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Sad day yesterday for many.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/n ... ummer-dead

One of the greatest (if not best) drummers of all time.

Lately, Mozart piano concertos on you tube.

Geoff

this is the 70s

Seems like made by the single piece / no editing:



I have no idea what they sing about. Every word is parseable, the whole lyrics make no sense. The melody is fine, though.

A friend of mine usually spends dawn to dusk and then some playing music for St Paddy’s day. With everything shut down ‘round here, the band has decided to do a live stream event for everyone who won’t be able to see them this year. If you can’t get out tomorrow and want to rock out anyway, turn up the volume and check it out:

R.I.P. John Prine

I've been following it; just saw that John Prine died tonight from the Chinese virus.

cob wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:53 pm R.I.P. John Prine

Well damn, that didn't make my day and damn this blasted virus too , stay real safe guys

He was an unbelievable wordsmith. A tragic end to a wonderful career. RIP John Prine.

Here is a link to a good article about John in the LA Times

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... best-songs

It's no more "Chinese", folks...

99% of what I listen to is classical music, mainly symphonic music and opera.
Being Italian, I have an advantage in understanding most operas written. I also understand French and English. I am studying (not very methodically) German as well, and the reason is Wagner, Richard Strauss.

For Russian, I'll have to make recourse to subtitles for my entire life, I guess.

Birrofilo wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:13 pm For Russian, I'll have to make recourse to subtitles for my entire life, I guess.

Despiting the fact that both German and Russian are equidistant from Italian?.. Non sono sicuro se l'italiana di Vlagavulvin non avrebbe un accento sostanziale, ma certamente la mia lingua tedesca ce l'ha.

VLAGAVULVIN wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:53 pm

Birrofilo wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:13 pm For Russian, I'll have to make recourse to subtitles for my entire life, I guess.

Despiting the fact that both German and Russian are equidistant from Italian?[/utube]

Maybe they are equidistant, but I am familiar with German pronunciation since I was a child, and not with Russian. German is very close to English (they are two germanic languages) and Russian is a slav language, totally different in structure, grammar, roots of words. Also, the Germans very wisely adopt the Latin alphabet. Russians are not so smart Finally, I am 53 and I see that my ability to memorize new words is declining. With German I only have to complete a journey which I have undertaken many years ago, with Russian I would have to begin from scratch, and that would be painful.

I leave Russian for the next incarnation. Last time I checked, I knew some 40 Russian words (starting from Voda, Vodka, Moskovskaya, Kvass), but they are the words that most everybody know.

Birrofilo wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:42 am Russian is a slav language, totally different in structure, grammar, roots of words. Also, the Germans very wisely adopt the Latin alphabet. Russians are not so smart

They grasp Italian much smarter than Germans do. If they get motivated, of course.

Heh, yepp: you guys really borrowed your casa from Germans... now find its correspondence in Russian and compare to Latin... surpriiiise

Never too late to clean up the one's own mind... trying to start making wonders from Romanian as an incredible melting pot of Romans in Slavs (or vice versa?)... that was the latest convergence, though.

There's a whole lotta deep isoglosses at any level of RU and IT, too. But it's another story. Tante cose...

I know, slavs have a great propensity-easiness to learn other european languages. My late father used to tell me slavs can learn languages very easily.
This is probably be due to some complicated structures in their language that they find simplified in other languages.

By the same token, English is - from a grammar, structure point of view - very easy for an Italian, because from a structural point of view is a very primitive language . Most persons have the same verbal desinences, infinitive and verb are the same, many infinitives are also nouns, no real conjunctive mode, future and conditional made through auxiliaries (which is very easy to learn and do). It's easy to learn English.

The problem arises when you have to understand what they say, because every 20 km they speak a different language .

I stop here because we are hijacking this thread

Spent some time surfing through music videos last night, before I noticed a pecularity in the way Google tags or marks some of their video icons in a list. In this case I noticed the ocassional "50 +" tag on some icons. I've no idea what "50 +" signifies. Perhaps its a rating which suggest that a video is safe for someone 50 yrs or older - to watch or listen to without getting an upset stomach ?

I liked this Gregorian version of “I'll Find My Way Home” even before I noticed the 50+ tag. Gregorian is a German band that plays in the Gregorian antiphonary style – chant versions of modern pop music. The song itself was written in 1981 by Jon Anderson (English lead singer of - Yes) and Vangelis ( Greek composer).



Vangelis has been very influential in the music world; his work has been copied and altered and replayed a lot. I liked this version of the same song too but had some difficulty imagining that voice coming out of that hairy face.

Well, just as ancient music was mentioned, I would like to propose something which might sound totally new to many. It might be the occasion for a discovery, a madrigal on a famous poem by the immortal Torquato Tasso, Ecco mormorar l'onde.

Italian text:

Ecco mormorar l'onde
e tremolar le fronde
a l'aura mattutina e gli arboscelli,
e sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
cantar soavemente
e rider l'oriente.
Ecco già l'alba appare
e si specchia nel mare
e rasserena il cielo
e imperla il dolce gelo,
e gli alti monti indora.
O bella e vaga Aurora,
L'aura è tua messaggera,
e tu de l'aura
ch'ogni arso cor ristaura.

A translation is here: http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Ecc ... onteverdi)

Here are the waves murmuring
and the foliage quivering
at the morning breeze; and the shrubs,
and on the tree branches the pretty birds
sing softly;
and the Orient smiles.
Here dawn looms up
and is reflected in the sea
and brightens up the sky
and beads the sweet ice
and gilds the tall mountains.
O beautiful and vague dawn,
the gentle breeze is your herald
and you [are the herald] of the breeze
which refreshes every burnt heart.

Claudio Monteverdi wrote a madrigal on this poem, number 14 in the second book of madrigals, 1590.

Five voices a cappella. An execution by the group "La venexiana"

thecroweater wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 6:06 pm Battle of Long Tan

Thanks for that!
I'm old enough I registered for the draft and had a lottery number but the Army didn't call up any draftees that year.
But I make it a point to thank anyone I see wearing a Veteran's cap, ESPECIALLY Vietnam Vet.

But I guess I never knew or thought about Aussie troops fighting there.


It's always "stirring" to read comments on youtube videos from guys that fought there.

Listened to a lot of John Prine in the past few weeks.

More recently one of the best rock bands nobody has heard of

Birrofilo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:04 pm Well, just as ancient music was mentioned, I would like to propose something which might sound totally new to many. It might be the occasion for a discovery, a madrigal on a famous poem by the immortal Torquato Tasso, Ecco mormorar l'onde.........
.......Claudio Monteverdi wrote a madrigal on this poem, number 14 in the second book of madrigals, 1590.
Five voices a cappella. An execution by the group "La venexiana"

Your looking at a musical illiterate here. Your polyphonic “madrigals” sent me packing to the nearest dictionary. However, La Venexiana does do a fine job with this (Ecco mormorar l'onde). There is a lot there to hear, but it takes a cultured ear to listen.

Most of us modern denizens of westernized society - are accustomed to having our eardrums lambasted by much louder and fuzzier sounds. Outright auditory assault passes as acceptable music. In general our attention spans also, have been reduced to those of houseflies by modern media. In this electrified day and age of radio,TV and Internet - it is probable now that a smaller percentage of the population, are musicians. For lack of distraction, previous generations likely had more impetus to pacify themselves with musical instruments.

If you look at human endeavors from the perspective of a librarian that works in a very large archival library; the rows of books, magazines, LPs and sheet music - if set end to end would each be miles long. It is astounding or more likely depressing to realize how small a portion you could personally ever have time to appreciate. On top of that, modern music is abundant and the popular music industry is fickle.

Speaking of musical illiteracy: Vangelis who was mentioned earlier – can't read or write a note of music. Wikipedia labels him as a musician, composer and producer. He may have produced 22 studio albums and scores to a dozen movies like Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire and 1492:Conquest of Paradise. He may drive around in a Rolls Royce and laugh all the way to the bank, but he is an Academy Award winning "composer" that occasionally has need to recruit someone who is musically literate.

Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Elvis Presley and The Beatles (all 4) could not read music either. That didn't stop the fools from dabbling in the music industry anyway.

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Here is a performer that had his own, uniquely identifiable “slip note” piano style. Appoggiatura is not a word that one runs across every day.