Category: Culture

Thoughts about culture; arts, music, writing, sculpture, photography and more.

Reading Ukulele Tabs

Culture / Musical Instruments / Ukulele: instruments & musicLeave a comment

Loading

One of the things I want to discuss in my upcoming ukulele workshop is how to read tab sheet music. In this post I’ve give you some pointers so you can practice on your own. It’s worth learning to read tabs because it gives you the ability to play melodies and solo pieces without having to read music. Don’t be confused when you see a piece labelled “tab” but only showing the lyrics and chords. The name is often used for that purpose, although it’s not really a tab in the proper sense. First you’ll need a properly tabbed song ……… click below for more ↓

Lucy and the 10% Brain Myth

Critical Thinking / Culture / Film & Reviews / New Age CodswallopOne Comment

Loading

We watched the film Lucy on iTunes last night and, while reasonably entertaining, its plot is founded on a persistent bit of pseudoscience: that people only use 10% of their brain capacity. It’s so widespread a myth that Wikipedia has a page on it that opens: The 10 percent of the brain myth is the widely perpetuated urban myth that most or all humans only make use of 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many people, including Albert Einstein. By extrapolation, it is suggested that a person may harness this unused potential and ……… click below for more ↓

Revised Chord Wheel

Culture / Learning & Education / Musical Instruments / Ukulele: instruments & music3 Comments

Loading

I have revised my transposing chord wheel/circle of fifths tool this week. It is now a three-ring version for use by all musicians (ukulele players who want to learn music theory or work on arranging songs especially). You can click on the image on the right to download the PDF. The outer ring shows the Roman numerals for the key. This lets you see the chords by number – uppercase is major; lowercase is minor. Turn this wheel to the I identifier (capital “i”) above the key on the middle ring. The names in dark blue are some of the ……… click below for more ↓

Ukulele Festival Coming in May!

Culture / Ukulele: instruments & musicLeave a comment

Loading

It’s official: the Canada Ukes ukulele festival will be held right around the corner from Collingwood: in Midland at the Midland Cultural Centre, May 22-24. Three days of ukuleleness, featuring Ralph Shaw, Stevie McNie (leader of Toronto’s Corktown Ukulele), The Skinnydippers and others. Performances, jams and workshops galore! Vendors, too. Early bird tickets for the entire weekend of activities are $148 adults and $128 student under 21; after March 31 they go up to $188 adults and $148 student. Check the official website for more and the full schedule of events. Most of the events have limits for participation, so be sure to pick ……… click below for more ↓

Ukulele Workshop Today

Culture / Learning & Education / Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

I just returned from Orangeville where Broadway Music hosted a two-and-a-half hour musical workshop this Saturday by Manitoba Hal today (which will be followed by his concert tonight from 8-11 p.m. – try to attend, if you can: he’s very talented). Very informative and well worth attending. Interestingly, at least half the participants were my age, and I didn’t see anyone in the classroom under 40. Perhaps you have to be mature in order to really appreciate music this way, not simply as the soundtrack in the background. Hal spoke to the group about a basic approach to understanding music ……… click below for more ↓

Marx, Darwin and Machiavelli

Critical Thinking / Culture / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

What do these three men – three of the world’s greatest thinkers – have in common? Science? Economics? Politics? Their impact on culture and society? Their foresight or insight? Their importance to the development of modern thought? Their continued relevance today? The depth and breadth of their wisdom? The quality of their writing? Yes, they are or have all those things, but the answer is simpler: they are among the least read authors that people attempt to speak knowingly about. All three of these authors are frequently demonized or misquoted by people who have never read their works, nor do they intend ……… click below for more ↓

Happy Talk

Culture / Language & Grammar / MediaOne Comment

Loading

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBWjNlBko70] A recent study proved an old notion – the Pollyanna Hypothesis – that there is a “universal human tendency to ‘look on and talk about the bright side of life’” according to a team of scientists at the University of Vermont. The story was reported on Science Daily recently. Reading through newspapers, magazines, websites, music lyrics and movie titles in ten languages, the researchers concluded that “probably all human language skews toward the use of happy words.” That struck me as counter-intuitive. Maybe it’s just my own experience with local media and bloggers, but I would have thought they’d find more negativity, especially ……… click below for more ↓

Weaponized Aryan Jesus?

Culture / Faith / Film & Reviews / History & Biography2 Comments

Loading

The term “weaponized Jesus” comes from an article I read on politicsusa.com, from November 2013, titled “The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians.”  It’s worth a read, if you enjoy the political-religious debate. I eventually traced the phrase back to a 2010 story in Mother Jones. It’s a good description of the way some fundamentalist Americans are taking their religion. But that’s not at issue right now. It’s the guy on the left of the movie still that I want to write about. Someone on my Facebook stream recently posted the picture above and talked about how she ……… click below for more ↓

Internet TV and Roku

Culture / Personal Reminiscences / TVLeave a comment

Loading

I picked up a ROKU streaming stick this weekend at the local Staples store to get access to some internet TV. The box advertises 500+ channels, while the boxes for the upscale models 2 and 3 offer 450+ and 1,000+, respectively. However, the official webpage for Roku says you can get more than 1,800 channels in the US on these devices. The Canadian site suggests it’s closer to 1,000 – Canadians get shortchanged by this and similar services, it seems. But by my count on the screen, the actual number of possible “channels” tops 1,300. Before you shout “woo hoo” and rush out ……… click below for more ↓

Revised CPLUG Ukulele Song Book

Collingwood / Culture / Library / Music & Reviews / My Writing / Personal Reminiscences / Ukulele: instruments & musicLeave a comment

Loading

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

Books & Reviews / Culture / Film & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

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 ↓

47 Ronin Reviewed

Film & Reviews / Pop CultureLeave a comment

Loading

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8cKdDkkIYY] This week, after watching the 2013 film, 47 Ronin, starring Keanu Reeves, I had to wonder why Hollywood felt it necessary to take a powerful story, a great historical drama, and mess with it. And, of course, why they would put Keanu Reeves into a film about 18th century Japanese samurai. Or, for that matter, into any film. I’m not an actor, so my appreciation of their talents is only as an outsider. But Reeves seems to be pretty much a one-dimensional character. It worked in the Matrix, albeit less so in the sequels, but in films like the ……… click below for more ↓

Heart of Darkness

Books & Reviews / Culture / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Loading

Heart of Darkness can be a difficult read. Not just for its brooding setting and the sense of morbid inevitability. Conrad’s semi-autobiographical 1899 novel is replete with racism and breezy colonialism: the insufferable superiority of white, Western culture. The casual ability of so-called civilized men to commit savagery in the name of some higher cause is clearly expressed; a forerunner to the brutality of two world wars. Listening to it as an audiobook, yesterday, as I drove again to Toronto, I almost flinched every time the reader pronounced the “N” word. No amount of rationalization about the times and the era made ……… click below for more ↓

Falling Skies: Aliens as Metaphor

Culture / Pop Culture / TVOne Comment

Loading

We watched the last of Season Two of the Falling Skies series last night. After a bit of research this morning, I learned I have two more seasons to watch and a fifth season has been scheduled. Something to look forward to. I wasn’t sure about how it would turn out, but the series has matured nicely, although one can’t say that about its politics. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s about American reaction to an alien invasion – one could say it is a drawn-out remake of War of the Worlds. The aliens, of course, have more ……… click below for more ↓

A Few More Uke Arrangements

Culture / Musical Instruments / Personal Reminiscences / Ukulele: instruments & musicOne Comment

Loading

Lately, I’ve been redoing all the arrangements of songs I put together for the Collingwood Public Library Ukulele Group (CPLUG) this year, as well as arranging some new pieces for the group. I’m working on a new layout for the tunes that makes them easier for beginners to follow and makes the songbook somewhat easier to manage. I’ve zipped a few of the most recent tunes (in PDF) here: Dec 2014.zip. As I often do, I offer some of the songs in alternate keys. You can always transpose any song yourself, with the help of my free chord transposition wheel. ……… click below for more ↓

Back to Top