13 posts tagged “music”

I don't really have anything much to say.  I've been kind of down in the dumps in recent weeks as finances have become increaingly tighter.   I'm hoping that finally paying my car off by the beginning of the year will help to improve my outlook.

So, this entry will be random thoughts cobbled together.

Yesterday, I went to Wal Mart to do my weekly grocery shopping.  I normally go to Aldi, but I was in a hurry and figured Wal Mart would have comparable prices, as they have in the past.
 
It seems as if I was wrong.  Wally World has raised prices on nearly everything, where some of the items were even higher than in the regular, full-price grocery stores.  I ended up spending more than ten dollars more than I pay for the same items at Aldi. Next week, it will be back to Aldi's for me.
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It's been raining all day here today and is supposed to continue until tomorrow evening as my area is subjected to the backlash from Hurricane Ida.  I'm glad it happened on my day off.  We've had a lot of rain in the last few months and I'm sick of it.
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If I had the money, this is what I'd get myself for Christmas:

I want the big flute in the middle that looks a bit like plumbing, otherwise known as a bass flute.  The flute to the right of it is a standard flute.  I've heard the bass flute before, usually in background movie music, and it has a deep, mysterious sound to it.  I've only seen a bass flute "in the flesh" once in my life, as a fifteen year old high school freshman visiting Manny's Music in New York City in 1973.

But this will likely remain a "pipe dream", as I'd likely not be able to touch even a used student grade for under fifteen hundred bucks.  But I hold out that one day I might find one for a steal.

Among other instruments, I learned how to play the French horn in high school, starting when the band director asked for volunteers, as we only had one horn player.  I taught myself to play it over the summer, which wasn’t that hard to do, as I already knew how to play the trumpet.  I took to the horn well and eventually went to college to major in Music Performance.

Today, I thought I’d give you a pictorial tour of the horns I’ve played and/or owned in my lifetime.

The first horn I used was a one of the school’s old battered Olds Ambassador F single horn models:

Olds Ambassador

It looked pretty much like this one — even down to the big crinkle in the bell.  Still, it was built like a Timex watch and was quite playable.

My next horn, was the school’s Conn 6D, which was quite a step up, as it was a semi-pro double F/Bb horn.  I got this horn passed down for me when the school bought a new Reynolds for the first chair player.

Conn 6D

I loved this horn.  I progressed quickly on it and it had a nice, fat sound to it.  I remember the band director, whose main instrument was French horn, that between him and I, the two of us could drown out the rest of the band.  I remember that I cultivated a trombone-like tone to my playing, which worked well when playing pieces that featured the brass sections.  When we did Kenton’s Malaguena, I learned the trombone solo by ear, and played that, rather that the boring French horn part the score called for.

I made All-State band playing this instrument and it carried me the rest of the way through high school.

The band director owned a coveted pre-war Conn 8D, which he brought to school and let me play a few times.   The 8D, first introduced in 1937, was considered the creme de la creme of French horns at one time.  Along with the 6D, introduced in 1935, the 8D is still produced to this day, and they are both still well-respected choices.

Conn 8D

When it came time for me to go off to college, I got a French horn as a graduation present.  My father thought the 8D was too expensive, so I ended up with a Holton H177, which was quite popular at the time and, like the Conns, is still in production.  I think I was partially influenced by the fact that my favorite jazz musician at the time, Maynard Ferguson, played and endorsed Holton brass instruments.

Holton H-177

While, this was a good horn, in retrospect,  I have to say that the Conn 6D was my favorite of the bunch.  I kept this horn until the mid-90s, when I sold it during some lean times.  I’m kicking myself in the ass now, wishing I’d kept it, as there’s no way I could afford to buy another one now.

However, I’ve been browsing Ebay, and from what I’ve seen, I might be able to find a mechanically sound used 6D some day for under five hundred dollars.  In fact, an older horn, approximately of the vintage I played in high school, would likely be preferable, as it’s generally accepted that the older horns were better ones.  One day, maybe.

While looking on Ebay the other day, I saw something I’d never heard of before: a piccolo French horn.  Apparently, this is something that has been invented in the last couple of years or so.  I went to a site where they had a You Tube of someone playing one — and I waited the 45 minutes or so it took to download on my crappy dialup — and it didn’t sound half bad.  It played in about trumpet range and has kind of a flugelhorn tone quality to it.  I wouldn’t mind having one of these to mess around with, as they’re not that expensive, but currently there are only two Chinese-made versions available.  At present, Chinese-made musical instruments don’t have a very good reputation, so I’d be quite leery of buying one now, though this rep could very well change in the near future.

Piccolo horn next to standard size French horn

When I saw this picture, I was immediately reminded of the old Johnny Cash song, "One Piece At a Time":

Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadillacs

Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.

One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.

CHORUS
I'd get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round.

So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.

The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.

Now, up to now my plan went all right
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.

The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.

So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.

The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."

So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.

CHORUS
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on

Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?

Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
'57, '58' 59' automobile
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 automobile.

Lately, I’ve been turning to the library to fill in the gaps in my music collection. I’ve been borrowing CDs to take home to upload into my Windows Media Player and will, at some point, load selected songs into my MP3 player.  Money is tight right now, plus I’ve noticed that the places I usually buy CDs at have drastically reduced their selections for some reason.

I didn’t have anything particular in mind, so I just browsed the stacks.  After looking through the jazz selection, I ended up with a Dave Brubeck CD, “Time Out”, which included the track “Take Five“.   It brought back a lot of memories, as this was a song that I discovered when I was around 11 0r 12.

I began taking piano lessons when I was ten years old, and started in band the following year.   At that time, kids in the “band culture” of my school were exposed to a lot of jazz.  So, while most kids my age were listening to rock, pop, and the like, I was listening to jazz.  Though I like rock music now, my first choices in music when I started getting my own albums were in jazz.

“Take Five” was one of the first jazz songs I got into, and I was fortunate to hear Brubeck, along with Gerry Mulligan perform this song in the summer of 1972 at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York City.  I was also lucky enough to meet them after the set, and I think it pleased them that someone as young as I was at the time was getting into their music (I was 14),   In next few years, I also saw Maynard Ferguson in concert twice and participated in a jazz workshop with Stan Kenton at my high school.  At that time I wanted to be a jazz musician myself (and I’m sorry I didn’t fulfill my dream now).

The CD I borrowed was the original recording with Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (who wrote the song).  I was surprised to see that this song was originally recorded in 1959 — at the time I first got into it, I’d assumed it was a recent recording.   But as I listened to it in the car on the way home from the library, it still had all the original electricity that attracted me to the song in the first place and in no way sounded as if it had been recorded 50 years ago.  It sounds as fresh now as it did in the summer of 1959 when they recorded it.   And it still has sufficient power to make me feel the feelings all over again I had as a teen in the early 70s when I first wanted to become a musician.

I used to be daily blogger,writing something every day, without fail.  But for the last several months, it's been harder to come up with things I want to write about.  I've also been busier in my offline life, plus the heat of summer has pretty well sapped my motivation.

Nevertheless, I have no plans for giving up blogging, as I do get a lot of satisfaction from making people think.

But I have no in-depth topic I want to write about today, so what follows are the things that fell out when I rattled the junk drawer of my mind.
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Lately, I've been having problems with malfunctioning tools. 

The most annoying problem is with my lawn mower.  I bought the damned thing last year and I probably used it fewer than five times last summer.   This summer, the second time I used it, it died for no apparent reason.  There was plenty of gas and oil, plus there were no obstructions to prevent it from running. 

One of my coworkers is handy (I am most definitely NOT), and he said he'd fix it.   He did, but the first time I tried to use it after getting it back, it cut off again after cutting one row and has since refused to start.

A brand new mower.  This really pisses me off, considering that I can't afford to go out and buy another one right now.

I suppose I'll have to take it to a regular repair shop, but for now, I've resorted to Round Up to finish out the summer

The second mechanical annoyance is my computer mouse.   I'm a cheap ass, so I've been using the regular mouse with the ball in the bottom, rather than a optical one.   The other morning, I got up, and the mouse wouldn't scroll properly.  It would move only within a very narrow range, not going to where I intended.   I removed the back, took the ball out and cleaned it and the inside, but it's still being uncooperative.  To get it to do what I want it to do, I have to pick up the whole mouse and slam it down hard a few times to get it to move in a series of jerky movements to get it to go where I want.   Anyone listening from the other room would be hearing, "Clop! Clop! Clop!" as I use my computer these days.   Tomorrow, I'm going to go out and buy a new one, plus a new mouse pad as the old one is so dirty, I can't see the picture on it any longer.
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Last night, I was out driving and a clueless jerk in a huge SUV in the lane to my left decided to move into my lane in front of me -- without signaling and before completely clearing my left front quarter panel.

Fortunately, he realized his mistake before I had to honk, and drifted back into his own lane.  But he didn't consider the car that was there and nearly clipped them.

I leaned out the window and said, "What the fuck is that moron doing?", which earned me some giggles from the carload of teen girls in the convertible next to me who'd nearly been clipped by said moron.
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Not too long ago, one of my coworkers was suddenly fired for the vague reason that he wasn't doing a good job.  He'd been working there for several years and had been doing the same job he'd always been doing as far as I could see -- they were just deciding after all those years that his work wasn't up to snuff?  What took them so long to decide that?

Later on, I found the real reason he'd been canned -- the boss wanted to make room so he could give his buddy a job.

But karma has a way of biting people on the ass  The buddy quit after one week, deciding he didn't like the job, after all.
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The other day I heard that Amazon was giving away a free MP3 download for a limited time.  I went over there and sure enough, it was true.   I browsed for a long time to pick a song, and I finally picked an old Stan Kenton song, Malaguena, that we'd done in my high school band  -- and we'd had Kenton himself there to conduct a jazz workshop.  I'd not heard this song in 30 years.

It was great to hear it again, bringing back a lot of great memories of my senior year in high school.  If I still had a trumpet I'd have gotten it out and played along with the recording, as I'm pretty sure I could recall my part.

What's your favorite Michael Jackson song? Bonus points if you share the video.

I'd have to say Billie Jean, with the strong bass line in it.  I've never been a rabid Michael Jackson fan in general, but I always liked this song.

Unless you're living under a rock,  you've heard the story of Susan Boyle, a contestant who recently appeared on Britain's Got Talent.

Because of the 47 year old's unpolished, matronly appearance and manner, people in the audience openly mocked her as she took the stage.  Similarly, the judges on stage, which included American Idol's, Simon Cowell, expected little to no musical talent from this contestant.

That all changed once she'd sung a few bars of I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables.  Cowell's jaw dropped at Boyle's phenomenal talent and all the pin-headed morons in the audience suddenly shut their traps and later gave Boyle a much-deserved standing ovation. 

Good for her.  Kudos to her for shutting up Simon Cowell for once in his life and for showing the audience that musical talent -- or talent of any kind -- is not tied to a person's appearance.  She has yet again proven the truth of the old saying, "Don't judge a book by cover.".

Putting his money where his mouth is, Simon Cowell is reported to be setting up a contract with Boyle with his SyCo Music company label, a subsidiary of Sony Music.

With a talent like Boyle's, it doesn't (or shouldn't) matter what she looks like.   She's the real deal.  The entertainment world is chock full of pretty girls with only the barest modicum of singing talent, but a talent like Boyle's is a rarity and should be valued for the treasure it is. 

Indeed, the outer packaging is of supreme importance for the dime-a-dozen bimbo singers, precisely because their talent is mediocre at best, and the flashy appearance is to make audiences forget their less than stellar vocal skills.

As far as I'm concerned, the singing world needs more Susan Boyles and fewer Ashlee Simpsons.

What follows are the lyrics to several songs, most of them oldies.  See if you can guess the song title and the musician who recorded them.   Five points for each correctly guessed title and five for each correct musician.

1. ‘Til so much cavalry came/and tore up the tracks again.

2. When I step out/ I'm gonna do you in.

3. If you see me coming/Better step aside/A lot of men didn’t/A lot of men died

4. Well, our fathers fought the Second World War/Spent their weekends on the Jersey shore

5. Gazing at people/Some hand in hand/Just what I’m going through/they can’t understand

6. Your love gives me such a thrill/But your love don’t pay my bills

7. I was born on the back seat/of a Greyhound bus/Going down highway 41

8. Oh, your Daddy’s rich/And your Ma is good looking

9. I’m a man of means/By no means

10. They go to a lake of fire and fry/Won’t see them again until the Fourth of July

11. The words of the Prophets/Are written in the subway walls

12. She stands five feet four/From the head to the ground

13. And when he died/All he left us was alone

14. Go tell your children/Not to do/what I have done

15. Open up the window, sucker/and let me catch my breath

16. And I wonder if he's ever had a day of fun in his whole life

17. Pop me down /Jack me up /Shoot me out /Headin' down the highway

18. And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time

19. Been away so long I hardly knew the place/Gee it’s good to be back home

20. If I look hard enough into the settin' sun /My love will laugh with me before the mornin' comes

21. You can think about the woman/Or the girl you knew the night before.

22. Ain't no way I'm a bustin my ass and gettin no pay

23. We ain´t got much/But what we got´s ours

24. Startin' soft and slow like a small earthquake/And when he lets go half the valley shakes

25. Engineer boots, leather jackets, and tight blue jeans

While listening to the radio the other night, a favorite song from years ago came on the radio: "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum. This song, heard in several movies over the years, such as Apollo 13, embodies what I consider to be the best of rock: a hard-driving bass line, a growling guitar, fun lyrics, innovative sound effects, and a beat that inspires energy in the listener. It is one of the finest examples of what I call "a song with muscle". And, after nearly 40 years, it still sounds fresh and exciting. It was included in Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and also VH1's Greatest One-Hit Wonders.

This song also brings back a personal memory for me as well. In the spring of 1970, when I wasn't quite 12 years old, my mother was hospitalized for several days. One rainy afternoon, my father and I went to the hospital to visit with her. In the car, while on the way to the hospital, this song came on the radio. I can remember turning it up and listening intently, accompanied by the slap, slap sound of the windshield wipers keeping time with the beat.

When my mother died 18 months later, I was reminded of that afternoon, and the words provided some comfort to me then. I don't always relive the memory of that afternoon when I hear the song now, but it's never entirely forgotten, either. Either way, this song will always remain on my list of all-time favorite songs.