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lapsedmodernisti have a special music skill. it's not singing. although i love singing karaoke.
when i was younger i took piano lessons for about 4 years. i did not really follow through with it, i mean i can read music, and i can play, i just have not in a long time. but once upon a time my music teacher told me i had the perfect ear for pitch (there is a technical term for it in Russian). i can tell when tell when something is even a sixteenth of a note off. The other thing that i can do, that i think is related to that, is i can always tell when something sounds like something else. and not just "the beginning of Strange Currencies sounds like Everybody Cries." if there is anything about a song, a progression, or a tempo, even if it's a very short fragment, a bar, half a bar, that sounds like something else i have heard i can identify what it is 90% of the time, and i am right 99% of the time. it's not just similar tunes; it's some sort of musical equivalent of intertextuality. i started thinking about it the other night because that new christian band Evancescence had their video on MTV, and i realized that the girl vocal part sounded like a sped-up variation on that part in Jesus Christ Superstar where the lepers and cripples surround Jesus and sing "see my eyes, I can hardly see, etc." How appropriate, whether it was intentional or not. There is a lot of stuff like that. The Radiohead song "Exit Music For a Film" sounds like this Russian song called "Somewhere Far Away" from this old popular movie called "17 Moments of Spring" about a Soviet agent undercover among the Nazis in the last days of World War II. There is a Garbage song called "You Look So Fine" that sounds like this song "Addictive" by Faithless. I can't quite explain it...sometimes it's more about the ethos, but it is still manifested musically...sometimes it's like the songs are in dialogue with each other. The most interesting example that I noticed lately was when I was listening to "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone and realized that in a weird way, it's proto-techno, thanks to the beat and the frenetic energy it conveys. There is synchronicity between the sound and the lyrics, all about the sinnerman, running to the river, running to the sea, running to the desert, and if you listen to it, and then listen to the first song from Run Lola Run soundtrack, you'll see what I mean.
when i was younger i took piano lessons for about 4 years. i did not really follow through with it, i mean i can read music, and i can play, i just have not in a long time. but once upon a time my music teacher told me i had the perfect ear for pitch (there is a technical term for it in Russian). i can tell when tell when something is even a sixteenth of a note off. The other thing that i can do, that i think is related to that, is i can always tell when something sounds like something else. and not just "the beginning of Strange Currencies sounds like Everybody Cries." if there is anything about a song, a progression, or a tempo, even if it's a very short fragment, a bar, half a bar, that sounds like something else i have heard i can identify what it is 90% of the time, and i am right 99% of the time. it's not just similar tunes; it's some sort of musical equivalent of intertextuality. i started thinking about it the other night because that new christian band Evancescence had their video on MTV, and i realized that the girl vocal part sounded like a sped-up variation on that part in Jesus Christ Superstar where the lepers and cripples surround Jesus and sing "see my eyes, I can hardly see, etc." How appropriate, whether it was intentional or not. There is a lot of stuff like that. The Radiohead song "Exit Music For a Film" sounds like this Russian song called "Somewhere Far Away" from this old popular movie called "17 Moments of Spring" about a Soviet agent undercover among the Nazis in the last days of World War II. There is a Garbage song called "You Look So Fine" that sounds like this song "Addictive" by Faithless. I can't quite explain it...sometimes it's more about the ethos, but it is still manifested musically...sometimes it's like the songs are in dialogue with each other. The most interesting example that I noticed lately was when I was listening to "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone and realized that in a weird way, it's proto-techno, thanks to the beat and the frenetic energy it conveys. There is synchronicity between the sound and the lyrics, all about the sinnerman, running to the river, running to the sea, running to the desert, and if you listen to it, and then listen to the first song from Run Lola Run soundtrack, you'll see what I mean.
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Date: 2003-05-01 07:31 am (UTC)My last name is "Buck," and one day, while hunting around Audiogalaxy, I discovered a song of hers entitled--what, you ask?--"Buck." It's about her man, Buck, who she loves BIG TIME. My favorite line: "Buck, you're a whole lotta man."
Amen, yes I am.
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Date: 2003-05-01 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-01 12:14 pm (UTC)the true "best of"
Date: 2003-05-01 06:10 pm (UTC)-mjm
Re: the true "best of"
Date: 2003-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)-mjm