Listening

[Mike]

I have always thought that listening to music is 90% of being a musician.
Starting in my first band I began a ritual each rehearsal with a listening time. Each member would bring 1 song to listen to. and we would spend a few minutes discussing each song and what was happening in it.

I thought gee wouldn't it be fun to start a listen to this thread. Post a song/composer you are really getting into right now and discuss post suggestions were someone can go to hear other composers along the same lines etc..

I think it is fun to turn people on to something perhaps they have never heard before.

to start

Lately I have been listening to more progressive orchestra compositions. Bela Bartok is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. I am at this moment tuning my ears to Divertiment.

and scene there is no one before me to recommend future listening I would like to through out there to everyone Charles Ives as someone to give a good listen too.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6co3j_charles-ives-the-unanswered...

[Deane Ogden]

Mike,

Ives is one of my all-time fave composers. I also think Steve Reich is someone who challenges the boundaries of what we might be used to.

Deane

http://scorecastonline.com

[Fredrick zinos]

Well, Great idea. And if you want to push the Bartok (AKA "Bart Hawk" or occasionally "Bar Talk") a little further, the concerto for orchestra is a textbook of useful orchestral writing. And don't forget about his music for strings harp piano celeste and percussion. Also, there is a good performance on youtube of the pizz movement of the 4th string quartet.

[Chris Alpiar]

As a jazz performer, I always felt that to be a master, you needed to balance equal amounts of:
practice (intense dedicated practice, with metronome and goals)
jam session (getting together with other jazz players and making music as intense or difficult as possible, making as many mistakes as possible and learning from what the other cats are practicing)
listening (not casual listening - computer off, tv off, eyes closed or following a score, actively visualizing all parts for half of listening, the other half transcribing music from disc to paper: solos, chords, inner harmonies, etc) - it used to be extremely lame if listening with a friend if someone started to talk when we were listening - LAME haha
performing (any gigs, performance, recording session, etc)

Personally for me, lately, I have too much music in my head I am trying to get out, and listening gets distracting, and so I only listen to NPR talk shows now. But I go through periods where I listen extensively - I have several thousand albums on vinyl and lots of CD's of course. If you really want to knock your brain around some, check out the John Coltrane Quartet playing "Transition" - what an amazing 4 person improvisation with only some very loose 8 bar forms being the glue

http://www.amazon.com/Transition-John-Coltrane/dp/B000003N6N/ref=sr...

[Mike]

OH MAN! I love Coltrane. I first started getting into jazz cause of the Miles and Coltrane album and later listening to A Love Supreme and Sun Ship... Sun Ship still blows my mind to this day! the title track brings to my mind what it would sound like if your leg falls asleep and it could sing to you.

[Chuck Lucy Finale]

that listening is a fantastic idea

[Jan Civil]

I listen to things other than what some people think of as music. I listen to "noise". I have to filter out a lot, but there is some really useful information out there, like locomotive trains, the horns of trains. The sonorities in that are so rich... doppler effect on basic harmonic phenomena, you get these bends in these, kind of, *7 # 11* chords (multiplying partials, a lot of odd numbered harmonics for whatever reason), just kills me. Airplanes, the reinforcements and cancellations in phasing of a powerful sound, moving overhead . Water. I live by water, like 200 metres from the bay edge. Water birds, squawking in the morning.

One morning, in Tucson Az, I was ready to use the library at the Uni there, just after dawn. The birds in the desert there, are very present in the mix. Here in this plaza there are a lot of birds. The birds listen and respond. They don't do a lot else I think! Each bird has its own catalogue of licks. These are not immediately perceivable in terms of patterns. It's impulsive, kind of outside reason. The mockingbird has the chops, can do all the other birds' licks and throw it back to 'em. Actually one of the most musical things I ever heard, this seemingly endless improvisation. Messiaen tried to catalogue and notate these (there is a guy I know called Urs Leimgruber who has this thing down like nobody's business, on soprano sax. UNBELIEVABLE artist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QciqhEfs_Rg)

A young musician, should probably absorb a lot of what's available, and be like the mockingbird to some extent. Only, with the intent of reproducing patterns as we rational people are wont to do, we are in danger of being human jukeboxes, regurgitating and repeating, and it can get to be really static action.

So, I mix it up. I, like mr Alpiar, am at a point where there is something I need to say, that's mine, and listening to other musicians can be a kind of a spanner in the works.

[Mike]

very interesting listening Jan. Had to go back to it a few times to really digest that. at first it was just noise but after a few tries it really gets more and more interesting.

Today I just listened to Daphnis et Chloé for the first time.
I have a record in my collection with Boléro. but I never really got into that much (not that I dont like the song it just gets boring to me)
However the moods and feelings invoked by Daphnis et Chloé has just pushed Ravel up into my favorite composers list
part1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMHv5b2V_0
part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkk7mLPoD0
part3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv87pOg6NHk
Sadly these videos don't use the choir... but still a mindbogglingly good performance.

What are you listening too?

[Jan Civil]

I am avoiding listening to music. My ambient surroundings, trains, water, birds.

Daphnis is huge for me btw.

Here is a version of Bolero you may like...