On Mar 26, 6:07 pm, QueBarbara <que.barbara.l...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:01:23 +0000, Peter Boulding
>
>
>
> <p...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >1. All Tomorrow's Parties - Velvet Underground and Nico
> >2. My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains - Captain Beefheart
> >3. Carey - Joni Mitchell
> >4. Concerto for violin, oboe, strings and continuo in D minor, 2nd
moveme=
nt
> >- JS Bach
> >5. Everybody Knows - Leonard Cohen
> >6. Every Time We Say Goodbye - Ella Fitzgerald
> >7. Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac
> >8. Fotheringay - Fair****t Convention
> >9. I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
> >10. Low Yo Yo Stuff - Captain Beefheart
> >11. We Are The Ovaltineys - The Ovaltineys
> >12. Sunday Morning - Velvet Underground
> >13. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
> >14. Requiem, Offertoire - Faur=E9
>
> >Aaaaaaahh... That was good.
>
> Good list.
>
> Someone here mentioned that they didn't notice music, that it wasn't
> that im****tant to them*. That just boggles my mind; to me it's as
> unfathomable as saying that *** or love isn't of any im****tance. We
> do live in a Golden Age of music. Can you imagine living before there
> was recorded music easily available? If you lived in a remote area,
> you might go months, or even years, without hearing music.
>
Well, but I think people made their own music more often. People
gathered around the piano at parties and sang. Pa Ingalls whiled away
long winter evenings on the prairie playing his fiddle. People went
caroling at Christmas. They passed the guitar around the campfire, or
played the harmonica. Hard physical labor was lightened by working
songs that fit the rhythm of the work. (One of the more fascinating
programs I saw at Mystic Sea****t was a demonstration of which sea
chanteys fit the rhythm of which job.)
Yes, it's wonderful that we have infinitely more exposure to
professional music than our ancestors, but I think that constant
exposure has eroded the willingness to make music ourselves -- if we
don't sound like those people on the radio, we're "no good," and
anyway, why sing when you can pop in a CD or turn on your Ipod?
Similarly, what happened to dancing at home? As recently as my teen
years it was pretty common for people to dance at parties; books from
the first half of the 20th century talk about "rolling up the rug" to
dance. I don't know anybody who dances at parties any more -- dancing
is something you do at a club, or not at all.
I can't help but think that in some ways the proliferation of
professional music has dampened individual musical expression.
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