Gathering of the Blogs

Tartan Day took me by surprise this year, and I didn't have enough time to prepare anything new. Please excuse me if I recycle some music from previous years.

Here are MIDI arrangments I made of a variety of Scottish tunes:

Lady Charlotte Campbell
Lady Mary Primrose
Warrior O'Persie
Fingal's Dirk
Largo's Fairy Dance
High Road to Linton
Andowin at da Bow
Tulloch Castle
Drummuir Castle
Marry Ketty
Cameronian Rant
The Athole Highlanders' Farewell to Loch Katrine
Rothiemurchus Rant
Muillean Dubh
Because He Was a Bonny Lad
The Strathbogie Editor
Wm Mac Hardy's Strathspey
Dr. Shaw
Pretty Peggy

For those of you with coarser tastes, here are some mp3s of Caledonian music I arranged for software synthesizers and sequencer. Don't look for subtlety here. File sizes range from about one to four megabytes.

Scotland the Brave
New Riggit Ship
Ghillie Callum
Harp and Claymore Medley

Finally, here are some pictures of my sister the Highland dancer competing at a Highland games in Kansas City a few years ago.

Here's the list of the weblogs participating in the Gathering of the Blogs:

Absinthe & Cookies
And then I woke up
BabyTrollBlog
Blackfive -- the Paratrooper of Love
Bodhran Roll, Please
Common Folk Using Common Sense
Consul-at-Arms
The Country Pundit
Dodgeblogium
Doggie's Blog
Frizzen Sparks
Grims Hall
Hillbilly White Trash
Kooky Kookbook
Lintefiniel Musing
The LLama Butchers
MB's Blogalicious
MB's Blogasm
Miasmatic Review
Not Exactly Rocket Science
Physics Geek
Quicksilver in the Hand
The Reality Ranch
Rexblog
Second Breakfast
Stix Blog
Swap Blog
TacJammer
Target Centermass
The Bull Speaks
Villainous Company
What a Sad Old Goth

More...

[0] comments (1899 views) |  link

Still busy

I'll be back eventually. In lieu of an actual post, here's the most recent iTunes shuffle:

"Ichiya Hashi" -- Masuda Toshio, Mushishi Soundtrack

[track 28] -- Masaki Kurihara, Yotsuba&!

"Am Morgen Fruo" (Remix by Bruno Kramm) -- Qntal, Illuminate

"Silent Wonderland -Rem Sleep-" -- Kou Ootani, Haibane Renmei Soundtrack

"Suisei Coatl no Hibou" -- SeraMyu

"Get Out of My Yard" -- Paul Gilbert, Get Out Of My Yard

"Rondino (Les Bulles de Savon)" -- Bizet, Jeux d'enfants; Laurence Fromentin & Dominique Plancade

"Mr. 9 O'Clock" -- New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, Fresh Out The Past

"Transcendental Study Nº 13: (Untitled)" -- Sorabji, 100 Transcendental Studies Vol. I; Nº 1 – 25; Fredrik Ullén, piano

"In the Kraton" -- Godowsky, Java Suite; Esther Budiardjo, piano

[0] comments (1424 views) |  link

10% piano

It's time to play the iTunes shuffle. Let's see if I can scandalize Erik again this week:

[track #3], Masaki Kurihara/Kuricorder Pops Orchestra, Yotsubat&!

"Struttin' With Some Doner Kabob," New Orleans Klezmer Allstars

"The Beer Barrel Polka," Brave Combo

"Yawarakai Kaku," Masuda Toshio, Mushishi OST

"Coney Island White Fish," New Orleans Klezmer Allstars

"Voices," Yoko Kanno, Macross Plus OST

Dos Aires Populares Cubanos (2 Popular Cuban Airs) - Guajira Criolla (On A Theme Of Anckerman), Leo Brouwer; Ricardo Cobo, guitar

Petite Suite - 3. Menuet, Debussy; Laurence Fromentin & Dominique Plancade, piano

"Night," Caprice, Songs of Innocence and Experience

"Wind Touches My Cheeks Gently," Koh Otani, Haibane Renmei: Petitnone

[0] comments (1443 views) |  link

New horizons in music technology

Rachmaninov really did have huge hands, and it's not easy for pianists with smaller grasps to play those big chords unbroken:

More...

[0] comments (1701 views) |  link

Twinkle, twinkle

This belongs in my other weblog, but I'm posting this Flash game here as well for the Mozart fans. The directions are in Japanese, but you'll figure them out quickly enough.

(Via Irresponsible Pictures.)

[0] comments (1520 views) |  link

40% piano

Let's do the iTunes shuffle again. This time I'm at the office, where I have a different selection of music on hand.

Transcendental Study Nº 14: Tranquillamente Soave -- Sorabji (Fredrik Ullén, piano)
21st Century - Koi no Senshi ja Irarenai -- SeraMyu
Yuletide Town -- Masaki Kurihara and the Kuricoder Pops Orchestra
Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 11, No. 10 -- Scriabin (Horowitz)
Pieza Sin Titulo, #2 -- Leo Brouwer (Ricardo Cobo, guitar)
Jeux d'enfants - 4. Scherzo (Les Chevaux de bois) -- Bizet (Laurence Fromentin & Dominique Plancade, piano)
Densetsu Seitan -- SeraMyu
A Little Plate's Rondo -- Kou Ootani, Haibane Renmei soundtrack
K.24 Sonata in A major -- Scarlatti (Mikhail Pletnev, piano)
El Cumbanchero -- Brave Combo

[0] comments (1606 views) |  link

Peculiar music of yesterday and today

I don't have an iPod, but I do have iTunes, so let's play the random shuffle game:

This is a screen capture because I don't know how to do kanji. The first tune is "La Spagna" or "La Alta." "Minna Dareka ni Aisarete" and "Link" are from the SeraMyu musicals, about which you'd probably rather not know. Only a small fraction of my CD library is on the computer; at home, I usually listen to CDs the traditional way.

[0] comments (1354 views) |  link

Elephantosity and more

How about some elephant music? Here's King Crimson's "Elephant Talk." The video quality is mediocre, but the sound isn't bad for Youtube.

And some basic rock 'n' roll from Thee Michelle Gun Elephant:



Steven Riddle recently wrote a Catholic interpretation of "21st Century Schizoid Man". I looked for a video, but nobody was anticipating YouTube back in 1969, and I couldn't find anything satisfactory featuring King Crimson. However, I did find a number of covers, the most interesting of which is this Japanese curiousity:



Finally, here's a cover of "In the Court of the Crimson King." The band includes Steve Hackett, John Wetton, Chester Thompson, Julian Colbeck and Ian McDonald -- not exactly your standard cover band.

[1] comments (1167 views) |  link

The Beatles at Shea Stadium

The Serbo-Croation-Tyrolean goat herder has posted Music Carnival #3.

[0] comments (1227 views) |  link

East meets West

Taiko plus klezmer:

Addendum: Is there klezmer in Japan? You bet (scroll down to "Episode #2").

There's also ferocious progressive rock.

Addendum 2: I posted a few notes on Japanese klezmer on my other weblog.

[0] comments (1148 views) |  link

A bit late for Halloween

One last guitar video, this time of Antoine Dufour playing one of Don Ross' funkiest compositions, "Dracula and Friends, Part One."

Post script: I just discovered that Dufour took third in the National Fingerpicking Competition at Winfield this year. Don Ross took first in the same competition twice in previous years.

[0] comments (1474 views) |  link

Don Ross

Presenting my favorite fingerpicker:

More...

[0] comments (1161 views) |  link

Let's rock

Thanks to YouTube, I may never get anything done ever again.

(Via Wonderduck.)

More...

[0] comments (1206 views) |  link

The nice term is "hybrid"

A couple of curiousities:

(Via my brother, the Van Halen fan.)

Subjecting hapless listeners to a certain canon is criminal assault. Playing it in prison is cruel and unusual punishment. Performing it on a battlefield violates the principles of just war. When I encountered it at dulcimer club meetings, I preserved my sanity -- barely -- by playing "Puff, the Magic Dragon" over and over until the Bad Music went away. Still, if you absolutely must play That Tune, this is how to do it:



(Via Steven Riddle and MamaT.)

[0] comments (1160 views) |  link

Quiet music

Here are a couple of (primarily) acoustic numbers to clear your ears after all that electric guitar.

Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, "I Haven't Told Her"

More...

[0] comments (1141 views) |  link

Loud music

Iowahawk recently posted several videos of mid-1960's "freakbeat and garage" music. My own tastes run a little later and a little noisier. I just spent a little time at YouTube and found some old favorites.

I think this is the performance I saw by Focus on teevee a few centuries ago:

More...

[1] comments (1162 views) |  link

Name that tune

Here's something from my other weblog that you might find amusing: the ending theme to Mahou Shoujo Tai, or Tweeny Witches. See how long it takes for you to recognize the music.

[1] comments (1435 views) |  link

Playing strings of aether

The Legend of Zelda theme on theremin:

The inventor of the theremin lived a remarkable life. Here's a biography that includes a picture of his wife.

(Via Hop Step Jump!)

[3] comments (1214 views) |  link

Asian bluegrass metal attack

God of Shamisen.

[0] comments (1212 views) |  link

Scottish noise

Here's an unsubtle, untraditional medley of three tunes from J. Scott Skinner's The Harp and Claymore. They are "Milladen," a strathspey written by Skinner; "Clout the Cauldron," which Skinner states is "from an arrangement by John Davidson, Aberdeen;" and "Where Gadie Rins" or "The Hessians' March," the "march past of the Gordons."

Harp and Claymore Medley (3.6 megabytes)

Technical notes: This was done in Logic. The harp and guitar are Liqih's HarpTime and Microrock. The other noises are from the ES2 and EXS24, both part of Logic.

[0] comments (1163 views) |  link

... and tell Tchaikovski the news

I came across a cute little noisemaker for Macs: Hyperupic. It transforms graphic files into sound, similarly to MetaSynth. However, unlike MetaSynth ($499), it's freeware.

Here's one realization of the picture of Binchou-tan below:

Binchou-tan (172 K)

Here's what happened when I ran a Nutcracker picture through it (click on the picture (1 megabyte)):

[0] comments (1133 views) |  link

25

This week's Carnival of Music is up at Pilgrimage to Parnassus.

[0] comments (1594 views) |  link

Mrs. M meets Mrs. M at the north bridge

I was curious to see just how well the tunes this week did go together, so here they are, two at a time and all at once. In order of appearance, they are "Mrs. MacInroy of Lude," the strathspey; "Mrs. MacInroy of Lude," the reel; and, "North Bridge of Edinburgh."

MacInroy Bridge (1.1 megabyte)

[0] comments (1936 views) |  link

Late bloomer

A footnote on Mozart from Hucbald:

My first hint that something was wrong with the Mozart myth came when I was a doctoral candidate. I stumbled across some facsimilies of his notebooks from his time taking counterpoint lessons from Padre Giambattista Martini. They sucked! I mean, they sucked ass! By that time, my counterpoint was far superior. Just wacky weirdness permeated these notebooks: Abortive fugal attempts with inappropriate harmonic passages and... hopeless. At the beginning, that is. He was indeed... ah... a very fast learner. But he was a teen at this time, so what about all of that impossible-for-his-age early stuff?

Well, it now seems that his father Leopold probably corrected a lot of that early music, and he may even have written some of it entirely!

[0] comments (1940 views) |  link

No hits, one error

I was surprised to discover yesterday that No Hits Radio still is broadcasting online, even though I cancelled it last week. I don't know how much longer it will remain available, but if you want to hear some eccentric music that caught my fancy, you can still tune in.

[0] comments (1654 views) |  link