Planned Obsolescence: Dictionaraoke. (Blogging this mainly to save the link. I may comment on it later.)
Someone came by ‘my’ desk and said, “Oh, you’re listening to music!
I mean you’re listening to good music. That’s Cohen, isn’t it?”
Pause. “I don’t know of a composer named Cohen.”
“Oh. Then it’s . . .” Long pause. “Who is it?”
“Gershwin.”
“Oh of course. There is a Cohen, though, who wrote that cowboy thing?”
Pause. “Are you thinking of [Aaron] Copland?” [spelling corrected 2006]
Much later it occurred to me that (if memory serves) the original Aaron was the first kohen.
Twenty years ago I made a lot of tapes to play in the car. When I was reminded of their existence a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t heard most of these tapes since that first car died in 1989.
Curiously, among these tapes is one that I’m sure I had not heard before; I certainly did not record it. It sounds like the Bobs (rather than e.g. the Nylons, another group who cover pop songs a cappella) singing Happy Together, In My Room, Duke of Earl, Green Fields, Moondance, Papa was a Rolling Stone, I Wish, Hurdy Gurdy Man, Till Then, as well as something about Martians on Earth disguised as monks to the tune of Also Sprach Zarathustra and a tedious bit of glurge about the collapse of Stalin’s empire.
Does anyone recognize such an album?
Got out my guitar today – the one I gave myself for my birthday in 1999 – and picked out, by ear, two bars of Mussorgsky. Woo hoo!
Lynn S is distressed:
Bach and Handel have been transcribed for banjo. The very thought of that inspires in me an emotional mix of fascination and horror. In other words it gives me the creeps. On the other hand, if the banjo had existed in Bach’s day chances are he would have written music for it and it would be the best music ever heard on that instrument. In addition to being a bit of a purist I’m also an acoustic snob so I could accept Bach on the banjo before I could accept Bach on electric guitar, however, I’m not quite willing to totally accept either one.
I guess she won’t be rushing out to buy Ars Longa Vita Brevis by the Nice (1969), in which Keith Emerson plays part of the Third Brandenburg on electric organ; a favorite of mine, though I find most of Bach’s organ works deadly dull. I’m also unimpressed by most classical guitar music as such, yet I very much enjoy harpsichord works played on guitar.
My One True Ex refuses to believe that my telephone plays Night on Bald Mountain, insisting that it sounds more like the theme from Doctor Who.