The Original One Hit Wonder

So posting youtube videos on the blog seems popular, so I thought I better try it. Heres my favorite.

Music Quote of the Every Few Days

"My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle." - Liberace

I don't know how I feel about this. Though it may be necessary to play pieces "out in front" if its not your favorite music, it sounds like he plays without caring for the music. Liberace was fairly crazy.. but it really sounds like he played for money and not for music. Or maybe the struggle is not meant to be the players problem, but the composer.

The Rest is Noise

Alex Ross's first book The Rest is Noise seems like it'll be a really great book. I've read the first two chapters now, and the book meshes history and music perfectly. He doesn't just give you the life of Strauss and in what year he wrote Salome, he discusses his relationship with Mahler and the opposing style and popularity of Bizet operas at the time. A knowledge of music history is not essential, but is helpful. He is also able to describe difficult and confusing music like Salome, with all its incest and necrophilia, while getting overall idea across. This could basically supplement a 20th century music history text, although there is no music notation.

Music Quote of the Every Few Days

"The pause is as important as the note." - Truman Fisher

Don't actually know who this is, and couldn't figure it out, but this is an important lesson to learn. Personally, I still haven't mastered this though. I use continuous notes while writing both my invention and my fugue for counterpoint. I wanted some rests, but they are extremely difficult to place. Anyway.. that is really enough about counterpoint.

Great Online Music Downloads? Where?!

So I started an eMusic (eMusic.com) subscription a while ago. Its not quite like the iTunes store because its a monthly subscription, but for $11.99 you get 30 tracks a month. Originally I signed up because I saw a 35 free tracks advertisement, and it turned out to be a great deal. After a couple months I stopped my subscription though.

Then they email me a deal to get 75 free downloads if I restart my subscription. So every couple months now, I get 105 downloads for $12. Like all subscription services, you have to stay on top of the pay date, and downloads DO NOT rollover each month, so you have to make sure to use em, but if you can do that, there is a great selection of music.

Music Quote of the Every Few Days

“If this word ‘music’ is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.” – John Cage

Well, Cage must have been tired of people calling his music.. not music. But this statement is a product of its time. Music has taken on such a broad definition to encompass everything that anyone cares enough to call music. I'm glad this is the case. Music should not be a term to describe a period of organized sound. It is universal.

Rachmaninov CD

A remastered CD of Rachmaninov playing Rachmaninov was recently released and it is absolutely amazing. It is so rare to hear the composer perform their own work, especially from that time, so I had always worshipped the original recordings, static and all. The new album is flawless though. I’ve never heard a piano sound better. It does only have his own compositions though, not any other of his recordings.