Music

A Music Questions Challenge

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Having seen this on starbreaker it would be impolite not to respond.

The Questions:

“What are five of your favorite albums?”
The Bothy Band
Escalator over the hill
Grounation
Second Star to the Right (Salute to Walt Disney) – now available in another version: Pink Elephants on Parade.
Trout Mask Replica

“What are five of your favorite songs?”
Songs are not music. If I wanted the intrusion of words I would read a poem.

“Favorite instrument(s)?”
Marimba

“What song or album are you currently listening to?”
Jasmine Wood – Piano Reverb

“Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?”
Yes. BBC Radio 3. Daily.

“How often do you listen to music?”
Daily.

“How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?”
Frequently. Subscribe to The Wire. Various blogs such as: A closer listen, The Quietus etc., radio.

“What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?”
Song: Let the Great Big World keep Turning:
Audio Player


Album: Bees on horseback.

“What’s your favorite song of all time?”
I do not like/favour songs.

“Has your taste in music evolved over the years?”
Not much. As long as it is an interesting noise and does not try to ‘talk’ to me or tell me a story it will probably taste good.

Duane Eddy 1938 – 2024

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As my several years older siblings moved on to other things I inherited the family record player and their old records. One of which was Duane Eddy‘s Peter Gunn (Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube) with Yep on the B side. It was one of those records from the late 50s/early 60s where the guitar had not yet assumed the starring role from the saxophone which wails along to keep things moving.

Almost thirty years later he re-recorded it with Art Of Noise (Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube)

London was a branch of Decca Records which licensed American recordings for release in the UK.

I thought Duane Eddy was in this but apparently not…but still worth seeing again:

Jettisoning Jetpack

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So farewell Jetpack. I subscribed from the early days when you offered some useful tools at a reasonable price. Over the years the price increased and the tools became less useful. So some of this blog will probably stop working. On departing you warn that I will no longer be able to use WordAds – whatever they are 🤷‍♂️.

I am sure it will be a great loss to both of us. Who does not enjoy websites littered with junk advertising? I know I do. But it is indicative of how the mercantile has subsumed the personal on the web these days. Having no need for an audience and no desire to build one I shall continue, regardless, with what interests/amuses/educates me.

Similarly I have closed my Bandcamp account. They seem to have become the type of people I try to avoid. I should also cancel my Apple Music subscription since they deemed Taylor Swift to be their artist of the year and their general uselessness…. but I have yet to find anything better and do not want to return to collecting records. It seems to be a service for people who neither like nor have any interest in music. In the days of yore if I ventured in to a record shop and was confronted by a Classical department filled with the non-classical titles available in Apple’s Classical app I would walk out as they clearly had no idea what they are doing. But on the other hand it does pass the Memphis Minnie test – if the record shop had something by Memphis Minnie that was easily findable it may be worth my time perusing their racks.

Similar artists to Edward Elgar???

More Classical Music app weirdness

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Having endured Apple Music since it started, begrudgingly paying an annual subscription mostly because it is no worse than any of the other streaming services, I was hopeful that the Apple Music Classical app might be an improvement. Alas what we have so far has left me somewhere between annoyed and angry.

What is classical music? According to Apple..

Does Apple Music Classical feature other types of music?
No. Apple Music Classical is completely focused on classical music.

https://learn.applemusic.apple/apple-music-classical

But as Kirk McElhearn points out in his extensive and more positive review there are endless examples of music that one would not normally class as classical. The common denominator seems to be that the composer has had a piece of their music performed by an orchestra or ensemble thus appearing to be leaning towards some form of classical style of music. One of McElhearn’s examples is Robert Fripp “whose music is about as far from classical as could be”

The inclusion of Fripp seems to hang on an interpretation of a section of Fracture from Starless And Bible Black by the guitarist Alberto Mesirca and a rendition by the Japanese Trouvère Quartet of 21st Century Schizoid Man.

From there we fall down the bizarre rabbit hole of Apple’s Music search algorithm which is so fuzzy it is often nigh impossible to determine why something has been included in the results. Fripp has twenty four albums listed in the Classical app. These range from his own albums to collaborations with Brian Eno to David Bowie’s greatest hits via Wagner and Stravinsky. The Wagner includes Robert Heger and, separately, The Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus, The Stravinsky, recorded in 1962 while teenage Fripp was concentrating on school examinations, similarly, I can only assume, is included because it was conducted by Robert Craft and features Paul Tripp 🤷‍♂️

So Classical = not Classical. Perhaps Serious would be a better descriptor – music created to be listened to rather than a product to be marketed and sold to specific demographic. As Duke Ellington once observed:

There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind … the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.

Duke Ellington: Where Is Jazz Going? Music Journal; New York Vol. 20, Iss. 3,  (Mar 1, 1962)

There are two kinds of Music app – the good Music app and the other kind….

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. 

Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing, Wired Feb 1, 1996

Apple’s Classical Music App 🤬

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I think I actually blushed on opening Apple’s Classical Music app. It is an iPhone app but the App Store assured me it works on my iPad. I have lots of iPhone apps on my iPad. They all work fine.

Who would not think it a good idea to have the text mingling with the Play and Browse buttons?

And is Ludwig van Beethoven really On This Album?

And did Frank Zappa write Bolero?

And is the third section not iii or III rather than Iii? At least they managed to get Elaine Radigue right…

….oh cancel that! Why is there no simple way to report such errors like there is on Apple Maps?

Let’s hope version 2 is not too far away and it makes some improvements… but I am not holding my breath.

The Dark Side of 50

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Apparently The Dark Side of the Moon first appeared fifty years ago. I did have a copy but had not been much interested in what they were doing since 1969s Ummagumma. As The Dark Side of the Moon was hugely successful around the world I was always amused by the local branch of W H Smith which sold it from a section in their record department labeled “Underground”.

But more than enough will have been written about that elsewhere let us explore the quieter backwaters with the less trodden paths where we can find delights such as a wonderful a cappella version: listen on Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube.

And then the reggae version Dub Side of the Moon: Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube or the remixed dubber version.

Closely followed by a string quartet version: Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube.

Connecting iPad/iPhone to GarageBand on a Mac – Wireless

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There is an old post, from 2011, that is regularly visited (I assume it is linked on a forum somewhere) and so it is probably time to do an updated version expanded into several posts covering all the options available today.

To connect using a WiFi network:

Open Audio MIDI Setup which you will find in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder – or hit the Command and Space keys and type Audio MIDI into the Spotlight search box.

From the Window menu select Show MIDI Studio.

Menu selection in Audio Midi SetUp

This will open the MIDI Studio window from where you can select Open MIDI Network Setup from the MIDI Studio menu.

Menu selection in Audio Midi SetUp

You need to create a new session by clicking the + button

Creating a new session panel

The default name is Session 1. Tick the box to select that as the network session you wish to use

New session selected

With an app sending MIDI signals your device will be available. Click the Connect button for it to join the network session.

iPad available

Your device will be listed as a Participant in the right hand panel – from where it can be disconnected if required.

iPad connected and good to go

In the iPad’s/iPhone’s app you will see the Session 1 option within the MIDI settings – sometimes shown as a Settings button or three dots …

Dots

or a cog wheel icon

Cog

Once connected to the Network Session it is all happening in GarageBand…

101 of my favourite recordings – 2

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Dododo (Ekassa No. 1) – Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Melody Maestroes

Cover of Ekassa album by Sir Victor Uwaifo.

It is the never changing repeated two notes throughout, which both constrain and liberate the piece, that fascinates and delights. As it builds to a crescendo, as though it might be heading somewhere, there they are again pulling it back. At the start of this sample I faded the other instruments for emphasis…

Victor Uwaifo was born in Benin City, in the Edo State of Nigeria in 1941. He studied graphics at college and, having played guitar since childhood, would sit in with Victor Olaiya‘s band at weekend in the early sixties. He developed a technique of seeing colours in sound and sound in colours. He used this technique to utilise the traditional patterns of Akwete cloth in his music. This Akwete sound was used to create his song Joromi in 1965 which became a hit across east African countries and eventually earned him the first African gold disc.

By 1968 he had outgrown the strict limitations of Akwete so he developed other forms which eventually evolved into Ekassa itself evolving from the traditional Benin Ekassa dance.

By the 1970’s with the growing influence of American soul and Jamaican reggae his music had once again evolved into what came to be marketed as Edo Funk.

Listen:

Dododo (Ekassa No. 1) – Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Melody Maestroes (Apple Music,  Spotify, YouTube)

In the sixties – Victor Olaiya. (Apple Music,  Spotify, YouTube)

Joromi – Victor Uwaifo. (Apple Music,  Spotify, YouTube)

Sakpaide No. 2 – Victor Uwaifo and his Titibitis. (Apple Music,  Spotify, YouTube)

Obviemama – Victor Uwaifo and his Titibitis. (Apple Music,  Spotify, YouTube)