[NOTE: Part I can be found here and Part IIA here.] As I’ve written before, until recently all I knew about the Bee Gees were a few of their disco-era songs and a vague recollection of longish hair, and I … Continue reading →
[Hat tip: commenter “huxley”.] It strikes me that this is a good metaphor for what’s been happening to the idea of justice at the hands of the campaign for “equity” [emphasis mine]: For decades leading symphony orchestras have used “blind … Continue reading →
I’ve gotten fascinated by the process of songwriting, something I don’t understand. I think I can safely say I will never write a song. But there are people who do it from childhood on, over and over. Sometimes they never … Continue reading →
In my recent explorations in the field of popular music, I was reading an article in which a certain person’s singing voice was described as having vibrato, and I immediately thought, “No, it was tremolo.” Then I suddenly realized that, … Continue reading →
Here’s a little residual post-Valentine’s Day angst. I am struck by the similarity of the theme of both of these songs. I guess there are only a finite number of things you can say about heartbreak: Neil Young’s voice shouldn’t … Continue reading →
ADDENDUM: Here’s a description of the premiere of Beethoven’s 9th: …[T]he Ninth Symphony was premiered on 7 May 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna…This was the composer’s first onstage appearance in 12 years; the hall was packed with … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] The Bee Gees came briefly onto my radar screen in the late 70s through the extraordinary popularity of their “Saturday Night Fever” score. Then for me they faded out of sight and hearing, … Continue reading →
Leonard Cohen songs keep coming to mind – and not just any Leonard Cohen songs, but the ones he wrote in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during an especially dark period in his musical oeuvre. Cohen had a lot … Continue reading →
And the best of all is sibling close harmony. That’s where nature and nurture can combine to make different-yet-somehow-similar voices blend in a special way that creates a full and resonant whole that is far more than the sum of … Continue reading →
This is about music. But I think it’s about a lot more, too: When the human element goes out of art, the art suffers greatly. We perceive it, even if we’re not necessarily conscious of why things sound different. I … Continue reading →
Seriously, how do these old guys do it? Russell Hitchcock (the high tenor) has the sort of voice that doesn’t usually last till the age of 65, which is how old he is in this video. The other singer – … Continue reading →