25 new of 122 responses total.
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: