Category: Music on YouTube.

A Diversion: The Tallis Scholars – Allegri Miserere.

I am not sure how long this will stay – it is well worth the 29 mins spent listening and then go to the version below and be transported to another reality: I have 15 different recordings (obsession – no…  I just love music that can make one stop & listen without distraction) my excuse anyway  🙂

The extended ‘C’ is delightful and without strain or vibrato in the version below.

Omar Metioui – The Oud.

The Oud played by Omar Metioui with words from the poem:

 

A garden among the flames

O Marvel,
a garden among the flames!

My heart can take on
any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,

For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur’án.

I profess the religion of love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is the belief,
the faith I keep.

A poem by:
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibnʿArabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī.

Better known as: Ibn Arabi – I think you can see why.   25 July 1165 – 8 November 1240.

He was a renowned Andalusia Sufi mystic and philosopher.

Music I like.

“La nina de las flores” from La Juderia album, Yasmin Levy.

I gave a girl a flower
And I called her the flower girl
Thus, for many years
His head was adorned
And I smelled her scent

And one day the girl disappeared
And I knew I would not see her any more

And in the middle of the road
I saw a flower a little tired
And I knew that was the flower
From my girl
From flower girl.

Been playing this album on my Landrover stereo and all I can say is ……..  Gosh what a voice !

 

Animated musical notation.

One of the advantages of the internet:
I sometimes like to listen to music while following the score, made much easier now that these can be down loaded for free in most cases.
But when first doing this, it can be a little daunting (apart from needing to be able to read music that is 🙂 ) so I concentrate on one instrument and then progress.
But I have found a series of videos on YouTube by someone called ‘smarlin’ & others that uses an animated score – basically it reproduces each instrument with a coloured line and the duration of the line is the note being played. The colour represents the instrument or in the case of, for example the piano, the finger being used.
I have found these a great help when first following a new score, it is almost like a visual representation of what goes on in the brain (mine anyway) when trying to combine all the instruments.
There are some that show the bowing movement for solo stringed instruments (everyone goes in the same direction with the bow David !….. 12 and the knuckles on my right hand got sore from being tapped).
Example : If you want to follow Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the above shows the complexity in a very clear and understandable manner.

Just in case anyone is interested 🙂

Winter.

For those who like a rather minimalist style: this musician requires further exploration and well worth the trouble……..

O winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed
In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes;
For he hath rear’d his sceptre o’er the world…..

Part of the poem Winter from from Poetical Sketches, 1783 William Blake. 

Reading Robert Frost.

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Robert Frost