In the early 2000’s I was working in music retail and was given a sampler of hot and popular music from Japan.
It featured some amazing artists and styles. A real ear-opener. One of the artists were Pizzicato Five. This group falls under the category of things I miss, and “whatever happened to….?” This is, in many ways pop fusion music with it’s blend of soul, pop, french chanson, Burt Bacharach etc. The music is cheery, upbeat, warm and smooth retro feel which is perfect for summer. I’m not sure what happened to this group. Unfortunately they never really made a hit in the US. And their music is hard to find. But here’s to happy music may it bring a little cheer to your summer.
I found these fun videos and they really do maintain the fun vibe of the music with their own hipster cool.
Today it’s Ladies Choice for Barbershop Harmony. Within 10 years after Men started singing Barbershop Harmony women wanted to take part in harmonic action. They formed their own organization Sweet Adelines International 75 years ago for the encouragement and singing of barbershop harmony for women. Since most of the song in the catalog of mens barbershop singing are “about” women (evidenced by song title that provide the source for the Sweet Adelines) the Sweet Adelines have always been more open to contemporary songs and diversity. Today I want to present some of the many Sweet Adelines.
The 2019 Chorus Champions (also champions in 2018) – The Scottsdale Chorus with their winning performance
Continuing the festivities this next selection is by the Rönninge Show Chorus from Sweden under the direction of the woman who is credited with first bringing barbershop harmony singing to Sweden. Enjoy this performance highlighting music penned by Swedish composers.
2019 Quartet Champions – Class Ring with their “Swan Song Set”. (the Swan Song set is the performance they give after they win the Championship as part of an “all star show”.
From the 2015 Quartet Finals enjoy this performance by Windsor
2019 Mic Testers – HOT PURSUIT
And here is the website where you can find more information about Sweet Adelines https://sweetadelines.com
Today I’m going to focus on a type of music that does not get much press or recognition. It is often thought of as old-fashioned, old-timey, stuff your great grandparents listened to. One reason may be that it does not neatly fit into the established genres of music that have become culturally established.
I was fortunate enough to grow up and be raised in the Mennonite church. A Cappella music was all around. In church everyone sang and everyone sang in four-part harmony (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass). It was all hymns all the time. And I credit that for establishing at a very young age my entry point into music. What I mean by entry point is the primary attractor. For some people it may be the beat, the rhythm, melody, overall feel or for some, like me, it is harmony. Harmony is the first thing I hear that gets me sucked into the “world” the music creates. I love harmony!
As I was growing up and things like AM radio became common place in our household – I’ll always cherish my little handheld transistor radio with a small speaker and an earpiece that looked more like a hearing aid with it’s thinly coiled cord – nothing like the iPods we’ve become accustomed to. This little transistor radio was my constant companion as I was growing up (age 8-15, 1968-78). Otherwise we had black and white television set which was all we could afford and it was cheaper than the newer color one. But TV and AM radio exposed me to popular music and much of the music at that time had some sort of harmony (think Beach Boys, Chicago, America, The Association, Simon and Garfunkel, Seals and Crofts, etc) This listening further solidified my interest and love for harmony. I sang in all the school choirs, concert choir, show/swing choir etc.
As I grew up and my music tastes evolved into other genres etc harmony was never far away. After I had graduated from High School in 1978 – not wanting to go to college at that time – I got a job at a local retailer. A co-worker was involved in a local mens chorus called (The Wayneaires – which sadly no longer exists) that sang a music style called Barbershop. It is a cappella singing in 4 parts (lead, tenor, baritone and bass). I had great fun. I learned much including this notion of overtones and undertones (simply – a third audible unsung tone/note can be heard when the resonances of two or more other sung tones are combined). And, for me, when I hear overtones ringing it literally gives me chills it provokes a physical response that I seldom experience when listening to music. We did an annual show that featured the chorus (of about 45 members) and featured guest quartets from around the region. Always a theme. I did this for about 5 years and even sang in some quartets before I decided to go to college. At that time the music was mostly traditional barbershop songs like “Lida Rose”, “Sweet Adeline” etc with ever-changing arrangements. There was an organization called S.P.E.B.S.Q.A. (pronounced speb sqwa) and stood for the Society for Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Around 2004 it was changed simply to the Barbershop Harmony Society (whew! about time they got rid of that old mouthful – LOL). I have not sung Barbershop in the past 30+years but I still like to check it out occasionally and find it stronger and better than ever. There is a more diverse catalog of songs
There is always an international competition for Barbershop (2020 being the exception due to the pandemic) and there are 4 categories where a champion is named – Quartet, Chorus, Senior Quartet, Youth/Collegiate Quartet on which they are judged on music (selection/arrangement), singing and performance (of which humor can play a key role). Regarding performance we were taught it is about “filling the space”. not just with facial expressions but also body movements/choreography etc.
At the end of this post I will post links to the Barbershop Harmony Society website if you wish to know more about it’s history and much much more.
I will post videos of the 2019 champions for you to “taste”. And hopefully it will be as sweet for you as it is for me. And if/when you hear those overtones – feel free to let the goose flesh pop. LOL
***fyi – not sure – but you may have to watch videos on YouTube
First up – 2019 Chorus Champions (also Champions in 2007, 2010 & 2015)- The Westminster Chorus with their award winning performance of From Now On/Come Alive Medley (from The Greatest Showman) Be sure to go to YouTube and check out their 2015 Championship performance of “Seize the Day” from Newsies.
2019 Quartet Champions – Signature with their winning performance of Proud Mary (Ike and Tina Turner cover)
Also check out their other barbershop arrangements of Queen, Michael Jackson and other pop icons on YouTube.
Seniors Quartet Champions – DoubleDouble with one of their winning performances Green Green Grass of Home (parody). look for the the shift from serious to comedic around the 2 min mark. 🙂
2019 Youth/Collegiate Champions – Wildfire with their performance of Between You and the Birds and the Bees and Cupid.
While top 10 finalists compete for the title of Champion – the evening starts off with a mic test – it is a performance awarded the 11th place quartet and an opportunity to cut loose. This performance from 2015 is by one of the funniest quartets – The Newfangled Four (Youth/Collegiate Champions 2013) with their rendition of the vintage song Hello My Baby (through the years). Enjoy. *note – at the end they are joined by a singer from another Quartet called Instant Classic, who were the Champions of 2014.
And for you women out there – Barbershop Harmony is not only a mans thing – Women have their own version of the Barbershop Harmony Society called Sweet Adelines Intl. Look for more on that in my next post.
I’ve experimented with extremely dark images in the past but it’s been a while and I was in the mood. Today and tomorrows images were taken one Saturday morning early in May. I had gone to the laundromat to clean my winter comforter and a couple of pillows to put in storage. At that time people were not permitted to wait inside due to the pandemic. So I sat in my car. It was raining rather hard and I was not in the mood to go out and about for photos. So I just sat in my car for these abstracts. The inside of my car is dark gray and black with some chrome accents. Wondering what kind of abstracts I could create – I dialed down the exposure to -7 and started clicking the camera shutter. I did very little in Photoshop except to convert to black and white and some vignetting to darken the edges. Enjoy.
As with all my galleries click on one image to view larger and then use the arrows to go to the next image.
I’m sure many of you have heard of K-Pop. Also known as Korean Pop. Well this is C-pop or Chinese Pop. Todays video is from a talent show called The Singer. I suppose the western equivalent would be a popular show (at least in the US) called The Voice. The song, Happy Heart was first made popular by Andy Williams where it spent 2 weeks at #1 on the charts. Petula Clark also had a hit with the same song at the very same time but hers charted highest at #12.
This wonderful song was co-written by easy listening legend James Last and canadian singer/songwriter Jackie Rae. This impassioned performance by Li Xiang Zhe & Zhai Li Suo Tian is pure delight and really swings! So who is who? Li is the guy that starts the song and the bearded guy is Zhai. I absolutely love when Li starts the line, “Music fills…” with that really gutsy sound and Zhai looks at him out the corner of his eye as if to say “where the hell did that come from?”, or maybe he’s thinking, “where’re you going with this?” Totally makes me smile.
It’s a sunny Monday here in Ohio so enjoy this sunny song. Smiles and Cheer.
This video I’m sharing is the most recent work by Duran Duran. To be honest DD lost me after their RIO album. While some may view that as some sort of blasphemy – that’s okay. So why am I posting this new video? The music (in my opinion) is lackluster, monotonous and even boring almost drone-like but it’s definitely not drone music.
The negative criticism of the music aside I do feel this video is important. I’d even say VERY IMPORTANT to the world of art of film/cinema. The video opens with an “artists statement”:
“This film was created by an artificial intelligence called Huxley, a unique dreamer whose ‘mind’ has been modeled after the cognitive and creative processes of humans.
It is the very first collaboration of its kind, between artists in different planes of existence.”
When watching this film I was captivated by the surreal nature of it’s images. Fluid and strange but beautiful. I couldn’t help but think about the future of AI and how (I believe) it will eventually take over the world making humanity redundant.
I also find it interesting to think about the following questions. How does our creation (AI) see us? How does it see humanity? Does it frighten us? Intrigue us? Concern us? Will AI have inalienable rights granted by it’s creator? In the world of AI; humanity (it’s creator) are Gods. Will it worship/value humanity or will it kill off humanity just as humanity has killed off it’s gods? And after AI has killed it’s gods will it continue to remember, revere and “worship” humanity in pretense, creating a sort of religion like humanity has created all sorts of religions for its gods? Is it possible that we may learn more about humanity from how our creation sees us than what we could ever know on our own? Right now AI and humanity exist on different planes – meaning that there is an independence between the two – AI is programmed and then left to do it’s thing while humanity does it’s own thing. But will that change where AI and humanity will share an interface? Will AI maintain the human cognition it was programmed with or will it evolve and develop it’s own unique identity? Will AI become a physical manifestation beyond it’s programming? Is what happens in the mind real if it doesn’t happen in the physical world? Will humanity become invisible?
I may be premature in asking these questions – or maybe I’m too late already. Well those are my thoughts – what do you think? What questions are you asking? Or, is everything a foregone conclusion?
To quote the character Captain Jean-luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, “I prefer to think of the future as something that is NOT written in stone.”
In honor of the Full Pink Supermoon on 4/26. A rarity I’m told. Here in the US it will be at it’s fullest at 11:32PM Eastern Time on Monday night. This moon is also known as, the Sprouting Grass Moon and the Fish Moon. I like the idea of a pink moon so I’m sticking with that. 🙂
Photo taken off Everett Rd in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (but I added the moon – hehe – yeah I cheated). Weather permitting I’ll be able to see the real thing tomorrow night.
Enjoy this classic song PINK MOON by Nick Drake. From the album Pink Moon release in 1972 which means next year will be the albums 50th anniversary. Pink Moon would be Drake’s third and final album as he would die in 1974 at the age of 26. While not a big hit for Drake in his short lifetime. The song and album have since been held in high regard by many songwriters, garnered more sales and critical attention and ranks very high on critics lists of “Favorite Albums of All Time”. Enjoy.
I’ve been diggin’ the opera Akhnaten (again) by Philip Glass. Probably my all-time favorite of his opera’s. Enjoy this duet between Akhnaten and Nefertiti.
man out of place
I find myself in a strange situation.
I am dead yet my body does not know it.
Looking at the world about me I no longer recognize….
What should be familiar is strange and unknowable.
There was a time when I would have relished
the strangeness and foreignness of this lifes situation….
I actually find it unnerving.
It seems that any foundation or rootedness
that would have grounded me during such times
has been swept away…
so completely and with a sense of finality
that even when I go to familiar places or spaces,
I do not recognize them. I see familiar faces and hear familiar voices
but they only seem to be echoes of a past long gone.
I may as well be a foreigner in a strange land.
Nothing matters as I am no longer connected…
I am truly a man
out of place
in space and time…
not knowing how it happened
or how to change it.
Should it be changed?
I suppose time will tell.
What will the future hold?
What will I look like
in the end?
What will the world look like
in the end?
Our humanity will be changed,
but will it be for the better
in the end?
Will we look back as through a glass darkly
and say “Who was that?”
In the end.
My life has become abstracted beyond recognition…
I put one foot in front of the other….
this was the live stream event of THE PHARAOHS GOLDEN PARADE which marks the journey of 22 of Egypt’s royal mummies from one museum to their final resting place. I found it passionate and moving. The music and performance was spectacular. While the entire program is 2+ hours, the first hour is largely history and documentary programming.
As such, I recommend starting at about the 1:11:00 (1 hour and 11 minute) mark. For those that do not speak egyptian/arabic there are usually english subtitles and/or english translation.
I do wish that I knew what musical pieces were performed and the composers. But so far I have not found out.
Congratulations to Egypt for this fantastic and marvelous presentation. I found it powerful and emotional.
