64 new of 122 responses total.
I think their later works (Talk, 90125, Big Generator coming to mind) aren't as good as the odler ones. If there was one specific CD to get... Hmm... I'd say either Going for the One or Fragile. (thats hard to think of, just one of them to get)
Thanks STeve, I figured if people who did not think they liked classical music could try to be broad-minded about it, I should be willing to reciprocate. I will try the library and Borders again with more suggestions. (The Finnish and Karelian folk music were not something I would want to hear frequently, maybe okay for dancing to in very cold weather). Thanks for letting me know whether to look for a performer or a group or a particular piece instead of trying all three categories.
Yes, it's frustrating, being told that you might like Albainin music and then not get any more pointers. Another two rock groups which might bear some listening to are Emerson Lake and Palmer (they did a version of Pictures at an Exibition), and the far more obsure group Camel (I belive the title 'snowgoose' comes to mind).
Are these all vocal? I tend to listen to music while translating and get too
distracted if there are words.
Other people looking for good non-classical music should also feel free
to ask for something specific in this item. I meant it to be of general
relevance.
I am wondering if the sorts of people who would have written good
classical music in previous centuries are steering away from a genre that is
not very attunedd to public taste any more, and composing in other genres.
Such as musicals and movies.
The Ponty and Passport (jazz) are non-vocal but all the rock is vocal.
All rock is _not_ vocal. I'll admit that I have yet to come a across a band which has _no_ vocal, but that certainly doesn't mean that it's all vocal. Many of my favorite bands have cut instrumental tracks, some of them, such as Porcupine Tree, have more instrumental tracks than vocal! <'Cloud smooths his bristles>
Sorry to have helped raise 'em. You are right of course, but there isn't much rock that is even 10% non-vocal, I don't think.
Non-vocal rock: the Steve Morse Band, one of my favorites, is definitely rock and definitely non-vocal. Adrian Belew has also made at least one non-vocal album, _Desire Caught by the Tail_ - or so I've heard, never having had a chance to listen to the whole thing. And, if you're willing to accept a wider definition of what counts as 'rock', I'll add Ashley McIsaac (rock-inflected Celtic), the California Guitar Trio (like the name says, three guitarists), and Poignant Plecostomus (local jazz-rock band). I'll admit I'm reaching here, but I'm sure there are more than these few... Oh, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood - another jazz-rock band, but more rock than jazz to my ears.
I'd count Ashley McIsaac as rock--at least his first album seems to be.
How many kinds of rock are there? What do they have in common? How do they
differ from other kinds of music (or are the edges of categories fuzzy)?
I have heard a bit of techno music, which was nonvocalic. It was very well
done, complex rhythm but I don't recall any melody.
Are some kinds of rock intended to be louder than others? Is rock sort
of a catchall term for non-classical non-jazz now? How is rock different from
pop?
Like any other genre of music, I think its far to say there are lots of different kinds. Rock evolved from blues and jazz it seems to me, based on listening to stuff from the early 50's. Name a form of music and you can probably point to some rock that has that as an influence. It would seem to me that what some call acid rock is supposed to be played loud, but given that I'm not a fan of noise, but of music, I'm not the right one to talk. I do know that there is a type of Rock (MArilyn Manson comes to mind) which seems like pure noise to me and not at all worthwhile. But thats me. Your question of how pop and rock differ is an interesting one. Maybe pop is often times 'immature' rock? I don't really know.
Gary Hoey and Joe Satriani are two Rock Guitarists who put out non-vocal works.
Is there any rock music intended as background music in the sense that it does not try to grab your attention with a strong beat? I still have not figured out what 'rock' music includes.
It might be easier to gather a list of 'well known' rock groups and use that as a boundary. Rock encompasses a lot of stuff. I'm not there there is any "muzak" rock. It may be an oxymoron.
I can listen to Mozart while working (Mozart is not muzak), I meant something
like that. Lots of classical music was meant to be listened to while doing
something else (walking around the gardens or at a party).
How would you categorize the stuff played on the Ypsi student station
(not counting their Indian and Turkish folk music)?
Interesting? ;-) I'm not very good as classifying music, for probably a couple of reasons. The most important one is that I don't really care what people call it as long as it holds my interest. Most people don't have that view I think, which is why my entire grade shcool thought I was crazy for my bringing Kabuki music to school. All I know is that I like good things and shun noise.
Re #73: Anything can be Muzak, even Mozart. Muzak, IMNSHO, is a "dumbing down" of a preexisting piece of music, whereby the soul and originality of the work is removed, leaving only a homogenized sound, usually featuring strings . . . .
Devo did a whole Muzak album of their various songs. According to one
interview, it's the one album they all really like still.
("Muzak" is the name of a commercial service. They record their own special
versions of recent hits to add to the collection. Supposedly they have people
employed full time doing this, just to keep up)
particulary when the likes of Henry Mancini have become decomposing composers.
resp:60 :: Sindi, which Finnish & Karelian folk music recording did you try out?
I don't recall, but I doubt that the library had more than one.
I found YES at the library, not bad but too much beat for my taste, but I will
give it more of a listen. I like my rhythm a bit more varied. But this is
certainly above the run of the mill rock music. Track 2 is Cans and Brahms,
with electric piano and synthesizer. I prefer the original arrangment but
this is interesting and certainly classical-based. The album is Fragile Yes.
Jim also liked the Brahms and wondered 'how did they both get on the same CD'?
(I guess he does not like the third track).
Maybe I had better stick to classical and folk (original and
imitation). The rock is just too repetitive. (Not that a lot of folk is not
awfully repetitive). Boom (next track). Sounds like a howling wind, and too
much percussion for my taste. Does all rock music have a lot f beat?
I don't know quite how to classify this one, but Anthony Phillips, once of Genesis, has a series of wonderful things called "Private Parts and Pieces", perhaps seven albumns now, of various little things he'd written over the years but didn't use. I have several on vinyl and just one on CD, but apparently they are available on CD now.
I was at the library today and I took a quick look over the folk CDs.
The ones I would suggest for Sindi, if she hasn't tried them already,
were:
the Irish band Altan, any CD
the Irish band Clannad, IN CONCERT (the other Clannad discs the
library owns are from their New Age period)
the finnish accordeon player Maria Kalaniemi, IHO is the title to try 1st
the Swedish band Vasen, SPIRIT (all instrumental, I think)
the Scottish harp duo Sileas, BEATING HARPS
I didn't have time to scan the jazz section, I'll try that next time.
resp:79 :: I suppose there are exceptions here and there, but in
general rock music is characterized by its Big Beat.
Yeah, I think the beat is what really puts it appart from other types of
music. It does not nessessarilly mean that the beat has to be simple. I was
reading up on Gentle Giant yesterday, and I came accross this interesting
snippet...
"In the middle section of Cogs in Cogs, the two vocal parts are in very
different meters. The first part to enter ("The circle
turns around, the changing voices calling...") is in 6/4, but the second
one ("Circle turns around the changing voices") is in
15/8. This means that the two melodies "line up" differently in 6
different ways. The phrases "meet" every 60 eighth notes."
I've listened to the song, and really is a neat effect. Maybe we should make
a new item called "Rock Music for Classical Lovers" it seems to be the way
this one's drifting... Oh well, I guess that the two are simaler.
Check out Genesis' "Suppers Ready" where the rhythmic figure is in 9/4 and the keyboard solos in 4/4.
which album is that on? I've already got "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," and "Selling England by the Pound"
Its on Nursery Crime or Foxtrot (it may also be on one of their live albums).
Beats like 9/4 or 7/4 are common in Balkan music and farther east. I think that a lot of recent composers are borrowing from other folk and classical traditions now. Will check out the Irish, Finnish, etc. folk-based stuff, thanks Ken. (If it ever gets a bit warmer).
We may get to the library this evening so I made a list: Ken's Irish band Altan, Irish band Clennad, Finnish accordion Maria Kalaneni 'IHO', Swedish band Vasen 'Spirit', Scottish harp by Sileas 'Beating Harps'. Maybe some interesting rhythm stuff by Genesis, Jean Luc Ponty's jazz, Passport, and Jethro Tull. If nothing else, I will be more educated after listening. (Did I miss any recent suggestions? Went back 30 responses). Seems like the more unusual folk music was preserved on the fringes of Europe - Celtic areas and Scandinavia - or else there is just more interest in folk revival there. I have a couple of folk-style tapes from Hungary, but from the rest of E. Europe the folk music is mostly real folk, not folk-style. People still listen to it on the radio in Bulgaria or Serbia, and the pop music is often folk-influenced (the stuff you hear in bars). An Italian friend made me a tape of Sicilian bagpipe music, bagpipes are also on the fringes - Scotland, Sicily, Macedonia and Greece and Bulgaria. Are they used farther east of Bulgaria? Or in any recently composed music?
Scott would you unlink this from houseplants? Dunno how it got here.
Music to grow the plants by?
The folkies seem to be dominating the suggestions so far. I'd re-iterate the earlier suggestion to try Dead Can Dance and would add another album on the same record label (4AD), Cocteau Twins. "Victorialand" might be a good album to start with..
OK, it is now unlinked.
I found IHO (Maria Kalaniemi Finnish), the Best of Altan (Irish), Clannad in
Concert at the public library. I somehow ended up there without my list and
will try other suggestions another time. Also found in with the original and
newly composed folk music some non-Western classical music from North India
Inkuyo Music of the Andes, and Armenia: Sources (folk?). For some reason
Asian classical music is classified as folk.
My apologies on the houseplant involvement, but I had accidentally
entered this item there, as you will realize if you start reading at the first
response. Some helpful people got it moved to Music and Classical but could
not figure out how to unlink it from Garden. Scott, how did you manage?
I will try Dead Can Dance and the jazz suggestions next trip.
Unlinking has to be done either by fairwitness (in the cf where it's incorrectly linked) or by cfadm.
Possibly the reason nonwestern classical music is included with folk is the lack of written notation. (This might not always apply, but does to some things called "nonwestern classical", I think.) I can think of a few other speculations as well.
What other types of music notation are used around the world besides European? I am curious about Chinese and Japanese notation. Indian, Iranian, Egyptian... Some of these musics have quarter tones.
(I unlinked it by going into the plants conf. and killing it.)
The library has two CDs by Jethro Tull on order, and one three-CD set in a
large cardboard box that would not have fit into my backpack. After the
library figured out that Dead Can Dance is an author, not a title, I found
three CDs and got out one, which I have not yet listened to.
Clannad was pleasant but only 30 minutes of concert, and no explanatory notes.
One piece sounded like jazz to me, the others probably folk based. I have
not yet read the notes for Altan, which was nice contra-dance type music.
I like Maria Kalaniemi (sp?) on the accordion best. Again, no notes. The
rhythms of several pieces were unusual: 2 2 3 or 3 2 2 beats. One sound just
like Bulgarian dance music, not Finnish. Where did she get her ideas? I will
listen to them all again and maybe record Maria.
I also got out some Iranian classical music from the folk section.
I notice that nobody has recommended anything from the library's categories
of gospel, blues, or country. Are these all vocal?
Jim likes old musicals (old being 1940s and 50s). Has anything been composed
since then on the level of Lerner and Loewe or Rodgers and Hammerstein?
Clannad in Concert is not their best, Keesan. One of hte pieces on there is a jazz improv on a trad tune, and while it's interesting, it's not what their "normal" pre-wallpaper music sounded like. Which Altan did you get? I like them quite a bit. I don't listen to the other categories of music, much. I don't like gospel or blues or country, though some country is not too bad, sometimes. I've heard a really good album or seven by Mary Chapin Carpenter, and I think it's Lyle Lovett who's had one played at the ARk while I was working on cleanup that I thought was darn good, but I grew up with the twangy country sound, and hate that with a passion. I really like Camelot, and many people tell me they adore the "new musicals" such as Cats, but the only soundtracks that I have from musicals are the ones to Godspell and JCSuperstar and *rummage rummage* movies like "The Prince of Egypt". Of course, I am biased heavily in favour of voice, and I don't own that many non-vocal albums. I have some drumming ones, and a really nice instrumental thing from a PBS special, but that's about it.
Just found out that Dead Can Dance broke up. maybe this is old news to some people...but it makes me want to cry... *sniff*
Clannad in Concert was the one that was recommended. The Best of Altan. I am enjoying some Music of the Andes, to which Jim is tapping his foot. The Armenian folk music was interesting. Are there any groups that do recently composed Peruvian or Indian music, that the library might have? Clannad was something I can listen to while working because I don't know a word of Irish. (Yet). If anyone wants, I can tape for them a selection of folk music from the Balkans (Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania) and E. Europe (Serbian/Croatian, Czech/Slovak, Hungarian). I have not yet listened to Dead Can Dance, it will have to be when Jim is not listening, judging from his reaction to Yes. While cooking? Andes Music also has a beat but it is somewhat variable and is not louder than the tune. Are there other folk dance musics that I might like besides Balkan, Scandinavian, and British Isles? I like unusual beats, such as 7/8, 11/8. What should I be listening to/for in Dead Can Dance? (How long were they together?).
CLANNAD IN CONCERT is so one of their best albums, is too is too is too. :) More to the point, it is the only pre-new-age Clannad album I found in the library's holdings. It's a short recording because it dates from about 1978, the LP era. There are hardly ever good notes on CDs any more. I may have an article on Maria Kalaniemi in one of my folk music magazines which I could clone for keesan. The library also had Kalaniemi's first American cd -- IHO, which you got, was her second. (Now I'll have to pull out my copy of IHO to look for the Bulgarian- sounding piece.) As to where she got her ideas: I'm pretty sure that Kalaniemi, like Varttina, the Hedningarna singers, and many of the current crop of Finnish performers, studied at the folk music school of the Sibelius Academy.
Oh, okay, you like it. I'll give you that one. Ken. But I never did like it much. But you know how much I don't like a lot of live recordings.
Re#97: Gospel is vocal pretty much by definition, AFAIK. I know there's plenty of instrumental blues out there, but I don't know enough about blues to point you in the right direction. I really have no idea about instrumental country: I haven't heard any, but I barely listen to any country at all.
Re #99: Oh, no! That's really too bad... I was looking forward to the next time they came around on tour, too! *sigh* Probably about the only non-"classical" group I've really enjoyed...
One could probably find some instrumental bluegrass recordings filed in the country section. But bluegrass is the only instrumental country which is coming into my mind.
mmmmm...lots of oldtimey stuff i have around here is instrumental...it ain't bluegrass, pa... i also have some pretty good instrumental stuff by bob wills and the texas playboys.
What genre would you call them? I like bluegrass, it is not too different
from the Irish stuff.
I listened to Dead Can Dance. It is a strange name for a group (do other
groups have a verb in their name) but quite appropriate. A very marked and
repetitive rhythm, and sepulchral (at at least very bass) tunes. The rhythm
seemed to repeat for four measures at a time, unlike new age music, which
repeats forever. How would you classify Dead Can Dance? What sorts of things
should I be listening for? The words are not intelligible enough to interfere
with my work (which involves thinking in two languages at once). What sort
of training did the group members have in music?
I would bet Maria learned something about Balkan folk music, at least
the rhythms, and it sounded a lot like Bulgarian folkdance. I will listen
again. The library will not let me take out any more CDs until I return most
of what I have, 18 was way over the limit. (I also got Bukhara Crossroads
of Asia, and some Corelli and Bach). Have to decide what to record before
they are all overdue. Maybe one piece from each of the recommended groups
for times that I feel like listening to something different, and probably most
or all of Maria and Bach.
Keesan, I dug into my music collection and found something you might like. It's a RealWorld CD of a group called Trisan, which consists of Joji Hirota (Japanese percussionist), Pol Brennan (Irish pianist, guitarist, flutist... from Clannad, originally), and Guo Yue (Chinese, plays bamboo flute) -- I got it out of the library originally, and fell in love with it -- all three musicians are classically trained in their own traditions, and they have written some neat songs that meld all three -- mostly instrumental, though there are a few vocal tracks. I ordered a copy from Schoolkids several years ago (it was put out in 1992, I think) and I can recommend it highly. Seems that no one else has heard of it, though.
San being the Japanese for something like 'honored sir'? In Japanese class I was Keesan-san. Tri for three? Thanks, will look for it after I get the number of CDs that I have out back down to under six. (I was going to record them first but the tape player is not working, suddenly, or it could be the receiver circuits, too much odd music?). Small world in music now.
-san is like "Mr.", or "person". It's pretty neutral. "-sama" usually translates to "lord", at least in old stuff (not sure about now). "-chan" is how you refer to your kids, and "-kun" is pretty intimate...
Ken, I listened to Maria again and identified the track that sounded Bulgarian. It is number 7, Sofias flykt. I did not read the list of tracks to identify it. Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria. The rest sounds Scandinavian. Interesting rhythms in teh Bulgarian one and I think also in a few of the others. 7/8, etc. The Inca music has some pieces with 5 measure repeated units. Hungarian music repeats 6 measures. Dvorak has some unusual combinations of rhythms. Most folk and classical W. European music is pretty predictable as far as beats/measure or measures/phrase: 2/4 3/4 and 4 measures/phrase or some multiple. Are there any folk traditions or other classical or other composers who play/write in 5/8, 13/8, 5 measures/phrase, etc? I have not analyzed the Armenian or Indian or Iranian music yet. Balkan music (Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian) has 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8, 13/8. Fun to dance to.
Bartok uses some folk songs (Hungarian, I presume, but I may be wrong) in 5/8 and 7/8 as melodies in a few pieces. From what I've heard about traditional Indian music, I think it tends to have irregular groups of 2 and 3 beats; things like 3/8 - 3/8 - 2/8 - 2/8, which adds up to 5/4 if you think of it as one big measure. On the other hand, most of the recordings of Indian music I've heard sounded like they were in straight 4/4 or 3/4, so I'm not so sure how common that sort of irregular rhythm is.
Go get "The Songs of India" by Ravi Shankar. He explains the different rhythm patterns. Very informative. Even more is reading his autobio.
I wonder whether the gypsy musicians, originally from India, helped spread the 5/4 type of rhythm to the Balkans and Hungary, where it is common.
Well, there hasn't been much activity in this item for a while and I'm not sure if anyone is still interested in discussing it, but if you like both folk music and classical music you might enjoy the Kronos Quartet CD 'Pieces of Africa.' It's a bunch of pieces by current African composers for string quartet, but is influenced quite a lot by traditional African music. I like it a lot. But then I like almost all of Kronos' CDs that I have heard, especially _Short Stories_ and _White Man Sleeps_. Just my thoughts on the matter...
Here are some suggestions for the classical music lover wanting to widen her tastes. In the jazz realm, try Kurt Elling, a marvelous vocalist. I would in particular recommend his third album 'At the Green Mill' or something very like that. He plays with rhythm in a neat manner and his voice is truly his instrument, as central as the content of his songs, both original and cover. Michael Hedges was definitely a guitarist who could appeal both intellectually and spiritually through his music. I'd recommend the albums "Taproot" and "Aerial Boundaries" as most likely to appeal. You could also try a group called Raphael with their two albums of "music to disappear in." This is probably classed as newage (rhymes with sewage), but of style it is head and shoulders above the pack, with an interesting translation of the "In Paradiso" from the Faure requiem into newage synthe-pop. I use this music frequently when doing massage; I love it a lot, it's also fine meditation music. The Jethrow Tull album with North Sea Oil on it is called Storm Watch, and it is a neat album, though Songs From the Wood is still my favorite Tull album. Finally, I would disagree with denigrating Yes's 90125 album for those looking for their classical influences. It is true the complexity of the music changed from earlier releases, but it is still rich, though perhaps further removed from classical sources, one can still hear them. And for rhythmic interest the song Changes has a neat intro, as does the song Leave It. I had several more, but 115 responses drove some of them out of my head. Oh wait, did anyone mention Ennya?
How could you forget the Moody Blues? Albums actually recorded with the London Philharmonic, etc...?
For that matter, Metallica recently released an album of hits with classical backing (the closest heavy metal might ever come to "muzak metal"). And ELP did Pictures at an Exhibition, or somesuch... Putting classical instruments in pop music seemed popular in early 80s "New Wave." The obvious example is ABC's Lexicon of Love, but others include Communards, Art of Noise, and Eurythmics, plus (later) Sundays and the genre that followed from that. Musak meets pop meets classical meets moog has St. Etienne as one of its finer examples... the music is hopelessly vapid and confusingly complex at once, one of my quirkier favorites.
Deep Purple did something akin to "Music for two unfriendly groups of instruments" with a classical orchestra.
resp:118 classical meets Moog.. reminds me of Wendy Carlos. Definitely a different instrumentation scheme. In that vein, I would think even Kraftwerk would be worthy of consideration, although I have only _The Mix_ for observation. Some music critics consider their form to be a bit more classical in structure than pop (i.e., folk), so I would make it a recommendation. My father-in-law is a classical enthusiast and loves "Switched on Bach," so I am going to see what he thinks of this German programming band.
St Etienne is more on the pop end, with those other influences in there. A friend of mine loaned me a very rare Weird Al/Wendy Carlos rendition of Peter and the Wolf, but it was fairly inaccessible to me... too weird.
ELP's version of "pictures at an exhibition, or somesuch" is definitely more on the side of "somesuch." They delete most of my favorite movements, add new (fairly dreadful) sections, etc. Given how faithful some of their classical arrangements are, I was amazed at how much they butchered this one.
You have several choices: