MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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Hi Jung, a very nice story. I think if I could master an instrument, I would also have a very special relationship with this instrument. And in the following video, someone who has not only achieved greatness on this instrument, but has also collected several of these instruments in the course of his musical life, talks a little about how he learned to play and love this instrument:
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At this point I would like to present a music video from the recent past. “Haus am See”. The deliberate change of black and white and color, the post-colored parts of the picture, the whole video editing and the cool choreography of the drummers: I find this very successful. The video also fits very well with the text (I have attached a translation of the text in excerpts). A new, contemporary variation of “When I’m Sixty Four“.
(Text excerpt:)
- I was born here and walk the streets,
- I know the faces, every house and every store.
- I have to go away, know every pigeon here by name.
- Thumbs out, I’m waiting for a chic woman with a fast car.
- The sun dazzles, everything flies by.
- And the world behind me slowly becomes small.
- But the world in front of me is made for me!
- I know she’s waiting and I’ll pick her up!
- I have the day on my side, I have tailwind!
- A choir of women on the side of the road, singing for me!
- I lean back and look into the deep blue,
- Close my eyes and just walk straight ahead.
- And at the end of the road there is a house by the lake.
- Orange tree leaves lie on the path.
- I have 20 children, my wife is beautiful.
- Everybody comes by, I never have to go out.
- Here I was born, here I’ll be buried.
- I’ve got deaf ears, a white beard, and I sit in the garden.
- My 100 grandchildren play cricket on the lawn.
- When I think about it, I can hardly wait.
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Hallo Detlef,
welcome to the show. Nice that you have arrived here in the forum. Have fun browsing and reading. How did you become aware of the MLT forum?
Viele Grüße, Jürgen
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Glad to hear you like the video Jung. Peter Fox’s music represents a new self-confident music trend in Germany: the vocals are mostly in German (unthinkable in the young music scene until the early 80s) and follow an idiosyncratic style, originally probably influenced by rap, hiphop and and I don’t know what else. It sounds cool by German standards and leaves the paths of beautiful, melodic singing. By the way, Peter Fox is not a proper name, but the name of a music project. The singer’s name is actually Pierre Baigorry. The group Seed and the song “Aufsteh’n” didn’t mean anything to me until just now, but I watched the video and the singer of the group Seed, surprise, is named: Pierre Baigorry. (Is that a coincidence or did you know that?) In the song “Aufsteh’n” I like the mix of two languages quite well. But I am skeptical about the rhythm: I find german mentality and reggae music that fits as well as elephant and (playing) double dutch.
Even if the topic is getting a little off track right now, I think your ambitions to learn German are great. When you have taken all your courses, then you can play the piano, sing german lyrics and watch the stars at the same time. wow. sounds like a really cool plan. Whether you would enjoy the german language more than French I cannot estimate. Certainly English and German are more similar than English and French. Also the pronunciation of both languages sounds quite hard. French sounds clearly more elegant. In German language there’s the possibility to form long sentences, interrupted by some insertions, and at the end of the sentence you’ll find the verb you need to understand the complete sentence. Sounds very cumbersome? It is ( and so is my english). So if you like to search for easter eggs at easter (high frustration tolerance) and if you like it to hold your breath under water until you can’t stand it anymore (high capacity for suffering), you will have a lot of fun with the german language.
Do you actually speak Korean? I find Asian languages very fascinating, precisely because they are so completely different. For me, it’s always an endless flow of sounds in which I recognize little structure but no individual words at all. But the sound of the languages varies a lot. For example, Thai is almost a sung language, Vietnamese is very hectic and fast, Japanese sounds very hard and choppy (sounds like karate only with words) and Korean, I don’t know, somehow in between?
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Jung, I’m very happy that you write something on this subject again. 500 years of music history so nicely summarized and then even faster than the time machine from H.G. Wells novel would have ever managed: I am impressed. I liked the picture of the big massive ship and the excursion about the development of the classical music in the different epochs I found very exciting. (I confess, when it comes to classical music, then I am more of a large unmaneuverable ship: The helmsman is dozing off, the captain has fallen overboard and the sailors are well filled with rum. But someday my ship will also sail in this direction, so thank you for that).
Your division of music into dead-end genres and timeless music, is a good approach to understand the development of music and you have given me an idea 🙂 : is there such a thing as an evolution of music? For sure, but does the evolution of music also follow the rules of evolutionary theory, i.e. the principles of mutation, variation and selection? Does music evolve almost like a living organism, because music is an integral part of our own evolution?
So first of all, there is the mutation. The evolutionary pressure. I come back to my idea that there is something like a genetic code or a predisposition in us that we humans use to communicate with each other in the form of music. However, the interpretation of this code or its translation into music can change over time How could this happen? For example, drastic cultural or political changes come to mind. It would be interesting to look at the history of the world, for example, what exactly happened during the transition from Medieval to Baroque to Classical to Romantic (since this would fill entire books, we’d better not do that now). Further reasons for the mutation pressure of music: The language of the people changes over centuries, the living conditions change partly also drastically, I think only of the rural exodus and the industrialization in many regions of the world. But people’s world views are also constantly changing. The general conception of the world, the political situation, the level of knowledge of science, etc. And music is also exposed to all these influences and changes accordingly. A globalized society will once again increase and accelerate the mutational pressure of music.
The next principle of evolution is variation. Music is full of it. Different musical styles and directions that exist parallel to each other and occupy their own niches, just like Darwin’s finches on Galapagos. You called this sub-genre. Which variation is permanently established, which is popular and which is quickly forgotten again, depends in turn on how we humans and especially how our needs change. People in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. sometimes had a completely different attitude to life and also completely different ideas about what they expected from life. The music that best matched this was then usually the winner.
Then the principle of selection is still missing. Why do some sub-genres end up in a dead end and die out, while other music styles survive, evolve and become something new? Darwin called it the survival of the fittest. If you want to understand the principle of selection in music, you should realize that music always fulfills a function and there is always a motivation to listen to music or to play it yourself: Messages to other people, fun and joy, distraction from everyday life, processing of current events, expression of feelings, creation of community, to name a few. The current needs of people determine which style of music has a high acceptance and will continue to develop. The kind of music that best reflects the spirit of the time (Zeitgeist) will probably survive. But also, as you rightly wrote, the influence of the music industry and the power of money is not to be underestimated. Music and its promoters, another important point. Beethoven and his contemporaries were also dependent on patrons supporters at that time: the nobility and the royal houses. Today it is their majesties Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
Basically, music behaves like a living organism or better like its own species. In which direction music will move exactly nobody knows of course. But if I want to understand in which direction music will change, then I look best at the development and behavior of humans. And this brings me back to the questions I asked at the beginning of the topic: will new art forms develop in music, will A.I. make its way into music, etc.? If we become an even more technologized society, this will also have a direct impact on music. Will the future of humanity change for the better or will we manage to ruin our planet? A rich, contented society develops quite different forms of music (and has quite different opportunities to develop music) than a society in need, struggling to survive.
So much for the attempt to understand music as an evolutionary process. One possible explanation of many. The fascination of the music can be explained with it certainly neither comprehensively nor completely and music remains what it is: one of the most beautiful creations that humans have ever produced (in this spirit, I wish you and your family a beautiful Thanksgiving).
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That’s it Jung. Also my absolute favorite video from the 80s. Always beautiful! I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it. I was very fascinated by the artistic style at the time: the constant but fluid change from the real world to the comic world, which has an almost surreal effect due to the pencil drawing. A masterpiece.
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Hi Jung, great video! The whole thing looks like it was shot on another planet. Maybe Mars, when it still had an atmosphere and water. The light mood, the barren landscape and the gray cloud cover in the firmament. Everything fits the Starman theme. With David Bowie I feel the same as you: I did not know the song. Although he is certainly a great music icon, I can do little with his music. I think I never understood his attitude to life. Mona and Lisa’s attitude to life, on the other hand, I understand light years better!
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Hello Bill, nice that you get in touch. I had the question what happened to the Small Faces. Thanks for the hint. I didn’t know that the Small Faces became The Faces with Rod Stewart.
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Thank you Will for the very detailed answer. Wow, what a family history. Compared to that, the TV series “Dynasty” and “Dallas” are really boring stuff. I will follow your advice and take a closer look at the whole thing on youtube.
James Burton also seems to have had a greater influence in music history, but is quite unknown to us.
PS: I wanted to set the video “The travelling man”, but the direct integration does not work. Now we have written so much about the song, then at least a live performance from later years:
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Hi Will, thank you very much for your answer. I just watched the video clip on youtube, because I don’t know Rick Nelson at all. It’s a beautiful song with a nice melody (the singer somehow reminds me of the young Elvis, maybe it’s because of the hairstyle. Is the song “Hello Mary Lou” actually also by him?). And you’re right: towards the end of the video, landscapes and cities are displayed. The birth of the music video in 1961. Great. Yes, sometimes it is quite good to be a living lexicon. What was “The Ozzie and Harriet tv show” exactly? An entertainment or music show, something like the Ed Sullivan Show?
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Hi, Jacki. Thank you very much for your feedback and I understand very well what you mean. Yes, in the 60s existed small video artworks that were actually not yet perceived as something special. And I fully agree with you that in the 80s the production of music videos, also from an artistic point of view, really picked up speed and also became very professional. I think it also has something to do with the fact that during this time the first music channels, such as for example MTV, established themselves and more and more people watched music videos on television. You’re right, Duran Duran not only wrote good music, but as you said, sometimes more elaborately produced videos. “Hungry like the Wolf” reminds me of a short movie with an exotic backdrop and “Is There Something I Should Know?” still uses new techniques at that time, for example „Picture-in-picture-fade-in“ (unfortunately I can’t insert the original videos, too bad…)
Where you mentioned it, I’ve added a nice work from the 60s here. When I saw the video clip for the first time, I didn’t particularly like the whole thing (maybe because The Beatles look like singing penguins in the video). But after looking at it several times, I have to say: a little bit strange but very good. This Hollywood charm (or maybe Las Vegas) with the show stairs is funny. That fits well with the lyrics, but somehow not with the Beatles. No idea how they came up with it.
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Yes, Walter if you are not careful it becomes chronic. Then no pills will help you, but only CD’s. 🙂 I am happy to hear that you have been a member of the forum since May. Studio work sounds interesting. Are you a musician or producer? (… or both)
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Hello Walter, you probably suffer (enjoy) from acute MLS (MonaLisa Syndrome). This manifests itself in the pronounced desire to hear MLT virtually anywhere. In the car, at home, in the shower and possibly also when cycling. But that’s not a cause for concern. According to the latest medical findings, MLS usually increases the quality of life in general and the joy in particular. People with MLS also have a big grin on their faces early in the morning and fall asleep peacefully humming at night. Actually enviable.
“Hopllessly Devoted to MonaLisa“ ? Nice song, sounds to me like „Living next door to Alice“. I would buy the disc immediately. I can also think of a another nice title: „Dedicated Follower of MonaLisa“
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Thank you David. That seems to be a very realistic explanation. I had already suspected something like this. 🙂
