happy Black Friday

Happy Black Friday everyone, hope you all got the deals that you wanted if you went shopping and hope no one got trampled; pic unrelated =D

happy thanksgiving everyone

just wanted to thank you all for your support, wish you a happy Thanksgiving, and bring a few "gestures of good will"  =D

for the occasion, Adam Sandler's "Thanksgiving Song"- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z27FKwupds

just for the hell of it, trombone virtuosi Joe Alessi and Wycliffe Gordon performing with the Julliard trombone choir- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqpjf65FpV0

you can't have a music blog without......

MUSIC JOKES! http://www.ducksdeluxe.com/jokes.html

have some laughs, people

jazzed up bach and a little more

got a little canadian brass for you today; in this piece, the members intentionally swing the notes of Bach's fugue #2 from his "Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1" which displays a "quasi-jazz" style of playing(didn't want to use the word "feel" to describe it =D) without obscuring the original polyphonic texture (texture in which a counter melody is played in tandem with the original melody, extremely  important in fugal writing) too much; anyway I hope you enjoy; also, they have many other works around the interwebz that are worth checking out

jazzed up Bach- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miB8p0Kgv5c

Mozart Rock- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pY_KKHIzLo (this one quotes the primary theme of the first movement  of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, so if you're familiar with it, you'll get a kick out of hearing it)

some oldies but goodies

got some old one for ya today, guess you could say I'm in a British Invasion kind of mood =D

1. "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn6cxaKRwtk

2. "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU3KELkd-zY

3. "Lola" by the Kinks- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJiHp-2CmVY

4. "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos (Eric Clapton, wrote it about George Harrison's wife, who was in love with)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WUdlaLWSVM

5. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd (I included this one in a comment on another blog, but it couldn't hurt to put it here as well)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNhHV03vVCk

hope you enjoy these songs from the 60's and 70's

dat zappa and a little more

early works from Frank Zappa:

"the Duke of Prunes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7qbMnZe_0k

"Amnesia Vivace" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJxxJpWcTGA

"Igor's Boogie" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiTxa1OWMaY

"Duke of Prunes" might be the easiest to listen to; "Amnesia Vivace" and "Igor's Boogie" are a little more "Avant Garde" (at least in the context of Zappa's music) than "Duke of Prunes" and might be harder to listen to, but they are definitely still worth a listen, and who knows? you might find some music you like that you never know you liked until now

also beemp3.com contains a large selection of free mp3s on there if you are interested in them; I managed to find the first movement of an early 1950's Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance of Richard Strauss's multimovement tone poem "Ein Heldenleben," conducted by Fritz Reiner, considered by many to be one of the finest performances of it, but it was taken down; if you still want to liste, here is a 1986 performance of it by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, and also considered to be one of the finest performances of it by many- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHoRPnrG-44

Marshall Gilkes-Slashes

It has been a while since I posted a link yo some music, so ladies and geltlemen, I present to you trombone virtuoso Marshall Gilkes performing an original composition of his, called "Slashes," with the Marshall Gilkes trio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMnHzQ2cMrs

question

responding to a post by Crazyace01 in a previous post got me thinking about something; what causes this ignorance that is seen in musical opinion in the masses these days? Why will someone try to hammer their opinion about a certain act/band/composer/artist or piece/work they like into someone else's head, and yet vehemently oppose that same person's opinions if they don't think as highly of the artist or piece as person 1, instead of appreciating person 2's opinion and possibly having an intelligent and worthwhile conversation on their musical tastes? e.g. Why do some metalheads praise the ground that bands like Cannibal Corpse, Meshuggah, Metallica, Candlemass, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest (just to name a few) and yet consider the music of genres such as rap, pop, techno, and classical music as complete garbage? Do these people (not just metal heads, everyone who displays this practice of "musical elitism") receive some inflated sense of self worth, thinking that their opinion has a milligram of significance, or are they just unaware of the fact that all of these artists contribute to the collective whole of music? What I understand about music is the existence of opinion-it exists everywhere; hell, even I have my own opinions about music, in some cases to extremes; what I don't understand about music is why there is so much ignorance when it comes to musical opinion. Your thoughts on this?

feeling a little twentieth century at the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOK98q_ILA-the Black Page

title says it all, from the late. great Frank Zappa, hope you enjoy this milestone of the evolution of his compositional style (this piece is said to be from some time during the eighties,  when Zappa started to compose music that would be too dificult for human performance, hence the synclavier, and this piece displays this increasing difficulty in his compositions) also, I will leave you with something I mentioned in a presentation I gave on the evolution of his compositional style: One of the main views on his compositional style is that he basically evolved his style into oblivion (listen to "Civiliztion: phase iii in its entirety then go back in his career and listen to earlier works) and that his later compositions didn't really say anything. I ask you all to look at this evolution from another perspective- he wanted to see music (possibly as a whole) transcend its current state and reach the next level (what would really be considered the next level? twentieth century composers such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Nancarrow, Ligeti, Webern, Babbit, the list goes on, already broke through many barriers with their compositional styles and twentieth century inventions (such as atonality, aleatoric (chance music, John Cage) music, pointilism (klangfarminmelodie, or in Zappa's words- klangfarbinmusic, this list also goes on) and set these "quasi-boundaries" that I think Zappa wanted to push through himself for music's sake and its further evolution) and he wanted to write compositions to aid in the preservation of music because he loved it so much and dedicated his ENTIRE life to it; he came pretty damn close with "civilization: phase iii" (keep in mind that this is my personal opinion on the matter and there are as many other opinions on his compositional style out there)

website of Marc Papeghin

I posted a youtube link of "When Dream and Horn Unite," and arrangement of various themes from Dream Theater songs for horn ensemble by Marc Papeghin, but I want to post the link to his official site, which includes his arrangements of other pieces for horn ensemble, such as a tribute to John Williams, a tribute to Symphony X (similar to the Dream Theater tribute), an arrangement of Christmas music, and an arrangement of themes from television shows; I hope you enjoy- http://www.marcpapeghin.com/

stuff and things

lookey lookey what we have here-an older live performance of 'Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan; there was this same video on youtube a few weeks ago without the subtitles bu I think they took it down....... anywho- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgRzOBzVgBE&playnext=1&list=PL8A21E66440023142&index=18

also here's an old live performance by Jerry Lee Lewis of "Great Balls of Fire"-  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IjgZGhHrYY

also, here is a link to convert any youtube videos to mp3s-  http://www.video2mp3.net/ it is worth mentioning that your pop up blocker should be able to withstand the intense heat of a thousand pop ups before you visit this site

hornplayer.net

oh boy! the first non-youtube link! =D anyway, this is a website that deals with the french horn-information archive, advertisements for things being sold related to the horn, lists of teachers, etc. tons of information regarding the French horn; I hope you enjoy- http://www.hornplayer.net/

when dream and horn unite

part 1 of 2 of Marc Papeghin's arrangement of various themes from the works of Dream Theater, arranged for horn ensemble, titled "When Dream and Horn Unite"- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeD2x9qz8Rk
the list of Dream Theater works he draws from is found in the description of the second video, which you can find in the "related videos" section of part 1

mothership

a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra of Mason Bates' composition "Mothership," which is to be performed by the Youtube Symphony Orchestra at a later time- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0K1kJOins4

carnival of venice

one of the foremost virtuosi of the trumpet, playing Arban's "Carnival of Venice" with the Boston Pops Orchestra- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-jDld11jhw

welcome

welcome to this blog everyone; it will be dedicated to music (links to youtube videos-classical/popular/world music, links to websites that have to do with instrumental performance, links to websites with information about music, you get the point), I hope you will enjoy