James Horner (one of UCLA’s graduates in composition who never finished his PhD because he started working for Roger Corman) did a marvelous job on the score for The New World.
My guess is that the director, fortunately, or unfortunately, fell in love with his temp music, in this case the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold […]
As I’ve gotten to explore more and more blogs, and specifically, ones in music, time after time I see links to Alex Ross’s “The Rest is Noise.” So, over the past couple of months, I’ve read nearly all of his writing, and I must say, I love it.
Author, oboist, composer, Alex Ross
Dear Alex:
I love your […]
Today we discussed “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” (CaCM) and “Poses.”
Both of these songs are on this CD, “Poses” RW’s 2nd album
Discussing the music, we determined CaCM to have the following form:
A A A’ B
A A A’ B
B’(instrumental) A’’ A”’
A’ is the minor version of A; the instrumental “interlude” […]
I was a fan of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention from the beginnning. Alright, I confess I lost some interest after “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” My father tried to dissuade me from listening to Zappa (I think it was “Hot Rats” — still a classic as far as I”m concerned). I […]
I had posts about who could sing Rufus’s gay specific songs? Well, Willy Nelson won’t be singing a Rufus song, but will be releasing what may be the first gay cowboy song (yeah right) “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)” which will be available exclusively through iTunes. Yahoo news tells us:
“…the song features […]
Composer Elaine Barkin, since her retirement from UCLA, has taken on a new passion: Hubcap Art.
“Faygele” (2006) by Elaine Barkin.
Yes Elaine is still composing and travelling and writing, but the hubcap thing is very cool. Here is a portion of Elaine’s piece called “for my friends’ pleasure”:
Elaine Barkin; photo by Roger Bourland.
I keep thinking that […]
It was sad to learn from my students that our local Rhino Records CD store closed it’s doors for good a few weeks back. Another CD store in Hollywood also went under. The overwhelming and enormous Amoeba Records seems to be doing quite well selling and buying used CDs, LPs, cassettes and DVDs.
Yes, I guess […]
Photos © 2005 by Roger Bourland.
An enigmatic post in the Feb. 11 New York Times let us know that Rufus Wainwright is indeed slated to compose something that sounds like an opera. The longish article ends by saying:
“The Met and the theater have commissioned works from a range of composers and playwrights, some of them outside the classical tradition. The […]
I drive down Sunset Blvd every night and look at this huge billboard of some of our newest senior citizens: The Rolling Stones!
And in case you forgot, this is what they looked like in 1965:
And then I saw at a 2005 picture of Crosby Stills and Nash:
And what they looked like in 1969:
Still cool after […]
“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was […]
In the summer of 1980 I worked as an assistant for Randall Thompson, composer, Harvard Professor Emeritus, and dean of American choral composers. He had had a stroke. I helped him with his correspondence, simple bookkeeping, I arranged the Pueri Hebraeorum for SATB, but he told me not to take credit for it. I said: […]
I am forever amazed at the power of the interaction between sound vibrations and matter. The principle is beautifully illustrated in the work of Hans Jenny in his book “Cymatics,” and in the research of Ernst F.F. Chladni. Their experiments involved setting a vibration in motion onto a metal plate, or water, or other viscous […]
(The class happened at breakneck speed today, trying to cover all this material and dip into the text meanings only briefly. This is a brief and hurried report to those who are anxious to know what we covered in the seminar. A polished analysis it is not.)
Per Mark Carlson’s right-on suggestion, we emphasized the music […]
I have received some emails with suggestions about things to see, and/or discuss on RED BLACK WINDOW. I’d like to ask you to click on the comments link below this post and add yours. If you’d like to contact me privately via email, just put the “at” sign in between my first and last name […]
I am taking the liberty of printing an email I got from a new “Rufusonian”, pucks_soul. I relate to his/her obsession and thrill that this music evokes so much within us that it drives us forward to learn more. I love that music, and in this case, specifically, Rufus Wainwright, can call up such a […]
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