Music & Reviews – Page 2

Revised CPLUG Ukulele Song Book

I spent the past couple of weeks diligently working on updating and expanding our Collingwood Public Library Ukulele Group (CPLUG) songbook. I’m happy to announce it is completed – and that I can get back to my regular blogging. Update, June 2020: The link to download was broken and is fixed. AND there are more songs in the songbook than listed below. I had put together two smaller songbooks previously for group use, as well as sent along several individual song sheets over the past year. Over the time since the group began, I’ve been updating my own style and … click below for more ↓

The Book List Game

2015-01-07 2015-01-07 Books & Reviews / Culture / Film & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

In a recent story titled “Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the Eight Books Every Intelligent Person on the Planet Should Read,” the eminent astrophysicist listed his top eight book titles – from a Reddit conversation that was going on back in December, 2011. Here are the books he chose back then (check the linked story above for his comments on why he picked these titles): The Bible; The System of the World, by Isaac Newton; On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin; Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift; The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine; The Wealth of Nations, by Adam … click below for more ↓

Dave Clark Five

2014-08-10 2021-05-15 Culture / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

We’re sitting on the front deck listening to British Sixties Radio, an internet radio station we like and listen to a lot, and they just played the Dave Clark Five doing Glad All Over. That song came out on the UK charts in January, 1964, reaching North America a bit later. Fifty years ago this year. I was a young teenager then, not long moved to a new apartment, going to high school, and listening to the music of the British Invasion on the transistor radio I carried everywhere with me. In another year or so, I would be moved … click below for more ↓

WWHWWWH

2014-05-27 2014-05-27 Culture / Music & Reviews / Musical InstrumentsLeave a comment

WWHWWWH is one of two formulae I need to keep in mind when working through my scales on the ukulele and guitar. The other is 2122122. I see the musicians among you already recognize what these mean. I still need to have these written on a sticky note so I will remember when I practice. WWHWWWH means: Whole step – whole step – half step – whole step – whole step – whole step – half step. It’s how you calculate notes in any major scale, (or diatonic scale as it is also known, and just to confuse things, it … click below for more ↓

Practice makes perfect

2014-05-13 2014-05-13 Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Whenever I’m asked for advice from new ukulele players on how to get better, or what secret they need to know to play better, I tell them it’s simple: Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. … click below for more ↓

How many chords?

2014-05-08 2014-05-08 Culture / Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

How many chords does a musician need to know? How many does an amateur musician who plays mostly popular, folk and blues music, need to know? My first answer has always been, “all of them” because you never know when you need them. But that’s not realistic. After all, there are thousands of chords you can play on a guitar or piano and you simply can’t memorize every one. Well, at least I can’t. I know a lot of the basic forms: majors, sevenths, minors and so on – but I sometimes have to take a moment and think out something … click below for more ↓

Reading music and music theory

2014-05-04 2014-05-06 Culture / Education & Learning / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

I write about reading a lot, because I read a lot of books. There are other kinds of reading – other languages, too – that I don’t write much about. Reading music is one of them. It’s a different language; a symbolic language with its own grammar, punctuation and rules. As far as reading music goes, I’m semi-illiterate. I’ve been playing music – guitar mostly – since the Beatles had Ticket To Ride on the hit parade, back in the days of AM radio and 45 RPM singles. But I’m self-taught: no classes or schooling, just a lot of practice … click below for more ↓

Just Six Songs?

2014-04-26 2014-04-26 Culture / Music & Reviews / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Author, musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin says all music can be classified into a mere six types of song. That’s part of the premise in his 2009 book, The World in Six Songs. I recently started reading it and it has opened some interesting areas of thought for me.* A mere six fundamental themes in song, Levitin writes: friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge and love. And he provides a chapter for each in what is a literary combination of sciences, music, social commentary, cultural anthropology and personal reminiscence. And he offers a lot of conjecture that, while not necessarily provable, … click below for more ↓

Spoon River: Smith, Goodman and Masters

2014-04-18 2014-04-18 Books & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

VERY well, you liberals, And navigators into realms intellectual, You sailors through heights imaginative, Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets, You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits, And Tennessee Claflin Shopes— You found with all your boasted wisdom How hard at the last it is To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms. While we, seekers of earth’s treasures, Getters and hoarders of gold, Are self-contained, compact, harmonized, Even to the end. Edgar Lee Masters: Thomas Rhodes; from Spoon River Anthology, 1915 What is is about poetry or musical lyrics that moves us so differently than just prose? … click below for more ↓

The 2013 Great Gatsby

2014-01-19 2014-01-19 Arts / Books & Reviews / Film & Reviews / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

Watched the 2013 film of The Great Gatsby last night. The first half was spectacular, grandiose and captivating, if somewhat over the top. Like Busby Berkeley meets The Fifth Element. Extravaganza, spectacle and excess. The film doesn’t feel like it’s set in New York of the Jazz Age. It’s too shiny, too polished, too mechanical, and not gritty enough. That’s actually okay, and had director Baz Luhrmann chosen to make Gatsby into a scifi film set not the roaring twenties, but rather some futuristic world where the fashion craze is for 20s’ costume, it could have worked better. It would … click below for more ↓

The Wild Women of Wongo

2014-01-14 2014-01-14 Arts / Film & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Who can resist a film with a title like that? Or Zontar, the Thing From Venus? Robot Monster? Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet? The Atomic Brain? Clearly, I can’t. I love this stuff. B-films, especially scifi B-films. But I am a tad disappointed with this Mill Creek package.* I recently received the set of SciFi Classics Collection: 50 Movie Pack, a 12-DVD collection, cover shown on the left. It turned out to be the same set I already had, just with a different cover, and a substitution of four films from the original lineup. Damn, that was $10 wasted. Okay, … click below for more ↓

Makes you feel happy, like an old time movie

2013-12-25 2013-12-25 Arts / Culture / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

There’s something touching about a classic film, something magical about a B&W movie, about a film shot between the wars in that period of recovery and optimism; a film that was new when my parents were young, full of life and hope. A movie from the days before CGI, before green screens and 3D. Before slasher films, before graphic sex and graphic violence. It’s a combination of art and innocence, of technology just starting to blossom, of storytelling finding new avenues for expression and sometimes not quite sure about it. Others are bold statements about style and expression; avant-garde art.* There … click below for more ↓

Coriolanus on Film

2013-11-14 2013-11-14 Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Film & Reviews / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

Coriolanus is a tough play, full of politics and angry people and shouting mobs. It has no comic relief, no jesters, no romance and no real heroes. No great soliloquies, unsympathetic characters, uncomfortable double dealing, treachery and plotting. No powerful subplot as a counterpoint. Pride, arrogance, and power dominate. Coriolanus himself is empty, driven, bereft of the great passions that animate Shakespeare’s other main protagonists. Except the passion for revenge, which comes upon him halfway through the play. Before that, he seems an automaton, as fixed in his role as an aristocrat and soldier as Tsar Nicholas was, with little … click below for more ↓

Review: The Life of Pi

2013-06-23 2013-06-23 Arts / Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Religion3 Comments

We watched Life of Pi last night, a film that has garnered much critical acclaim and won four coveted Oscar awards (although it has not been without controversies). I had struggled somewhat with the book (for reasons given below), but the lavish praise for the film made me decide to try again. I had read about the movie’s stunning camera work and CGI graphics, and these do not disappoint. It’s a beautiful film, and the CGI is amazingly lifelike. I puzzled over what was real and not in many scenes. But the story itself… While sometimes described as a “fantasy … click below for more ↓