MLT Club Member Chris Weber
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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I have a couple guitars, but I’m a keyboard player first so I would bring a keyboard.
The board I’d pick is my Yamaha Mox8, which is the newest one I have. It turns 10 years old this year. I bought it to have a more modern keyboard, and since I didn’t have one with 88 keys. Yamaha is good at mellower piano and acoustic style patches, which works if I only get one – I’m still a piano guy at heart.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
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Thanks. That was fun.
With respect to what GG said, I think there are differences between musical genres. I think you may follow classical music more closely than I have, although I was brought up with it and always a fan. I didn’t know until a few years ago what a cadenza was, for example. Improvisation – in classical music?!
The music I’ve spent most of my time following in recent years is jazz, and other improvisational music when I was looking for something to see live.
I always thought Jazz is kind of in the other direction from classical, the musician is expected to place his own stamp on what the composer provided. It is highly improvisational. How many times has a different type of piece, for example, a show tune, been turned into a jazz piece, even a standard. And sometimes it’s just, you state the theme, go off on whatever solo you want to, and then come back to the theme.
Thinking of Gould’s love of Bach reminds me of another Bach lover, Hilary Hahn, who is a favorite of mine. Seeing her live is definitely on my short list of music to see.
What you leave out is just as important as what you put in. Finding the right way to cover a song is a great test of artistry. It should be recognizable, but still say something new, and respect the original. Easier said than done.
I am not sure the average listener appreciates the incredible importance of the arranger. I remember watching Dr. John play “Right Place, Wrong Time” solo in a bar. A great rendition, fistfuls of keys is what I think of that style, but then you compare it to the one he released on his album that was a big hit, which is very different. That’s the arranger. The Twins always have great arrangements.
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Threads like this remind me that I still have a lot of the site I haven’t seen yet. I’ve only been a member for 5 weeks, and Mother Nature took a couple of those away this winter.
That’s just a great video. Of course, it helps being in a place where “point camera in random direction” yields yet another incredible shot.
Every time I watch the Once Upon a Time Video, one of my favorite songs and videos, I have a reaction when I see how close they are to the edge of the wall of that caldera.
Fortunately they always end up okay(!). Reminds me of sitting on the rim of the Grand Canyon way long ago.
Putting on my Marketing hat, I think Turismo de Islas Canarias should be paying Team MLT for spreading the word about these beautiful islands.
Thanks for posting that.
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So after watching that woman play the Theremin (and making it look easy, which I don’t really believe is the case), I thought it would be neat to have one, or at least try one.
Didn’t take long to find this — Bob Moog started making them 60 years ago.
https://www.moogmusic.com/products/etherwave-theremin
There’s a good vid on Amazon for a demo too.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
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Recently, I looked for Joni Mitchell, and specifically, Both Sides Now, on YouTube and found this interview of Joni by Elton John. Elton has a series of over 300 interviews in his Rocket Hour. He said this was the longest episode of all. They talked about a number of things; the Both Sides Now discussion begins about 13:25. Of course I was looking for that song since Mona and Lisa have the most amazing cover of it, which makes me tear up every time I hear it. Here’s the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzzI7LjcBLM
Joni is not obscure, of course, but she said that her favorite cover of the song was by Mabel Mercer. Apologies to Mabel, but I had never heard of her before. There are a number of versions by Mabel on YT, here’s one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv6G9Z5-SD8
Joni said that when she released her original version back in the ’60s, she got criticism, since she was so young, too young for sentiments like that. Mabel’s not young, but the Twins are.
The interview with Joni was fairly recent, in the last year certainly. I was wondering if she had ever heard Mona and Lisa’s version, since it’s my favorite cover of theirs. I always loved this song, and their version is incredible.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
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Or Crossroads, penned by Robert Johnson.
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I bought my first guitar around 1971 – a Sigma, maybe the same kind you had. In college, one of my friends managed to drop it and cracked it around about half of the rim. I got it fixed, and also had them lower the action!
It made a big difference, it’s much more playable. I paid $150 for it, and a few months ago I looked up to see if they still made them, and they do, and they still sell them for $150.
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I expect everyone here is biased in favor of great music.
My only problem with Beethoven is the same as with Brahms, why only 1 violin concerto?
Wikipedia says the same violinist, Joseph Joachim, who revived Beethoven’s concerto also gave input to Brahms for the cadenza on his concerto 34 years later. And Joachim liked Beethoven’s better too.
Interestingly, in the entry for his concerto, at the link below, Wikipedia also quotes a piece by Robert Philip that says “it was the practice in the early twentieth century to vary the tempo considerably within a movement”. Which might pertain to the differences between Gould and Bernstein.
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“Glenn once said what is the point if you are just mimicking exactly how everyone else played a piece.”
Exactly. Imo, people should hear Gould as well as Bach.
Hahn has videos on YouTube of Brahms’s Violin Concerto from when she was around 20, 30 and 35 years old. She had her first major performance when she was 13.
Her 20 year old performance was excellent, the 30 year old one I thought significantly better, and 35 better yet. She seems to keep getting better, as far as I can tell.
The age she started playing serious concerts is about the same as the Twins. I’m looking forward to hearing the Twins in the future and seeing where they take it.
You mentioned Bernstein being unhappy with Gould’s tempo. I looked for other violinists playing that same Brahms Concerto. Hahn finished in 42 minutes. Jascha Heifetz took 34 minutes.
Heifetz was flying. Maybe back then it was common to play it faster, or common for him, I don’t know, but that’s quite a difference. Other modern violinists I found were closer to Hahn’s time than Heifetz’s. Isaac Stern took 42 minutes, and Itzhak Perlman 45.
So I guess Gould’s not the only artist who varied the tempo.
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It’ll be interesting to hear the C3 on an MLT song. I’m very much looking forward to that. Rudi seems to use organ patches frequently. In the Raise Your Head video I see him with 2 keyboards, the upper one I don’t recognize, but the bottom one appears to be an M-AUDIO controller. Not sure what it’s driving. But they both have organ sounding patches.
Any artist as good as Rudi deserves to have the best tools to pursue his art, and its awesome that now he has that.
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I found a pic of Lanzarote night sky on the web, but I don’t think it’s as good as that shot of the Milky Way at the end of the Starman video, where it’s not hard to imagine he’s up there looking back.
I was only at the Grand Canyon for an hour. I sat quietly near the rim and just absorbed it. But not at night.
I live in Michigan where there are a handful of designated “dark sky” parks which are each on the shore of a Great Lake. I haven’t been to one yet, but I’ll get there.
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Sounds like you know more about Cage than I do. I just remembered hearing of him and some things he’d done. Wonder how many tickets he sold for the gig until 2640.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
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Ok, I was lazy the first time, so now I checked it out. The bottom key on that piano is a C, 4 octaves below middle C, which is called C0. Depending on how the piano is tuned, it’s about 16Hz.
https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
As you mentioned, the normal range of human hearing is around 20-20,000 Hz. That’s a range you see cited when discussing loudspeakers, for example.
So at any rate, that key is right around the limit of hearing, which depends on the individual.
When I was playing that piano, I could hear that bottom note, and I was probably almost 30 years old around then. And my ears had a lot of hard rock mileage on them by then.
I remember thinking it wasn’t too useful, it didn’t sound great. Not sure if that was the piano or my ears.
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I guess my joke about “If You Could Read My Mind” didn’t land.
I’m not Canadian, but I live about 50 miles west of Windsor. People here in Michigan remember the Edmund Fitzgerald and that song helps. They really do still ring the bells in Detroit every year for the 30,000 sailors lost in the Great Lakes.
