EclectEcon

Lockdown Photo #56

My Hohner Echo Harp harmonica.

Previous Lockdown Photos can be seen here.

Lockdown Photo #29

The side view of my Selmer-Bach trumpet.

Previous Lockdown Photos can be seen here.

There's a long story behind it, I'm sure.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas -- check out the original lyrics!

When I was shopping this morning (at Geezer Hour), one of the Christmas songs playing was "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I liked the somewhat melancholic sense that "from now on our troubles will be out of sight" and "from now on our troubles will be far away." The sentiment seemed to be that yeah, okay, things aren't great this year with the pandemic, rapidly growing reported infection rates, etc., but next year should be better. It all seemed appropriate if not entirely uplifting.

So when I came I home I googled the lyrics and came across this site. WOW! Apparently the original lyrics were deemed unacceptable by Judy Garland (for good reason!!!) and so they were changed. Heavy emotions here:

Now you know the story, here are the full original lyrics…

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
It may be your last.
Next year we may all be living in the past.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Pop that champagne cork.
Next year we may all be living in New York.

No good times like the olden days.
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who were dear to us.
Will be near to us no more.

But at least we all will be together.
If the Lord allows.
From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

And here are the ones we sing today.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on
Our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yule-tide gay
From now on
Our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years
We all will be together
If the fates allow
So hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

The Unique Fabric of Canadian Cultural Identity

There is little doubt in my mind: the film Strange Brew captures the unique essence of the Canadian Cultural Identity.

But even though this film was a minor commercial success, there are many people in the culture industry who claim they absolutely NEED subsidies from the rest of us taxpayers to help preserve the national cultural fabric, whatever the heck that is.

What is so unique about Canada that needs preserving? Hockey? Curling? Beer? Skiing? Songs by Anne Murray? Poutine? Tim Horton's? But all these things pass the market test very successfully and will continue to do so without subsidies from the taxpayers so long as they provide satisfaction to consumers who vote with their dollars.

What is definitely not unique to Canada, though, is allegedly high-culture stuff for the elitist bigots of the country. Shakespearean productions are not a part of the unique Canadian culture; neither are local orchestral productions of supposed "music" by Mahler or Schonberg, showings of ancient art at local art musea, etc.

These things are nice, maybe, for people who like them, but there is no reason for the rest of the taxpayers of Canada to support such extravaganzas. Just because they are performed or managed or produced by people living in Canada, that doesn't make them part of our unique cultural fabric.

Some people think we should help preserve our cultural identity by supporting the artists who write music and paint and write stories. I disagree. Most of the stuff produced by these self-proclaimed artistes is unwanted by the majority of Canadians; it comes from snobs to be consumed by snobs with average folk being asked to pay for it. This situation is highly unfair. Furthermore, if average Canadians don't want the junk enough to support it, I place little credence in the claims that it represents Canadian culture.

Let's face it. Most real people would probably rather visit a wax museum than sleep through a ballet. And a wax museum probably sounds better to most people than all the "cultural" activities in all of the prairies put together (by prairies, I mean from Kenora to the Rockies). Ask yourself this: which has more visitors per year -- the Niagara Falls wax musea or Winnipeg. I'll bet Winnipeg loses by a ratio of about 235 to 1.

And now ask yourself: which gets more tax dollar support for culture -- the Niagara Falls wax musea or Winnipeg? I'll bet Winnipeg wins by an infinite ratio.

The important conclusion to be drawn here is that Winnipeg needs, yes, NEEDS federal subsidies for its very own wax museum. Or else to subsidize the move of their entire city to Niagara Falls.

Meanwhile, let those who make their living by appealing for government grants to the arts do something useful with their time, such as set up a wax museum in London, Ont., or produce more good movies like Strange Brew that real Canadians can identify with.

***

People who know me understand that I'm an above average supporter of the arts in London, Ontario; I strongly favour private support for the arts. My objection is to taxing everyone to support the tastes, wishes, activities, of the pretentious (and, of course, non-pretentious) few.

It Was Too Cold to Build a Snowman

The cold temperatures meant the snow we got last night couldn't easily be rolled into a snowman, and so I did the next best thing: I did some snowstomp art to make the introduction to "Frosty, the Snowman".

A couple of "notes" about today's artwork:

• There are some blemishes because I slipped a couple of times on the ice that is under the snow.
• Because of the ice and the loose snow, I tried to do more actual stomp/step art and less shuffle/scuff art.
• I know, I know: I forgot to put in the bar line after the first measure. If the line were there, it would be much clearer that the third note is an eighth note but the fourth note is a quarter note. Also I should have made the dots for the dotted notes more obvious.
• It's in the key of C major, making it easier to play on piano or recorder (and also making it easier to fit onto the staff and to do the art with no sharps or flats).
• Encore at the bottom refers to an upcoming concert by "Encore, the Concert Band". Our February concert is popular music. It's at 2pm on Sunday, Feb 22, 2019, at Banting Secondary School.

Here are links to my previous snow stomp art work:

       Too Cold to Build a Snowman (this post)

       Simply a-MAZE-ing

       Let There Be Music

      Ommadawn 

      The First Robin of Spring? 

      Be My Valentine, 2018

      Curling AND the Super Bowl

      I'm No Escher... 

      Hark! the Herald Angel Sings

      Nativity Scene, 2017

      Planning an Escape

      Caught in the Net

Surf's Up 

Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe, Part 2

      Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe

      Pikachu

      Happy New Year, 2017

      O Tannenbaum

      Nativity Scene

Special Weather Statement

Think Tropics

Qubix

Valentine, 2016

Paisley'd Circles

Happy New Year, 2016

The House of the Rising Sun

Easter Eggs

A weak pattern in the blowing snow.

The same pattern after some melting

New Year's Champagne

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Happy Valentine's Day

Cabaret

A Christmas Tree (my first effort)

It Was Too Cold to Build a Snowman

The cold temperatures meant the snow we got last night couldn't easily be rolled into a snowman, and so I did the next best thing: I did some snowstomp art to make the introduction to "Frosty, the Snowman".

A couple of "notes" about today's artwork:

• There are some blemishes because I slipped a couple of times on the ice that is under the snow.
• Because of the ice and the loose snow, I tried to do more actual stomp/step art and less shuffle/scuff art.
• I know, I know: I forgot to put in the bar line after the first measure. If the line were there, it would be much clearer that the third note is an eighth note but the fourth note is a quarter note. Also I should have made the dots for the dotted notes more obvious.
• It's in the key of C major, making it easier to play on piano or recorder (and also making it easier to fit onto the staff and to do the art with no sharps or flats).
• Encore at the bottom refers to an upcoming concert by "Encore, the Concert Band". Our February concert is popular music. It's at 2pm on Sunday, Feb 22, 2019, at Banting Secondary School.

Here are links to my previous snow stomp art work:

       Too Cold to Build a Snowman (this post)

       Simply a-MAZE-ing

       Let There Be Music

      Ommadawn 

      The First Robin of Spring? 

      Be My Valentine, 2018

      Curling AND the Super Bowl

      I'm No Escher... 

      Hark! the Herald Angel Sings

      Nativity Scene, 2017

      Planning an Escape

      Caught in the Net

Surf's Up 

Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe, Part 2

      Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe

      Pikachu

      Happy New Year, 2017

      O Tannenbaum

      Nativity Scene

Special Weather Statement

Think Tropics

Qubix

Valentine, 2016

Paisley'd Circles

Happy New Year, 2016

The House of the Rising Sun

Easter Eggs

A weak pattern in the blowing snow.

The same pattern after some melting

New Year's Champagne

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Happy Valentine's Day

Cabaret

A Christmas Tree (my first effort)

Let There Be Music

Snow Stomp art for the new year:

My previous snow stomp art:

      Let There Be Music  (this post)

      Ommadawn

      The First Robin of Spring? 

      Be My Valentine, 2018

      Curling AND the Super Bowl

      I'm No Escher... 

      Hark! the Herald Angel Sings

      Nativity Scene, 2017

      Planning an Escape

      Caught in the Net

Surf's Up 

Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe, Part 2

      Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe

      Pikachu

      Happy New Year, 2017

      O Tannenbaum

      Nativity Scene

Special Weather Statement

Think Tropics

Qubix

Valentine, 2016

Paisley'd Circles

Happy New Year, 2016

The House of the Rising Sun

Easter Eggs

A weak pattern in the blowing snow.

The same pattern after some melting

New Year's Champagne

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Happy Valentine's Day

Cabaret

A Christmas Tree (my first effort)

 

My previous snow stomp art:

      Let There Be Music  (this post)

      Ommadawn

      The First Robin of Spring? 

      Be My Valentine, 2018

      Curling AND the Super Bowl

      I'm No Escher... 

      Hark! the Herald Angel Sings

      Nativity Scene, 2017

      Planning an Escape

      Caught in the Net

Surf's Up 

Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe, Part 2

      Diagonally Warped in a Parallel Universe

      Pikachu

      Happy New Year, 2017

      O Tannenbaum

      Nativity Scene

Special Weather Statement

Think Tropics

Qubix

Valentine, 2016

Paisley'd Circles

Happy New Year, 2016

The House of the Rising Sun

Easter Eggs

A weak pattern in the blowing snow.

The same pattern after some melting

New Year's Champagne

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Happy Valentine's Day

Cabaret

A Christmas Tree (my first effort)

My, What a Lovely Bunch of Co-incidences

Next week I'll be out in Regina, Saskatchewan, visiting with friends and relatives, performing with the Saskatchewan Roughrider Pep Band, and giving seminar in the economics department, "Property Rights and Contract Enforcement in the Post-Zombie Apocalypse".  I'll also likely be doing some Pokemon hunting.

The coincidences:

• I thought my plane arrived at 8:30 pm and I'd have to miss some band performances that evening. It turns out my plane arrives at 5pm and the performances begin at 6pm. I can just make it to the performances if I wear my band uniform on the plane, pack my new green plastic trumpet in a carry-on bag, and don't take any checked luggage. No problem; I can do all those things.
• It also turns out that one of the two performance venues that evening will be at a seniors' residence where the aunt and uncle of Ms. Eclectic live, so I'll be able to see them more than I expected while I'm there! I like them a lot and always try to spend time with them while I'm in Regina, so this is an added bonus.
• Also, it looks as if things have worked out so I'll be able to stay with my granddaughter, who lives out in Regina, and so I'll be able to spend much more time with her than I had thought. She's a terrific person, and I'm delighted!

Life is good.

Now to get to work on the paper. And practice the trumpet.

Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes-Benz

One of my favourites from the Pearl album!

 

and I really preferred her version of "Bobby McGee" to Lightfoot's

(which was also good, though)

Muskegon Michigan High School Band Alumni

At this time tomorrow, I will be on my way from London, Ontario, to Muskegon, Michigan, the town where I was born and raised.

Every fall, for the high school homecoming football game, all the alumni of the high school marching band are invited back to join the current marching band to participate in the pre-game and half-time festivities. Someone tells me this has been going on for nearly 40 years, but I started going only about ten or so years ago.

• We meet up, socialize, and rehearse late in the afternoon.
• And then we rehearse with the current high school marching band.
• The band alumni form their own procession and "march" to the stadium playing a school song [It's no long thighs parallel to the ground and 8-to-5 as it was when we were younger, but we sure have fun].
• We play school songs* with the high school band during the pre-game show.
• We participate in a portion of the half-time show, playing some piece to which we will have received the music only during the rehearsal a few hours earlier. One year we did 25-or-6-to-4, a great Chicago hit.
• Every time the football team scores, we play school songs (which seems often since the team is pretty good).
• After the game, the homecoming court is crowned (while the band members stand around and freeze our noogies [or so it seems], no matter what the actual temperature is).
• And then the combined bands march from the far end of the field through the tunnel under the stadium. The fans are lined along the walls of the tunnel and hoot and cheer us the entire way. What a thrilling feeling it is, marching to a really catchy cadence from the drum section, swinging our horns in unison, and straight-faced the entire way as the fans go wild!  Here is a video of the event from last year:
  
  
• After the march through the tunnel, the combined bands march down the street to the old high school gymnasium/auditorium, where the drums set  up in the middle of the gym floor and go through a complex series of cadences  while band members, old and new alike, prance/dance/jog around counter-clockwise in a huge circle. It struck me as a bit weird my first time there, but since then I have wholeheartedly joined in and loved it.
• After what feels like ten or fifteen minutes, the pulsing, sweating bodies break out and form a huge circle, holding hands and sing the high school Alma Mater (yes, I still remember the words).
• And then we race (figuratively, not literally) to Fricano's for pizza, etc.

I have made it back for only about four or five of these events in the past ten years. But for this year, I made sure I had no other commitments for the homecoming game because I have made so many friends during these band reunions and have renewed so many other friendships.

*The Muskegon Big Reds have four school songs.

1. "Indian Boy." The high school band is no longer allowed to play this for PC reasons, but at the end of the third quarter, the band alumni go into the crowd and play it. It is all totally unapproved of and actually disapproved of by the current band leadership. But they tolerate it because we love doing it and fans in the stadium love it.
   
2. "On Muskegon". Some school across Lake Michigan over in Wisconsin seems to have usurped this song from us (as have the Saskatchewan Roughriders!). When I played french horn in high school 87 years ago, we had afterbeats; now I play alto horn, and we have the trombone part, which is much more fun.
3. "Red & White",  a  really kick-ass fight song written by William Stewart, an amazing musician, conductor, composer, designer, mathematician, geometer, inspiring leader, and stern taskmaster. He died of a heart attack during my last year in high school, a severe loss to the music programmes in the Muskegon area.
4. "Alma Mater". A truly beautiful piece of music, also written by William Stewart. These two pieces by Stewart move me every time we play them. I'll try to attach some audio files of recordings made by our band back in 1959. The files are rather large MP4s:
   

   Red & White

   and the

   Alma Mater

   
   

Just Call Me "Mr. Mondegreen"

When I was a child, I thought the song was, "I Love Spare Ribs in the Summer...."

I have often misheard and misunderstood the lyrics of popular songs. Other fun confusions (not mine) that I remember are "Star-Speckled Banana" and "Walking in the Window Like a Lamb."

I had no idea I was referring to Mondegreens -- the mishearing of lyrics, according to this site. [via PJ]

Whereas spoonerisms are slips of the tongue, mondegreens are errors of the ears. They are the mishearing of something, usually a song lyric, so that a new meaning is created. For example, in the song “Bad Moon Rising,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, people have reported mishearing the lyric There's a bad moon on the rise as There's a bathroom on the right. ...

Some of my favorite mondegreens come from children’s misinterpretations of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I'm thinking of the scene in the movie Kindergarten Cop where the kids are saying the Pledge, and if I remember right there are lines like I led the pigeons to the flag and One Nation under God, invisible, with liver tea and Justice for all.

On to mondegreens! Whereas spoonerisms are slips of the tongue, mondegreens are errors of the ears. They are the mishearing of something, usually a song lyric, so that a new meaning is created. For example, in the song “Bad Moon Rising,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, people have reported mishearing the lyric There's a bad moon on the rise as There's a bathroom on the right. - See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/spoonerisms-mondegreens-eggcorns-and-malapropisms#sthash.fG0qJH9q.dpuf

Mondegreens

On to mondegreens! Whereas spoonerisms are slips of the tongue, mondegreens are errors of the ears. They are the mishearing of something, usually a song lyric, so that a new meaning is created. For example, in the song “Bad Moon Rising,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, people have reported mishearing the lyric There's a bad moon on the rise as There's a bathroom on the right.

The name “mondegreen” was coined by a writer named Sylvia Wright who misheard a line from a 17th-century Scottish ballad.

 

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray,
And laid him on the green.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for the future of word play), Wright heard the last line as And Lady Mondegreen instead of And laid him on the green.

Wright had imagined a second slaying victim where there was none, and when she discovered the error she decided to name the phenomenon after the nonexistent Lady Mondegreen.

Some of my favorite mondegreens come from children’s misinterpretations of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I'm thinking of the scene in the movie Kindergarten Cop where the kids are saying the Pledge, and if I remember right there are lines like I led the pigeons to the flag and One Nation under God, invisible, with liver tea and Justice for all.

There are lots of great mondegreens from popular music. I like these three from The Eurythmics, Toto, and Cyndi Lauper: mistaking Sweet dreams are made of this   for Sweet dreams are made of cheese, mistaking I blessed the rains down in Africa for I guess it rains down in Africa, and mistaking When the working day is done, Girls, they want to have fun for What in the world can they get done? Girls, they want to have fun.

If you like mondegreens, Gavin Edwards has written a series of books about them, including 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, When a Man Loves a Walnut, and He's Got the Whole World in His Pants.

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/spoonerisms-mondegreens-eggcorns-and-malapropisms#sthash.fG0qJH9q.dpuf

Mondegreens

On to mondegreens! Whereas spoonerisms are slips of the tongue, mondegreens are errors of the ears. They are the mishearing of something, usually a song lyric, so that a new meaning is created. For example, in the song “Bad Moon Rising,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, people have reported mishearing the lyric There's a bad moon on the rise as There's a bathroom on the right.

The name “mondegreen” was coined by a writer named Sylvia Wright who misheard a line from a 17th-century Scottish ballad.

 

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray,
And laid him on the green.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for the future of word play), Wright heard the last line as And Lady Mondegreen instead of And laid him on the green.

Wright had imagined a second slaying victim where there was none, and when she discovered the error she decided to name the phenomenon after the nonexistent Lady Mondegreen.

Some of my favorite mondegreens come from children’s misinterpretations of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I'm thinking of the scene in the movie Kindergarten Cop where the kids are saying the Pledge, and if I remember right there are lines like I led the pigeons to the flag and One Nation under God, invisible, with liver tea and Justice for all.

There are lots of great mondegreens from popular music. I like these three from The Eurythmics, Toto, and Cyndi Lauper: mistaking Sweet dreams are made of this   for Sweet dreams are made of cheese, mistaking I blessed the rains down in Africa for I guess it rains down in Africa, and mistaking When the working day is done, Girls, they want to have fun for What in the world can they get done? Girls, they want to have fun.

If you like mondegreens, Gavin Edwards has written a series of books about them, including 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, When a Man Loves a Walnut, and He's Got the Whole World in His Pants.

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/spoonerisms-mondegreens-eggcorns-and-malapropisms#sthash.fG0qJH9q.dpuf

Musical Rumble Strips

Over a decade ago, I wrote about the suggestion by my older son, David Ricardo Palmer,

One of his ideas... involves rumble strips. 

Many secondary roads in the country-side of this area have rumble stripspreceding stop signs. They make an intermittent noise as you drive over them and alert you that there is a stop sign coming up very soon. ...

[M]y son's idea is that the grooves in the pavement should be spaced so they play "O Canada" as cars drive over them at the proper speed.

Well, whaddya know! I think he should earn some royalties:

Steve Reich, again

Nine years ago when I was in Copenhagen, I happened to be there during the Jazz Festival. There were live concerts and performances everywhere, along with no prohibitions on enjoying a beer in public places. I wrote then about how much I enjoyed, indeed was mesmerized by, a group performing a piece by Steve Reich.

I had no idea what was being performed, but I loved it. The atmosphere was relaxed and, I am reluctant to use this term, "mellow" at the outdoor venue, with people coming and going, drinking beer, eating ice cream, and enjoying themselves. People's heads were bobbing in unison to the rhythm; and then there would be a chaotic interlude to the head-bobbing as the music developed a different cadence.

For some reason I was reminded of the music of Steve Reich last February and wrote about it again then.

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about the music of Steve Reich some more. For some reason I had not come across his "Music for 18 Musicians" before, but I think that might have been the piece I enjoyed so much back in Copenhagen.

It lasts for a approximately an hour. It is a very slowly evolving piece with a pulsing, driving underlying rhythm that captivates me. Apparently it captivates others as well. Someone wrote about it:

I put it on as a signal that it was time for my guests to leave, but they insisted on staying to listen to it again.

There is a good post about this piece here. It has some excellent commentary. One snippet:

Groups of instruments expose hypnotic melodic patterns adding a new note every so often – the opposite of traditional practice of linear fragmentation and variation. Slowly evolving melodic figures are set over fixed cadences, with the resulting magical effect of varying that which is unchanging. This gradual development of each melodic pattern reconstitutes our sense of time so that we genuinely begin to value each new note; time really does seem to freeze during a performance. No wonder, then, that Reich, rather than Philip Glass, has won a reputation as “the thinking man’s minimalist” – in place of the interminable, meditative scales and arpeggios of his aesthetic colleague, he reinvigorates the emotional potential of tonality and the musical satisfaction of large-scale form within a trance-inducing and crystalline soundscape.

Here are some links to several different full-length performances of the piece on youtube. Download one and give it a listen. You, too, will likely be mesmerized.

 

Tom Lehrer

I recently came across this article about Tom Lehrer, which inspired me to look at the Wikipaedia entry for him. Lehrer is a former professor of mathematics and musical theatre! Both items make for good reading, if you remember Lehrer and his songs.

If you are not familiar with his songs, I highly recommend them. Here are links to just two of his classics:

The Elements, in which he lists the elements in a very Gilbert-and-Sullivan-like tune.

 I think his wittiest song by far is "We will all go together when we go", an anti-war song of the concerns we all had in the early 1960s about possible nuclear holocaust. The ways he divided phrases and even words to keep his rhyming schemes are hilarious and very clever.

I have a feeling I might no longer enjoy Lehrer's political views, but I still admire his brilliance.

If you have some time, it's worth listening to his songs via YouTube, if nothing else.

Bill Szymczyk and B.B. King

Bill Szymczyk was a year ahead of me at our grade school, junior high school, and high school. He was the producer for BB King's most popular albums.

From Wikipaedia [via HR],

He [Szymczyk] successfully lobbied ABC to let him work with B. B. King, whose own record label was a subsidiary of ABC and who was a long time idol of Szymczyk. After convincing King that he could improve his sound to make him more appealing to a wider audience, King himself agreed to let Szymczyk produce for him.^[4] Among the albums he produced for B. B. King are the 1969 live album Live & Well, King's first ever top-100 album. He produced the follow-up studio album Completely Well, which featured "The Thrill Is Gone", the biggest hit of King's career and his signature song. He would continue to produce blues albums throughout the early 1970s for the likes of King and Albert Collins.^[5]

Szymczyk was moved several times while working for ABC Records; first to Los Angeles when ABC acquired Dunhill Records and Szymczyk took over production for the West Coast operations, and later to Denver when he decided to form his own label, Tumbleweed Records. He worked for a while as a disc jockey at radio station KFML, and continued to produce albums in New York and Los Angeles, such as the J. Geils Band's 1971 album The Morning After, recorded at the Los Angeles Record Plant. He did extensive work at the Colorado studioCaribou Ranch, where would be the center of his operations for the rest of the 1970s.^[3]

....

B. B. King

• Live & Well (1969)
• Completely Well (1969)
• Indianola Mississippi Seeds (1970)
• Live in Cook County Jail (1971)

Dodge, You Goofs

I just saw an ad you ran in which you really put down people who like chamber music, saying Dodge is not for people who like chamber music.

You're right, jerks. I have no interest in buying car from someone who insults my taste in music.

Jerks.

Carmina Burana

This afternoon at 2pm, Encore: the Concert Band will join with the Amabile Men's Chorus in a performance of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana".

It's a fun piece to listen to; and it's a tricky, challenging piece to play (for me, anyway). I've been enthralled by recordings and by live performances of it. It's a treat to be a part of this performance.

Carmina Burana and other numbers, Central Secondary School, London, Ontario. 2pm, Sunday, April 19th.

Well No Wonder Carmina Burana Is So Hard to Play

Check out the time signatures. The music for the 6th movement for 3rd horn is on the left; for 4th horn on the right. ;-)  3/4 or 4/4? Clearly 4/4, based on the notes, but confusing.

Frank Zappa and the Nihilist Spasm Band

A couple of days ago, I posted this picture to my Facebook feed:

I really enjoyed two albums by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention:

• the two-album set Freak Out, and
• Over-Night Sensation, with the classics "Montana", Camarillo Brillo, and Dynamo Hum".

After I posted that picture, Rebekah post a link to this Youtube feed of Frank Zappa as a guest on the Steve Allen show in 1963:

It's a 16-minute selection which concludes with a jumble of sounds that reminds me of London Ontario's own Nihilist Spasm Band. [NSB]

 [The Nihilist Spasm Band] uses homemade instruments. Indeed, most of the NSB's instruments are modifications of other instruments, or wholly invented by the members. ... The range of the improvisation is such that instruments are not tuned to each other, tempos and time signatures are not imposed, and the members push the ranges of their instrumentation by engaging in constant innovation.

I knew several of the members of NSB, and back in the late 1970s, I had the "honour" of sitting in with them during a session. The description is accurate, and it is very much like what Frank Zappa was encouraging Steve Allen and the others to do back in 1963.

Zappa was a musical genius ahead of the times in many ways.

Saskatchewan

When Ms Eclectic and I traveled to Saskatchewan a number of years ago, I was absolutely blown away by the beauty and the lovely openness of the province. Most of the areas we drove through had rolling hills, gorgeous valleys, and big sky awesomeness.

One weekend while I was teaching out there, I rented a car and drove to the SW region of the province and hiked in the coulees. Photos are here and here. The hikes there reminded me of the openness I had come to love in the foothills near Plateau Mountain in Alberta, in the Three Peaks district of the Yorkshire Dales, and along the Seven Sisters and South Downs in SE England.

The other day Ms Eclectic's cousin sent us this video about Saskatchewan. I'm not a fan of C&W music, and the video doesn't really emphasize the rolling hills and coulees the way I would, but I love the video anyway.

"It's Only the Beginning..."

Today is the last day to see my photo exhibit, "It's Only the Beginning..." at The Arts Project. The gallery will be open from noon until 7pm today.

  It's Only the Beginning....

 

The gallery is closed tomorrow, and we are taking the show down on Monday morning, after which our home will no longer have nude walls.

Busy Day

This afternoon I'm playing in a concert with Encore: The Concert Band [2pm, Central Secondary School] in which we're playing a number of really fun pieces.

This evening I'm doing a knock-off of Sean Connery for an event at The London Club.

Tomorrow I begin to hang my photo show at The Arts Project. I've been coasting up 'til now, but life will be hectic for the next three months.

"Tongue of the Dragon"

"...A Song of Great Social and Political Importance..."

Janis Joplin's, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz" lampoons the misuses of religion and prayer, focusing on human greed. I thought it was great when I first heard it, and I still like it.

Carl Orff's Sense of Humour: an "A" below the bass clef for the 4th horn?

For our April concert, Encore (the Concert Band) will be performing selections from Carl Orff's CarminaBurana. I love the piece and have been looking forward to rehearsing and playing it. It should be interesting with a concert band and a top local male chorus.

Tonight we had our first run at the piece. All was going pretty well for me on the 4th horn part until we hit the 13th movement, "Fortune Imperatrix Mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World).

It started out being relatively easy stuff. Notes below the staff in the treble clef are not always easy for horn players used to playing above the staff in treble clef, but the first couple of lines were a piece of cake for a career 4th-horner like me (whose chops are going and who has troubles playing notes above the treble clef staff).

And then I hit the 3rd line (beginning bar 13) of the 13th movement:

I can play low notes. In a recent concert I had fun playing an E-flat below the staff of the bass clef (yes, that's right, bass clef!) but look at this section. If I'm reading this music correctly, that's a frickn A waaayyyy below the staff.... below the bass clef staff. I have never been able to play any note below a C# below the bass-clef staff. I don't know if ANYone can play the note as it is written. Certainly none of the top-flight horn players in Encore can even come close, so far as I know.

I figure Carl Orff was just having fun with this (or was it the arranger who is responsible? I've never seen the full orchestra music).

I cheat. I play the A at the bottom of the staff in the bass cleff. It seems to work. And I'm grateful they weren't eighth-note runs in that range.

 

Rapid Transformation

This afternoon I played horn with "Encore, the Concert Band".

And this evening I played Joey Gambino, a 30-year-old gangster:

Both were lots of fun!

White Elephants and Zoos

Many years ago, I heard someone say,

One problem, among others, with white elephants is that once you build them, you then find you need to build bigger zoos to keep them in.

I was reminded of that quote today when former student/colleague/co-author John Henderson sent me this:

The city of Timmins finally closed its white elephant Shania Twain Centre. Had never heard of it myself, then again I can't imagine ever listening to a Shania Twain song. This, unusually informative bit, from Wikipedia:

Annual attendance for the Centre was originally projected at 50,000 but never reached above 15,000.^[1] Annual subsidies to the center cost the city of Timmins $7 per resident, or $33.72 per centre visitor.

 For more on the closing of the centre, see this:

A failed tourist attraction in Timmins is set to become the gold mine the city always hoped for.

The Shania Twain Centre permanently shut its doors Friday.

International gold miner Goldcorp will officially acquire the property in June. The company plans to demolish the structure to make it part of a massive open-pit gold mine.

City councillors decided several weeks ago the centre was too big a money pit to keep subsidizing....

The centre has racked up more than $1 million in operating deficits ...

Goldcorp, which will officially acquire the property June 28, plans to demolish the structure to make the gold-seeded land underneath part of a massive open-pit mine being developed adjacent to the town.

Recent media reports have suggested the centre cost as little as $3.7 million to build. But a May 2011 analysis by PKF Consulting Inc. in Toronto says the figure was actually about $10 million for all construction, including the building, site development and upgrades to the co-located gold-mine tour attraction.

The entire 65-acre site is to be razed, including the gold-mine tour facilities, and added to Vancouver-based Goldcorp's planned open pit.

Here's hoping local politicians everywhere use this as an example before committing zillions of taxpayer dollars to more white elephants.

Related articles

Unforgiven

I Would Like to Thank....

In 15 years, Shania Twain Centre went from idea to reality to rubble

The Fun-Loving Folks at WestJet

I will likely have some extra luggage when going to Regina next week to give my seminar on "An Options Market for Human Organs", so I went to the WestJet website to see what the charges might be.

Here is a portion of the explanation of the fees at their site:

If you are paying a fee at the airport, we will accept Canadian dollars or the equivalent amount of the local currency. Much as we'd like to, we can't accept payment in the form of songs, yardwork or feats of strength. [emphasis added]

Some interesting, digressive notes:

• My extra luggage will be full of things for my granddaughter who is moving to Regina the day before I go.
• The Roughrider Pepband regularly plays at the WestJet Hangar in Regina for the WestJet employees. In exchange, WestJet provides food for the band and waives extra charges for transporting instruments when the band flies to perform at Grey Cup games.... so dya think that maybe if I offer to play "Green/White Fight" on my green trumpet at the ticket counter, they'll waive the fees for me??

Related articles

Regina: I'll Be There Friday night

The Calgary Airport

The Grey Cup, a Retrospective

The John Palmer Memorial Urinal

An Options Market for Human Organs

Canada Day! Canada is Really Big

[from Wendy]:

One of my favourite groups.

What To Do When You've Finished All the Beer

A friend sent this around earlier today. Since tomorrow is a holiday in Canada and the weekend will be a holiday in the US, I hope some people will try this:

Generation Gap?

From MA:

It would be even funnier without Dagwood's concluding dicta.