From the monthly archives:
I started this blog, Red Black Window, in Jan. 2006 as an open work-in-progress for my book on the music of Rufus Wainwright. Although it still has that component, I couldn’t keep the blog to only that component. I changed my subtitle to Roger Bourland writes about music and life. That seemed to give me [...]
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This just in from Ursi’s blog: the Thai Elephant Orchestra can now be heard on Mulatta Records courtesy of the instigators, Dave Soldier and Richard Lair. (Warning: the first sound is a trumpeting elephant, so be ready!)
[qt:http://www.mulatta.org/videos/ozforwebPt2Ellies.mov /blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/elemus_poster.mov 240 196]
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I’m fairly sure that dogs do not have a sophisticated sense of time. Discussing something in the past tense with a dog is a waste of time. It will scan your sentence waiting for a word it knows, and respond accordingly. “Cody! Remember when I told you that I we weren’t going for a [...]
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When a teacher faces a class full of Freshmen music majors, s/he doesn’t always know what level they are. I made a syllabus for the new music theory book I’m using (Clenndining, Marvin: Norton) and passed it out to the class. After the 2nd week, it was clear that the students could go faster. So, [...]
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This is not one of the Flying Burrito Bros greatest songs, no, it’s just a lazy ol’ blues song. Why they chose THIS song for a video, and not something from the first album, I’ll never know. But check out Gram Parsons. For you Rufus fans out there, you’ll see a similar geekyness between Rufus [...]
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One of the challenges in being a composer is that I put off things “until I finish the piece.” Those things can include email correspondence that doesn’t seem urgent and builds up to 100s of emails before I realize how overwhelmed I am. Being obsessed with working on a piece of music, I sometimes dash [...]
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Speaking of music the US didnt’ get to hear, take a listen to Rosetta Tharpe performing “Didn’t It Rain”––in the rain––on the British TV special “Blues and Gospel Train” in 1964. I wonder whether she ever did a duet with B.B. King. Probably not, if she did, they’d sell be selling it at Starbucks.
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This is one of those songs that has infected my brain and sometimes just won’t get out. It is SOOO catchy I should warn you that you might really like it a lot. I have changed the words and sing it to my parrots: “Aiko is a bird, she’s the goodest bird, she’s the goodest [...]
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Photo © by Jonathan Exley.
I just watched the terrific documentary about Joni Mitchell called “Woman of Heart and Mind.” In it there is a brief discussion about her complex harmonies. I read years ago that she doesn’t have any idea what these chords are called technically. She has alway explored alternate tunings on the guitar [...]
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Bluegrass meets the Jetsons! The US got short-changed not hearing the Swedish guitar-group, The Spotnicks. This cover of “Orange Blossome Special,” a song I got to know as a Bluegrass number, would have been a nice companion song to “Wipe Out.” (This is a Videoclip from a French-Belgian TV show. Contributed by thundernest and via [...]
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