Williams also had novelty songs, often just about 1 minute, such as:
Them Hog Liver Likers,
Them Moose Goosers,
and an inspiring
The Prince’s Panties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB38IHW5hH8
When I took a creative writing class and created a Sci-Fi story, semi-X rated, I used part of the song, but the teacher (TA? Professor? don’t remember) crossed it out, tho the paper got an A.
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Clever, and fun. First time I’ve seen it. Loved the music, which I have heard before. Someone should take this same approach to a list of the highlights from Biden’s administration. Would need a shorter piece of music. Something by Jefferson Airplane.
Didn’t happen to catch La Trahison des Images somewhere in that blur of light (nor any other Magritte for that matter) . . . but maybe no-one needs reminding it’s all a ruse of one sort or another, whether built for pleasantries, follies or worse, as the case may be. Still, such a one (“ruse” or plain ol’ “lie”) is “culture” itself, an epitome of devious art / techne on the loose.
Kind of reminds me of the tests in Art History classes that I took in college. We had identify Artist, Name and something else that I have forgotten. Loved the classes. My Major was History and I took the classes in Grad School. We have gone to museums as much as possible when we traveled. To walk into a Gallery and see for real a painting I had studied in class was a real thrill.
Yesterday, when thinking about the discussion of music through the decades of the 20th century I realized something obvious which had not occurred to me before. The 20th century is the first time humans had musical recording media and popular music was dictated by the boundaries of that media. A 78 rpm record, then a 45, then, finally, albums played at 33 1/3 rpms.
I was wondering if dancing also limited song length. Someone referenced Benny Goodman’s cover of Prima’s, “Sing, Sing, Sing” in the comments. It’s a popular song for swing dancers, and at the pace they dance could it be much longer than 4 or 5 minutes? Prior to recorded music dancing music was “longer,” right? I’m thinking of dancers in the 1800s dancing to a Minuet, or some such thing.
With the advent of the 33 1/3 album “album rock” became a thing. A lot of artists continued to put 2 and 1/2 minute to 4 minute songs, one after another, on both sides of their albums, but some FM radio stations would play longer songs and some artists started filling entire album sides with 1 song.
Prior to recording technology we had composers writing short pieces, Etudes and Concertos, but there were also Symphonies and Masses. Now that music is most all digital, and radio airplay with interstitial commercials is not much of a factor in the music industry, will we see more, long songs like Billy Joel’s, “Piano Man,” and sea shanties of old? Aren’t Beowulf, Gilgamesh and the Odyssey “long songs” at their fundamental nature?
What is the natural length of music humans tend to create when not confined by technology?
Just another open-thread comment about something I read.
For the past few days, I’ve been reading about new Canadian legislation that would turn American leftists green with envy. Coming soon from a Marxist Democrat near you?
Supported by Trudeau, Canada’s Justice Minister has introduced a bill called The Online Harms Act. The bill would empower the government to lock up people for life, if they use the internet to say objectionable things. This ambitious bill would not only criminalize speech, but also thought. If the Canadian government decides that someone is thinking about committing a speech crime, then the pre-offender can be placed under house arrest.
Luckily, for Canadians, their national health care has expanded its assisted suicide service, so they still have some good options.
Want to read more about it? Here’s a link to an article in The Daily Mail.
https://tinyurl.com/mr3xz5kp
Watch it again, but this time, reduce the playback speed to 0.75 (click the little gear wheel in the tray) to appreciate the grandeur and elegance of both art and music.
Did Tom and Dick miss Egyptian, Babylonia, Indian, Inca, Aztec, etc art? Not enough paintings & graphics? Guess Cave art would’ve been too old. 🙂
Consider the music of the spheres. Not a human made phenomenon, yet a human object of desire to behold; a dance eternal, unceasing.
Gives some people the wilies [wink] merely pondering on. Natural — this term — natural . . . wants an eternity of unpacking. So let’s just sing, instead.
Karmi,
I just clicked a few times throughout the video, capturing maybe 3, 5 second snippets, but one of the sections I randomly chose did appear to have some cave art flash by.
Rufus T.:
Yeah, didn’t think Tom and Dick would’ve missed classical Cave art! 🙂
SAUDIS WANT TIKTOK!
Armed Palestinian clans and factions increasingly being used to guard Gaza aid convoys
Guess rumors of a split from Hamas were wrong…
The Asian (Japanese?) paintings at approx. 1:15 are so different from European art. Some things are outsized and I noticed color is not used as much as most paintings. There are also frequent use of action in the frame, possibly with samurai warriors. Is there a name for this style? It’s interesting.
In his series, “Howard Goodall – The story of music” he talked about how Asians tuned their instruments differently. Hence the completely different sound, tempo, etc from European music. Any art/music experts reading this?
P.S. I forced myself to watch the 1st episode of Goodall’s series just to get the foundation for music’s history. The 2nd and 3rd were very good. The rest I liked about as much as I like today’s pop music. I’m a product of the Beatles/Who/Everly Brothers/BeeGees era I guess. (That last one was a nod to you Neo.)
Trump Trolls Biden With ‘White House Senior Living’ Ad
https://www.frontpagemag.com/watch-trump-troll-biden-with-white-house-senior-living-ad/
How long before AI can create animated films in the style of famous painters? All of the scenes in Giotto’s chapel or Michaelangelo’s ceiling tied together into a film with characters moving from scene to scene. Would that be great or horrible? Better perhaps to copy the style, but come up with new narratives.
The next step would be to create a videogame where you are Gauguin or van Gogh. You down from a street in Arles past a sidewalk cafe into a bar and start engaging with the regulars, like the old postman. But what would winning involve? Living a long life with all the riches of the world or dying young and immortal?
Shirehome – As a grad student I took an upper-level undergrad Art History Class. Grad students who were not art or art history majors could get grad credit for it, but we also had to do a final project which consisted of visiting the local art museum (It was Columbus, Ohio) and writing a paper about a painting there and then presenting it in class. There were grad students in architecture, theater, history, film, and English in the class and it was EXTREMELY interesting to see how VERY different the presentations were. The professor (who had done this for a number of semesters) encouraged people in different disciplines to use the same painting, knowing how different the results would be. While I was not an art student, I had a background in painting and I wrote about the brush strokes, the colors, the textures, opacity/translucency/transparency of layers, and the light. The history student barely wrote about the physical painting but wrote more about the history of the artist, the period in which the painting was done, and the history behind the subject matter. The architecture students wrote about the composition. Three of us wrote about the same painting, and it was three very, very, very different papers. It was a great class and I really enjoyed it. I regretted not switching to art from my already useless major.
Karmi,
Don’t know if you are a Steely Dan fan (I think they are/were brilliant!), but their song, “The Caves of Altamira” may be of interest to you: https://youtu.be/m_5MtGCWImE?si=BMHEAjX7w1rR4NVc
Rufus T, Firefly — Excellent point about Beowulf, the Odyssey, and Gilgamesh — and for that matter, much of the Hebrew Bible. Chanting helped people memorize those works. And I have heard some very mellifluous chanting of the Masoretic cantillation of the Hebrew Bible. (It usually isn’t done quite that mellifluously. Unfortunately.) It is pleasant to listen to, and makes it easy to understand the text. and I imagine listening to someone chanting Homer was probably a very similar experience.
But it is not quite like sitting through “Carmen” for entertainment value. I know polyphonic music came much later, which certainly made music more interesting, IMHO.
I still smile whenever I hear a long song on the radio. back in the day, the DJs would play a long tune when they had to use the bathroom. “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” still makes me thing that a DJ is going to the bathroom or taking a smoke break.
CC™ will not be amused.
LIBERTY is losing again, it seems.
In July 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in the Murthy v. Missouri case barring administration officials from contacting social media companies in order to have content removed.
The Federal Judge’s injunction was vacated by SCOTUS, and argument yesterday.
Con lawyer Mike Davis of the Article 3 Project says the 3 to 6 vote by SCOTUS against prohibiting the Feds from killing viewpoint discrimination, unmasked by Missouri AG Eric Schmidt, appears to tell us where this case is going:
https://rumble.com/v4k2f6e-mike-davis-this-is-gonna-be-very-destructive-to-free-speech-in-this-country.htmlo
IS IT TRUE that SCOTUS doesn’t know about the Schellenberger and Taibbi Big Brother revelations?
They don’t know about the lab leak origins of the CCP virus that the CDC and IC and most of the Federal government lied to us about? The pointlessness of mask wearing lie?
It seems all of Big Brothers Big Lies must be enforced by a Federal State Praetorian Guard of liars to protect their lies from exposure to factual testing and Truth.
Safetyism will rule these Paper Jockey’s as The Bill of Rights burns. Same at the border.
It’s High Time for the Texas Governor to just ignore their blatant Treason to The Constitution. A French Revolt-style barbecue could be in the works for the Biden Army of Slave Driving thugs.
I had my hopes that SCOTUS would come to rescue Sweet Liberty. No longer. The case will die by a Chinese Fire-Drill of rationalizations for Big Power and Big Brother. In short, a God Damned mess of it.
I hate the US’ New Order. Maybe Elon Musk does too (H/T the gateway pundit)? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770030227390914624?
1.5 minute video explaining the evil One Party State ambitions of the “Democrats”. Saul Alinsky would be PROUD to see this (as would Clowen-Piven)!
chazzand @ 12:41pm,
It’s hard to explain briefly, but any instrument used to make music, including the human voice, is creating sound waves and human hearing is designed within certain parameters. Regarding taste, this is easiest to understand with chords (more than one note played at the same time). Most all humans find notes with wave patterns that share wave peaks and valleys pleasant; or at least do not find them unpleasant. (The more peaks and valleys shared the less “discordant” the sound.) Singers “harmonize” around these patterns, as do instrumentalists.
For single note progressions; you are correct that different cultures standardized much of their music around different patterns. This could be for any number of reasons, including something as mundane as, “the King likes this song, let’s make others like it.” There are an infinite number of vibrations (sound waves) one can produce within the range of human hearing so there is no “right” answer. Just as there are an infinite number of shades of yellow Van Gogh could have used in his painting of sunflowers.
You can see this in American music in the 20th century. the 1900s began with much of it centered on Western, classical music with its standard major and minor scales. Then Jewish and African scales made their way into popular music and began to sound “normal” to Americans as more and more music incorporated those scales. “Rhapsody in Blue” is a great example of an early, incredible mix of these three elements.
An interesting side story to this is the artistry of making instruments and humans’ abilities to consistently make instruments in tune with one another and capable of producing “pure” notes consistently. There is a reason there wasn’t a Mozart equivalent writing symphonies in the 12th century. Artisans were not capable of making a symphony worth of instruments capable of playing a Mozart symphony at that time. Part of the cultural standard of what is acceptable music is dependent on what local artisans can consistently reproduce, instrument-wise.
Lee Also,
I have the same thought when I hear a long song on the radio! (Although I don’t think DJs exist anymore. It’s mainly pre-programmed playlists.)
I don’t know if you’ve been to a Catholic Mass, but there is a tradition of a Cantor taken from the Jewish service. And, Priests do sometimes sing their utterances and the congregation sometimes sings in response. I notice this happening more regularly the past, several years. I find it beautiful and adding to the mysticism.
I imagine the tradition of sitting as a group around a fire for safety and warmth as our peers sing oral traditions of our tribe is deeply imbedded in our DNA over hundreds of thousands of years of practice.
Not sure about the art…but I know this young artist and his family. Enjoy a teenager doing something useful.
https://youtu.be/1RgUNYagtoo?si=x3cEyeYrekuSyFMv
This just in: SCOTUS rules Texas can enforce immigration law…a small victory against the Biden administration.
Half of all New Yorkers will flee city in next 5 years as quality of life plummets post-pandemic – Dixie county Fla had population of 16,759 in 2020 & my income is below Federal Poverty Level (tho I live quite well), so NYC would be too populated (even in 5 years) & expensive for humble me.
US Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Law on Illegal Border Crossings
Rufus T. – thanks for the Steely Dan link!
Rufus T. Firefly
Thank you for the intro to music. Although I can enjoy music, I haven’t a clue as to the creation and understanding of it. For example, what the aitch is F sharp major???? LOL. My recently retired PCP who plays in a band (and wanted all his life to be Eric Clapton) told me that yes, some people are tone deaf. I can tell one note from another if they’re on opposite ends of the scale. Any two notes beside each other sound the same. I suspected it but he confirmed it. Now I mostly just listen to and enjoy music. I envy people who can look at a sheet of music and “hear” the sound as intended. To me, that’s magic.
AFTERNOON UPDATE via Just The News, citing various sources. SCOTUS decides that the Texas law can go into effect, and that police can arrest illegal aliens there.
“The court rejected an emergency request from the Biden Administration that claimed states don’t have authority over immigration and that it’s strictly a federal issue.
“The law in question is Senate Bill 4 and it allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border and give judges authority to deport them back to Mexico.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation last year, but it was blocked by a federal judge last month.
” ‘HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court. Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court,’ Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote on the social media platform, X.
“The three liberal justices dissented….”
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/supreme-court-rules-texas-can-enforce-law-allowing-police-arrest-migrants
F# maj. scale — f# (1), g# (2), a# (3), b (4), c# (5), d# (6), e# (7), f# (8) repeat
Looks and sounds like this: Bach, WTC 13, https://youtu.be/lJCpUW1Q1yc?si=mQebh0ejBiB92d1z
Rufus T. Firefly, I am glad to hear Catholic parishes are beginning to recover some chanting in church. In my high-church Anglican parish, we sing psalms and canticles and the Sursum Corda, Benedictus, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei, although in English, not Latin. We also chant the Lord’s Prayer, to a very ancient tune.
I saw that on the Smothers Brogthers Show during the 1967-68 season.
In Eric MeTaxes biography of Martin Luther, he said that the Roman Catholic Church of Martin Luther’s day did not have congregational singing. Only the clergy sang at the church. Martin Luther made a big deal out of congregational singing, even writing Hymns . ” A Mighty Fortress is our God”, perhaps being the most famous.
The decline of the U.S., an unforced error.
Having acquired a couple of History degrees (from reputable academic institutions before the leftist mind virus infected Academia, and began the process of effectively destroying their brand), I am very well aware of the rise and inevitable fall of all past civilizations, and the general conditions in them.
Moreover, how, when compared to how we live here in the U.S today–in terms of our health care, personal safety, access to food, and adequate or better shelter, our longevity, literacy, and access to knowledge, to literature, and to “entertainment,” access to travel and communications, our personal freedom, general living conditions, and having some measure of say over the course of our lives–their lives were, almost without exception, “nasty, brutish, and short”–their rulers ruled their lives, and usually took advantage of and despoiled them at every opportunity, they were very often tied to the land, poor, subject to all sorts of diseases, accidents, wild animal attacks, random violence, invasions, extremely high infant mortality rates, plunder, inferior shelter and cold leading to death from exposure, and they often lacked sufficient food, suffered the effects of deficiency diseases, and died of starvation.
All in all, in past eras life expectancies were a third, or perhaps even far less, than ours today, and they were generally miserable lives.
In other words, far too few of us here in the U.S realize just how incredibly lucky we are, how we live in material circumstances whose heights have never been reached or occurred in past civilizations; material circumstances which are superior to how those rulers of past civilizations lived.
(It has been remarked that the average middle class person here in the U.S. lives in material circumstances better than those of many of the upper classes in Europe.)
Thus, I observe, with great sadness, how far too many of our supposed “leaders”–infected with the Leftist mind virus, and lacking a knowledge of history, vision, or true patriotism and, above all, lacking in wisdom—are very determinedly and systematically dismantling and sabotaging their and our own civilization, leading, it seems inevitably, to the U.S.’s likely premature decline.
thanks sdferr, I could never get the notes part of the deal,
that joke in Amadeus where the Emperor tells him if he could hold the note longer,
no it’s quite deliberate, like sappers they thought about bringing the republic down, did it start with dewey, thats what one leading source suggests, or was it socialists, like gramsci and alinski, a small part was played by appleman williams, a larger one by frankfurt school sages like adorno and marcuse, I first heard of the frankfurt school from allan Bloom, in closing of the American Mind although it was elaborated by one of my left profs, who has long since passed,
add to this boulibaisse, the likes of crenshaw and bell, the sowers of critical race studies, precursors of DIE, who influenced Obama, Zinn and his lost scrolls of Category error
Always loved “Classical Gas.” Hearing it decades later, I wonder whether Williams could have been inspired, with that pulsating opening followed by the rising passage, by the opening segment of the “Lacrymosa” of Mozart’s Requiem (the only part of it that Mozart himself wrote, apparently). The first 40 seconds or so of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MafAZeag1_0
I thought they had left out Rembrandt’s Man in the Golden Helmet so I had to re-watch it. It is very early in the clip. I was amazed at the number of images I recognized the first time through. Probably couldn’t name them even at a slow speed but have seen them. My mom had a print of Man in the Golden Helmet hanging in our living room when I was a kid. That was why I wanted to see if it was there.
did that know that about requiem, it really hits home
I think I must have seen the montage at some point,
Snow on Pine wrote:
Here’s a chart of the average income in about 90 nations:
Average income around the world
“Worldwide, around 4 billion people live without social security.”
About half of those listed countries fall below the USA’s Federal Poverty Level—for individuals, including China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, Iran and India.
2024 Federal Poverty Level (FPL):
For individuals $15,060
For a family of 2 $20,440
For a family of 3 $25,820
For a family of 4 $31,200
he seems nice
https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/1770092050253336845
Abraxas,
Sort of along the line you mentioned, “Loving Vincent” was the world’s first oil painted feature film. 65000 oil painted frames.
https://youtu.be/Gy0RVDM1sNA?si=zmV5YrWkLLRXultQ
And I have heard some very mellifluous chanting of the Masoretic cantillation of the Hebrew Bible. (It usually isn’t done quite that mellifluously. Unfortunately.) It is pleasant to listen to, and makes it easy to understand the text. and I imagine listening to someone chanting Homer was probably a very similar experience.
~ Lee Also
In HS and college Greek class we had to recite passages from the Odyssey, Euripides, etc., sometimes singly, other times engaged in so-called stichomythia, quick back-and-forth dialogue (which could be kinda fun, in a Preston Sturges sort of way).
Here, tackling the Iliad, is a born showman if ever there was one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzJQ0TcBmqU
Col. Daniel Davis had an interesting session “live streaming” the House committee investigating the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Davis had concluded in 2010 that the war was unwinnable and we should leave.
He explains in detail the events leading to the final rush to leave that proved disastrous. Many of our leaders performed poorly.
Milley Testifies on Afghanistan Withdrawal – Complete Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgtFOJ-s_LI
Canada to stop arms exports to Israel — Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Trudeau government intends to comply with non-binding resolution calling for the end of arms sales to Israel.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387019
Meanwhile: Israel must assemble a massive new arms stockpile
https://www.jns.org/israel-must-assemble-a-massive-new-arms-stockpile/
And: Israel advocacy superstar Eylon Levy suspended after diplomatic incident — UK government enraged after Israeli government spokesman says Foreign Secretary Cameron ‘factually incorrect’ in appeal for more trucks to enter Gaza.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387016
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/ketanji-brown-and-the-template-of?
some more detail
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/odors-and-opportunities-tuesday-march
seriously
https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1770215470127530246
@ miguel – thanks for the C&C link, that had the most detailed analysis I’ve seen of any of the three Trump cases, and he tackled all of them!
And it’s always interesting to see what El Gato Malo thinks about the world.
“ketanji brown and the template of doom” — trading literally everything for “a little safety”
Best lines out an excellent post: “it does not matter if those prevented from speaking were wrong. what matters is that the state suppressing their speech is wrong. always.”
And there were some great memes.
@ sdferr – thanks for the Bach link.
For anyone familiar with the piano but wondering how you can get 6 sharps with only 5 black keys, the e# (7) is actually f.
That one always throws me.
And the pianists I know HATE that key.
In re the topic: I don’t remember seeing that episode on the Brothers’ show, although I probably missed a few back in the day.
I would have liked it better if all the art had been in chronological order, so we could see what we got for our 3000 years.
The music is, well, classical.
I’ve always enjoyed it — never gets old.
Well, maybe after 3000 years it will.
No longer known just for their whiskey…
“Scottish Police Trained To Target Actors And Comedians Under Hate Crime Laws”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/scottish-police-trained-target-actors-and-comedians-under-hate-crime-laws-report
FEDERAL COURTS INDUCE WHIPLASH in Illegal immigration disaster.
That’s my conclusion from my topical contributions to this thread with this morning’s update on the latest emergency court order. Fox News is on it, but without good contextual explanation, it seems.
Here’s the Gateway Pundit’s clear takeaway headline and first paragraph:
Appeals Court BLOCKS Texas from Arresting and Deporting Illegals Hours After Supreme Court Ruling – Bush and Biden Judges Cast the Deciding Votes
By Cullen Linebarger Mar. 20, 2024 6:42 am165 Comments
A federal appeals court overnight blocked a Texas law that allows authorities to arrest and deport illegal migrants just hours after the Supreme Court ruled in the state’s favor.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/just-appeals-court-blocks-texas-arresting-deporting-illegals/
WHIPLASH! I say. WHIPLASH!
Background at the LINK.
Tom Homan, the former ICE director, interviewed about all this on FNC, before the top of the hour, says none of this matters because the Biden regime still has the last and final say on release or deport questions.
All illegal problems will fester, regardless of this legal wrangling dispute.
How very likely, I say.
Thanks, Rufus, for the Steely Dan link, and the Beato link a few days ago. I’ve been busy listening, mostly in background, to a 756 playlist of VEVO Punk & Emo Rock, from the last 3 years. In YouTube, where the category is Pop Punk.
What I like to more often listen to, and maybe sing sometime. Often fun with some anger and bouncy, danceable, tho not always. Heavy metal, starting with Iron Butterfly, has long been popular, bought, but seldom radio played much, and
I don’t care for most of it, tho often such groups have great ballad songs, with some powerful music. My first 3 kids liked it.
With internet like algorithms, there are huge numbers of ok to good songs (6-8 of 10), in my preferred style, which I’ll usually like more than even very good or great songs (9-10) in less liked styles.
I smiled a lot at the full list of bad songs, many of which I knew from Dr. Demento, like Martian Hop. Which I just heard and the next song is the interesting Flobots – Handlebars, tho also pompous. My daughter told me of it last night. I used to ride my bike with no hands.
Mason Williams also had novelty songs, often just about 1 minute, such as:
Them Hog Liver Likers,
Them Moose Goosers,
and an inspiring
The Prince’s Panties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB38IHW5hH8
When I took a creative writing class and created a Sci-Fi story, semi-X rated, I used part of the song, but the teacher (TA? Professor? don’t remember) crossed it out, tho the paper got an A.