tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47876159132316408932012-02-16T03:02:07.621-07:00From Bach to Rock: A Listener's Guide to Great MusicJames L. Smithnoreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-10114973160640059152012-01-21T22:38:00.002-07:002012-01-21T22:44:18.778-07:00

My apologies for waiting over a month since last posting something on this blog. I have returned to teaching and will be spending two days a week trying to teach fifteen-year-old students how to listen to classical music. My students have little or no background in music, and when everything settles down, I'll report on whether I've had any success in getting them to appreciate Bach, Beethoven,

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-7618630084541422822011-12-20T09:59:00.000-07:002011-12-20T09:59:36.796-07:00

[Beethoven’s] last quartets testify to a veritable growth of consciousness, to a higher degree of consciousness, probably than is manifested anywhere else in art. – J. W. N. Sullivan, Beethoven: His Spiritual JourneyYou never get to the bottom of [Beethoven’s quartets]; they may be the most single profound statement that any human being ever contributed to the world of art. – Peter Oundjian,

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-19918226665084455132011-11-08T10:17:00.003-07:002011-11-08T10:33:17.212-07:00

The New Hot 5 is a New Orleans-style jazz band that has received much attention for playing jazz for cows in France. With almost 1.5 million hits on You Tube the video clip has become a hit. Every time I watch it, I feel like I'm stuck inside a Gary Larson cartoon. Watch the New Hot 5 Channel on You Tube. They've shown all of us that the power of great music is not limited to one species.

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-32942549454788212052011-10-13T12:48:00.019-06:002011-10-13T21:03:06.720-06:00

Jack and Bobby — Vincent and Theo — George and Ira — Wilbur and Orville — Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo. Some people will forever be linked to their siblings in the history books. I doubt anyone will ever read about John Kennedy without his brother Bobby playing a significant role in the story. The same is true of Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo. Some are even linked in death.

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-64778126604038887802011-09-26T20:21:00.003-06:002011-09-26T20:48:22.903-06:00

Mahler’s symphonies rank with the most challenging and rewarding pieces of orchestral music ever composed. Listen to them often and the familiarity that comes with repeated hearings will lead to an understanding of music that is inspirational and spiritually rewarding, to say the least. Last Saturday I heard the El Paso Symphony Orchestra perform Mahler’s First Symphony. In a 2011-2012 concert

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-55949190180366703332011-09-08T11:40:00.012-06:002011-09-08T21:04:14.907-06:00

When talking to students about classical music I often hear someone associate great classical pieces with an old cartoon. Whenever I play Rossini, Liszt, or Wagner someone will invariably mention Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, or Elmer Fudd. It never fails. I love those old cartoons, but I sometimes regret that the greatness of some music has been lost in comic images. That said, let me refer you to

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-86324633545247131782011-08-29T08:55:00.008-06:002011-09-26T20:22:46.581-06:00

In my last blog I made a passing reference to Debussy’s use of pentatonic scales. My explanation was overly simplistic (“play the black keys on a piano”) and deserves more attention. Pentatonic (five-note) scales are ubiquitous in music. They are found throughout the world since ancient times and form the basis of traditional Japanese, Chinese, and Celtic music. They are also heard in blues and

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-12445170125026878402011-08-22T11:40:00.018-06:002011-09-08T11:44:07.699-06:00

I am more and more convinced that music, by its very nature, is something that cannot be cast  into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms. The rest is a lot of humbug invented by frigid imbeciles riding on the backs of the Masters—who, for the most part, wrote almost nothing but period music. Bach alone had an idea of the truth. – Claude DebussyLast week I wrote

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-56654335782284875432011-08-15T12:11:00.007-06:002011-08-27T09:24:23.634-06:00

What is the musical sound that best represents the United States? When listening to Chopin’s Polonaise in A Major we are told the music represents the sound of Poland. We are also told that Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 provides a taste of Hungarian culture, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture takes us into Czarist Russia. But what classical composer best provides the sound of

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-12875468673351271072011-07-04T16:27:00.004-06:002011-08-22T20:32:06.407-06:00

People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times. –Wolfgang Mozart, in a letter to a friend (attributed)Mozart's industrious study of music once led him to break a papal decree, and the pope, rather than denouncing

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-78037242413559076362011-06-19T17:15:00.003-06:002011-07-04T06:23:13.440-06:00

Last Friday evening (June 17) I had the pleasure of listening to the Houston Symphony at the Miller Outdoor Theater. Tickets were free. The section for assigned seating was full with 1700 people, and it looked to me as if there were that many or more seated on the grassy hillside behind the assigned seating. People on the grass had brought their lawn chairs, blankets, and picnic baskets, and the

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-23754393391595076102011-06-13T18:11:00.003-06:002011-07-04T06:25:50.071-06:00

Rachmaninoff's Hands If you spend much time reading about classical music, you will eventually run into the legend of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s hands. I first heard about his hands when I was in college and a friend of mine, a piano major, was told by her teacher that she would not be asked to play Rachmaninoff’s music because she lacked the reach in her fingers. Since that day, I have noticed that

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-29765252362050482792011-06-04T09:13:00.010-06:002011-09-25T10:56:21.922-06:00

Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and Master of the Order of Santiago — better known simply as Don Juan — is one of the most famous people who never lived. Not to be confused with the real-life Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), a notorious womanizer in his own right, the fictional Don Juan is usually portrayed as an aristocratic scoundrel with a single-minded desire for sexual gratification. Don

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-71615308599012962542011-05-30T10:28:00.006-06:002011-07-04T06:39:08.137-06:00

Here's a fun music video shot to promote Grand Rapids, Michigan. The song used in the video ("American Pie") is one that has stood the test of time and become an American classic, fulfilling my definition of "great" music. If you're wanting to know more about the video (and some of the controversy surrounding it), here's a few links: Mass Downtown Grand Rapids Lip Dub Shooting Raps (WSBT-TV,

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-68702619887165960592011-05-25T20:55:00.008-06:002011-07-04T17:46:12.552-06:00

Music has the power to magnify emotions. Just think about how music is used in films to exaggerate the drama, horror, or comedy in a story. It might be tragic enough to see an innocent child die in a film, but if the death is accompanied by a good soundtrack, the film can make you sob until you're honking like a goose. In ancient Greece music was described as a magical language that spoke

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-44334754331033867892011-05-22T08:16:00.001-06:002011-07-04T06:34:43.210-06:00

Richard Wagner was a lousy, crummy, no-good human being. He was greedy, hedonistic, arrogant, and ruthless. He ran away from his debts and had affairs with his friend’s wives. He was racist and virulently anti-Semitic. He was a megalomaniac and a lunatic who regarded himself as a god. In his own words, “I am not made like other people. I must have brilliance and beauty and light. The world owes

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-8082176875899199262011-05-18T15:07:00.005-06:002011-07-04T06:35:10.529-06:00

Eric Whitacre is a 41-year old composer of vocal and instrumental works who is best known on the web for his Virtual Choir projects. I first heard about Whitacre through my son who sang two of his works, Water Night and Sleep, with the New Mexico All-State Choir and Water with the University of New Mexico Choir. According to my son, Whitacre is the “rock star of the choral world,” a charsimatic

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-75732186318211766182011-05-07T06:05:00.005-06:002011-07-04T06:40:16.307-06:00

Two giants of classical music were both born on May 7 — Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Pytor Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). Contemporaries placed both of them on the same side in the Romantic “wars” of the late 1800s. Tchaikovsky, and particularly Brahms, were seen by their defenders as composers who stood in opposition to the musical excesses of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. United in

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-44249756947792908162011-04-29T09:36:00.007-06:002011-07-04T06:40:40.478-06:00

One of the reasons I created this blog was to give myself a platform for discovering new things happening in the world of music. I can now score one point in the “expanding my horizons” category. It seems that living in southern New Mexico has kept me in the dark about a ukulele craze that has become old news in other parts of the world. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, after all, has

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-639886110333223682011-04-26T14:43:00.008-06:002011-07-04T06:41:01.374-06:00

Several weeks ago I posted a short blog about Jake Shimabukuro and his ukulele. Since that time I have learned much more about this 34-year-old man and his four-string, two-octave “toy guitar.” What I’ve learned is enough to increase my appreciation of the ukulele and, especially, the man who is doing so much to popularize its sound. Jake Shimabukuro was recently interviewed by Bob Edwards on

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-7082979177990065482011-04-20T10:25:00.012-06:002011-04-28T10:31:38.990-06:00

So graceful. So delicate. Here's a YouTube clip that should brighten your day. The piece played by Yo Yo Ma is "The Swan" from Carnival of the Animals, composed by Camille Saint Saëns.

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-29588793322236758512011-04-03T10:05:00.001-06:002011-04-28T10:23:42.314-06:00

The police in Portland, Oregon, are using classical music as a way of preventing loitering and reducing crime. According to Argus Press a bill is making its way through the Oregon legislature that would expand the program to other counties containing light rail stops considered high-crime areas. This ranks as one of the most creative uses of classical music that I have heard about. I can't

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-44750470560314173902011-03-11T22:12:00.035-07:002011-05-20T12:09:32.095-06:00

If you find yourself listening to a piece of classical music such as Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major or Mozart’s G Minor Symphony, do you need to pay attention to the "major" and "minor" labels? Should it matter to a listener whether a piece of music is composed in a major or minor key? These questions were asked recently in a community ed class that I am teaching titled "Understanding Great

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-8018848617624929152011-02-24T18:18:00.006-07:002011-05-20T10:08:14.340-06:00

Jake Shimabukuro says he's on a mission to revolutionize what people think of the ukulele, an instrument that I confess never giving much thought. However, after hearing Mr. Shimabukuro's performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on TED, I admit I'm a convert. All honor to Mr. Shimabukuro and the ukulele. For an encore, here's Israel Kamakawiwo'ole accompanying himself on the ukulele as he sings "

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-20961403691111583952011-02-15T06:00:00.010-07:002011-05-20T12:08:44.913-06:00

John Adams (the exalted composer, not the haughty second president) was born on this day in 1947. He is the composer of Nixon in China, a work that has been called the greatest American opera since George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. In 2003, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for On the Transmigration of Souls, a piece for orchestra, chorus, children's choir, and prerecorded tape that was

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-76361733766095753022011-02-11T09:38:00.013-07:002011-05-31T07:57:07.865-06:00

Some people are lucky enough to live in the midst of a rich musical culture — Vienna, New York, New Orleans. I’m not one of those people. I'm a desert dweller, born in Arizona and raised in southern New Mexico. I now live sixty miles from where I grew up and have spent my entire life in a cultural desert. If not for my hometown’s high school band (about 60 members in a good year), I would have

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-88072146500313225532011-02-08T08:00:00.009-07:002011-05-20T09:13:42.686-06:00

Today is John Williams' birthday (the film composer, not the classical guitarist). He is 79 years old and has been composing movie music since 1958. Incorporating elements of Richard Wagner and the use of leitmotifs, Williams has composed the score for almost 100 films and provided two generations of movie goers with the music that helped define their movies. Whether his music stands the test

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-9672476133550195842011-02-06T09:07:00.010-07:002011-05-20T09:01:36.868-06:00

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was a Spanish composer who lived in Madrid and Paris before settling for several years in Granada. In 1939 the Spanish Civil War forced him to move to Argentina where he died in 1946. Often regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the twentieth century, he has been classified as part Impressionist and part Neo-Classicist. He is known, above all, for composing

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-82976873015646633762011-02-04T21:28:00.015-07:002011-08-26T08:56:53.538-06:00

Everybody loves classical music, they just haven't found out about it yet. – Benjamin Zander   Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979. With Rosamund Stone Zander, he is the co-author of The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. In this lecture for TED, Zander shares his passion for classical music, as well as a moving

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4787615913231640893.post-5949155279593488062011-01-30T15:48:00.015-07:002011-04-28T09:58:51.285-06:00

For several years I have been teaching music classes to community education students. In the spring of 2009 I was teaching a class on Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies and wrote this article while teaching that class. Everyone in the class was over fifty. They had no exams and no papers to write. They received no grades, no diplomas, and no certificates. They were learning for the love of learning, and

James L. Smithnoreply@blogger.com0