Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Music, Encore une Fois

Attributes of Music - Anne Vallayer-Coster
(Source)
Over the more than five years that I've been doing this blogging thing, I've posted a number of times about music. Searching for "music" on The Chant will yield numerous hits, even a couple from Tuna and Juvat. The idea of writing about music (as opposed to writing music) tickled my fancy so...

What's that? How does one search on The Chant? Well, one method is at the top of the blog, the other at the bottom, they don't show up on smart phones unless one goes to  web view, but they look like this on a standard computer -

Top left of the blog...
and bottom right of the blog.
You type in the word(s) you wish to search for and voilà old posts are presented which contain some mention of the search term entered. Most of the time. In olden times, like last year and earlier, every now and again Blogger would suffer some form of issue in its search algorithm and spit out complete nonsense. I haven't seen that in a while so maybe they fixed that. (Though I have to mention that, for some reason, Blogger will occasionally eat comments, Andrew's comments, Paul's comments, Skip's comments, occasionally even my comments. So Blogger's state of "mental" health is always somewhat suspect.)

But I digress.

I was going to throw up a couple of links...

What? No, I didn't eat the links and then vomit them up, perhaps "provide" is a better term than "throw up". I mean in context it's all the same but...

Yeah, the English language is funny. More funny "strange" than funny "ha ha," but again, I digress.

Where was I? Oh yeah, music. I like music. Not all music, though "most" music is close to the truth. I don't normally like all of the music from one particular composer/band/orchestra, some produce more favorites than others. As my tastes are somewhat eclectic, I listen to a broad range of music. I like whatever strikes my fancy or my mood at any particular time. But there are musical forms that I don't care for at all, in general, though there may be a piece or two from a particular (otherwise despised) genre that I do like. Rare, but it happens. (For some reason M&M springs to mind. The rapper, not the candy.)

Country music. Now that's a pretty broad category, one with which I am not conversant with all of the various styles, nuances, and subcategories. While I used to watch Hee-Haw back in the day, I have no desire to visit Nashville for the music. (For the food yes, but we're not talking about food today. Now I'm hungry, damn it. Ha, just kidding.) It's not that I don't like country and western and it's various forms, it's just not my favorite. There are individual songs that I like very much. Just not all of 'em.

Rock and roll is the same. While I enjoyed a number of the late Tom Petty's songs, I never owned one of his albums. (That's what we called the medium upon which our music was delivered back in the Pleistocene Epoch.) The albums I spent my own hard cash for were The Beatles and Jethro Tull. Of those two bands I owned, at one time or another, all of their albums, at least those published up to about 1980. Once I became a (somewhat) respected husband and father I no longer had the time nor the money for that sort of thing. I also lacked the stereophonic equipment to listen to those albums.

(When he was a toddler The Naviguesser found it très amusant to break the stylus off of my fairly expensive turntable. Made it hard to listen to the music and scratched the Hell out of the vinyl. As he was nobbut a wee thing, I didn't really punish him for that. But having to put the turntable "away" and bring it out to use it became tiresome. So it all went into storage and was eventually donated to someone without children. Sigh.)

These days, through the magic of YouTube, I can listen to just about anything I want. Well, except The Beatles, their originals, like the American bison (buffalo if you will) were once numerous throughout the Tube o' You. Now all that's left are "covers" of their music. Seems that the surviving Beatles have some very good lawyers. Even Google fears them (and Google fears almost nothing). While I'm not really sure of what happened to all of the original Beatles tunes on YouTube I'm pretty sure it had something to do with copyrights. I know a thing or two about those. (DAMHIK)

Anyhoo. I like a rousing tune now and again. Perks me up.

I had thought about bitching about Columbus Day. Then thought better of it, I have no dog in that hunt, my company doesn't get that off on the day itself but later between Christmas and New Year's. (There are five Federal holidays we defer until Christmas. Or "End of the Year" as the PC crowd puts it.)

Besides which, someone else did it far better than I could. (Address Columbus Day that is.)

My solution to the perceived problem of the Columbus Day holiday? Call it Explorers' Day, celebrate all those guys: Magellan, Vespucci. De Gama, Columbus, Leif Erikson, etc. Heck, to make it fair, include the first hardy band who crossed the Bering Land Bridge to North America. After all, the so-called indigenous peoples didn't originate here (so they're not indigenous after all) but came here from somewhere else, just like the rest of the continent.

They just got here first.

Hhmm, almost forgot, a post about music with no video?

I better rectify that.



Don't wanna be ironic...



22 comments:

  1. I find it more efficient to go to Google and type in my search term a space and then site:oldafsarge.blogspot.com. Google returns hits only from that site and presents them in its familiar format. Works for any website, by the way.

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  2. It was Thanksgiving in Canada yesterday.
    Maybe they have the right idea?

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    1. And it was Thanksgiving in Korea the week before - October 4, 추석 (Chuseok). Most harvest festivals seem to take place in October, ours is in November and I like it like that.

      Americans of Italian ancestry like Columbus Day, we should keep it.

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  3. I beg to differ about renaming 'Columbus Day' to something else. Yes, he didn't 'find' North America, yes, his calculations on the diameter of the earth were short by a huge amount, no, he didn't 'prove' that the 'world was round.' He also wasn't the first European to come ashore in the 'west' as it looks like the Phoenicians (South America, for a stop), the Chinese (west coast North America,) the 'Vikings' (really north North America, and they stayed for a while) and even the Irish (if you can believe those drunken monks.)

    So what?

    He found the balls to say "What the Heck," took his business approach to some rich people, and then did the deed. More than once. Paving the way for most of our forefathers to escape whatever hell-hole they were in and come to a nominally better place. Again, He Had The Balls. Big ones. Huge. Super-Dense, Compressed Radioactive Brass Balls. He made 'Coming to America' cool (again.)

    I celebrate his achievements while understanding his failures. And that is why I celebrate "Columbus Day."

    I don't want my holidays washed away in political correctness. Growing up we (my generation and before) celebrated Washington's Birthday and even Lincoln's Birthday, celebrating the greatness of the men (through Washington) that founded and originally fought for this nation, and celebrated one kick-ass, pissed off white dude (get over it,) and celebrating the rags-to-riches story of one of the nation's greatest leaders (love him, hate him, you can't admit he wasn't a great one, and as much of an ass he may have been, once the war was over he did want to put down the weapons and peacefully reassemble the nation (reconstruction as a punishment might not have happened if he lived. Thanks JWB.)) and also the celebration of one of this nation's most troubling times (that would be the whole South vs North unpleasantness, the whole slavery thingymabob.)

    So what did they do? The powers that be? They took away these two great men's celebration (and the celebration of all the greatness behind them) and instead caved to a minority to give it to Martin Luther King, and then less than 20 years later, they (the minority) pissed all over what legacy MLK had, to the point where if you listen to MLK, what he said is totally against most of what the certain minority, as a somewhat organized group, is striving for. Equality? Gone. Everyone is the same no matter what color? Gone. Putting away the last of 'Jim Crow?' Nope, as that certain minority must now have separate dining halls, classrooms, transport, living arrangements, bars, shops....

    But I digress...

    I would not mind having a specific 'Explorers' Day' on a different day than Columbus Day. But do not take my Christopher away.

    (Sure, his actions in opening up trade routes led to the deaths of millions and millions, but not at his hands. Sure, the 'Native Americans' died off and eventually were pushed into bad lands by 'evil white people', but there was a long history of them killing themselves, them dying of plagues, them killing us, long-time before we said "Screw it, go over there and stay." (Not defending all of the negative action against Native Americans, just trying to put it in perspective (like, the NAs might have been one of the primary reasons Vikings didn't succeed here.)

    Quit whitewashing our history. Leave our celebrations alone. And our monuments. Make your own celebrations (if it is valid, we'll accept it. Just not 'Che' day unless it is a universal celebration of one of the biggest monsters in recent history.) Make your own monuments (again, valid heroes are cool. Che, Mumiya, the Black Panthers, not so cool (well, once they reach room temp in Viking Hel...)

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    1. Wow.

      Columbus Day stays, I withdraw "Explorers' Day" as a replacement for same.

      All excellent arguments Andrew.

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    2. And I also like a wide range of music. Though I think the best rap ever is from Weird Al.

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    3. And 'Che Day' is supposed to be a universal celebration of the DEATH of one of the biggest monsters in recent history.

      Damn my eyes for not catching that. Big mistake, right up there with not seeing the 'don't' in 'Don't Charge.'

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    4. Love Weird Al. "Amish Paradise" and "White and Nerdy," love 'em both.

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    5. "Che Day" I first saw references to that this year (like today). I'd never heard of it before. He was a real "piece of work." If you replace work with another four-letter word which starts with "s" and ends with "t."

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  4. "They just got here first." Well, if by 'they' you are referring to the people who were living on the continent when C. Columbus and party arrived, then no, they didn't get here first. They are the descendants of those late comers who killed off the people who got here first. I know, I know, how very un-PC of me. But the Indians with whom I went to school all preferred to be called Indians, not " Native Americans ". Besides, native means one who was born in a particular place. As I was born in this country, that means that I am a Native American. And I so mark on any questionnaire that provides that option. I will also mark myself as " African American " if given the option, as my ancestors came from Africa, according to archaeology.

    I guess all that was more like two bits worth than two cents worth. But someone pushed one of my hot buttons.

    Thanks for the post.

    And the opportunity to spew.

    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. Yes, the one's who were here when Cristoforo Colombo arrived (I prefer proper names, always, I tend to think "Roma" when I say "Rome"). As to an earlier human presence on this continent, I had no idea. I found a fascinating Smithsonian article on the topic. Which I'm reading now.

      Political correctness is illogical and flies in the face of historical fact.

      AIM the American Indian Movement. In Canada they are called the First Peoples. Heh, seems they weren't first after all.

      Science, ya gotta love it.

      (I tell folks that I'm Native American, I was born here. My wife is not, she a naturalized citizen. To boot, there are one or two drops of Seneca blood in the OAFS. While I can't open a casino, it's there.)

      Great comment Paul!

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    2. Have you read this Paul? Fascinating.

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    3. Thanks for the link. I just got around to reading it. About this: ( There is no other archaeological evidence attesting to such an early human presence in North America. ), the evidence is likely under water as the migration was usually along the coast as were the camp sites. If the ocean level was lower due to glaciation, then it will be much less likely to find such evidence.

      Sorry that this was so poorly written. I hope you understand what I was trying to say.

      Paul




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    4. I know exactly what you're trying to say and it makes perfect sense.

      We have evidence of human habitation on the island of Crete thousands of years ago. We have no evidence that they had boats which could cross the Mediterranean. Other than the fact that they were there and that Crete has been an island for over five million years.

      Hey, maybe the Cretans were really strong swimmers.

      :)

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  5. Dang Andrew! When you get on a roll, you REALLY Rock! (Obtuse reference to one of my favorite forms of music). Seriously though...Well spoken rant.

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    1. Thank you. Recently I have entered a new stage of life where I feel I must verbalize my feelings over what is wrong with the world, and my time reading obscure books in the library is becoming useful. Wish I had kept all my school notes.

      As to music, I even like baroque (yes, it can be fixed, but why?) One of the forms of music I really don't like is masturbation Jazz, otherwise known as modern jazz. You know, where every player gets his 2 minutes to musically jerk off during every piece of music. Every friggin time. Over and over again. Great, Mr. Trumpet player can make his $3,000 horn sound like my ass after overdoing it on burrito night. Oh, good, sounds lime Mr. Pianoman is trying to imitate two cats mating on a keyboard while high on catnip and being chased by a pack of rabid Chihuahuas. And now Mr. Bass player is showing that he thinks he's cool just because he's one string short of a real guitar. OMG! Is Drumboy having a Grand Mal Seizure, again? Yawn.... Almost rather listen to rap. No, come to think about it, no.

      Mongolian throat music? Yep. Love that stuff.
      Medieval music? Yep, yep, yep, especially the stuff from the crusades (the right side, none of that weird 'asian' stuff (Asian as the brits say it, not as we say it.)
      Pretty much everything Western European except for Irish diddle-diddle music (which is just modern jazz done to an Irish beat. Damn, people, really? 30 songs, all with a bad fiddle solo and a pennywistle solo and a flat-drum solo and... STOP! Listen to Enya for frick's sake, learn how to do something besides torturing cat-gut!)
      Japanese and Korean traditional music - all good.
      J-Pop and K-Pop - yep, like that stuff too (and some of the videos? wowsers!)
      Chinese music... meh. Kinda like an eggroll that is kinda off-flavor. Good to a point, but then...
      (Dot) Indian music - again, traditional, meh. Bollywood - yep.
      (feather) Indian (ish) - see comment about modern jazz, or Irish DD music. Take that stupid flute and shove it up your keister, meister!

      Love Sousa, marches and dance marches. Something about that man's writing is just... energetic. Empowering. Uplifting in a modest way, a way that normal man can handle.

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    2. Yeah, not a jazz guy.

      K-Pop, oh yes. It's a cultural thing. ;)

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    3. What's cultural about really cute women (okay, some girls but that stuff pervs me out quickly, bleh.) doing really good music? It's like techno-disco with, okay, pervy comment here, cute babes.

      I really am a dirty old fart. But then again, I have been since the age of 13, so there's no going back.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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