Music recommendations

[Sue U]

Anybody tell me what the instrument is? I looks to me like an acoustic piano, reduced to it's minimum.

Yes, it is. Looks like they may have made it themselves out of a traditional upright piano. It's even got wheels for "easy" transport (still probably weighs a couple hundred pounds).

[Big RR]

And given its size, it doesn't sound bad at all.

[Bicycle Bill]

And given its size, it doesn't sound bad at all.

It looks like all they did was remove the exterior veneer from a standard upright piano ... sort of like taking an old 1960s console TV and stripping away everything but the chassis, the tubes, the speakers, and the cathode ray (picture) tube.   As for the piano's sound, so long as they didn't mess with the sound board, it should sound just as good as ever.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

You could be right, and if the sound board is intact, the sound should be good. But, unlike a console TV, the wood cabinet surrounding the works should also affect the sound, giving it a resonance, which is why I was surprised it sounded that good.

[Jarlaxle]

Perhaps, brother Jar, I am not profoundly blind and deaf and may catch a feel for the rumble in the floor from the response of the audience to such a performance. You begin to instruct me as to the necessity of light shows and fireworks at the large arena presentations of musicians.

snailgate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_monitor_system

[Sue U]

So The Beths are on a world tour promoting their new album and here's the delightful title track:



They made me an instant fan a few years ago with Future Me Hates Me:



Trying to decide whether to go see them here in Philly in August where they'll be the opening act for The National, a band I really couldn't care less about, in a 3500-seat opera house, or wait til they come to Brooklyn in October on their own in a much smaller (550-seat) venue. Currently leaning toward the Brooklyn show, despite the inconvenience.

ETA:

Bands like this is why I love pop music.

[BoSoxGal]

I rewatched a Scorsese/Lehane mashup that I love called Shutter Island yesterday (a favorite in part because largely filmed in my neighborhood here in Massachusetts and also a favorite place in Maine), and was reminded of the music mashup in the end titles of two terrific pieces of music that I’m sharing for your enjoyment. You’ll probably recognize the strings piece, it has been used in several films and TV shows - it’s a composition by Max Richter.

[Sue U]

I'm fond of both Dinah Washington and Max Richter, but had never heard that mashup. I particularly like Richter's "recomposition" of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which I thought was very clever and imaginative. For comparison, here's the original Spring (featuring South Jersey gal Alana Youssefian on violin), followed by Richter's re-imagining.





I got to see Youssefian play with her chamber group (Le Bien Aime) at a local church just before the pandemic for their record release party. She is really quite good.

[MajGenl.Meade]

So The Beths are on a world tour promoting their new album and here's the delightful title track

That was good. Thank you

[Sue U]

So The Beths are on a world tour promoting their new album and here's the delightful title track

That was good. Thank you

And this is why "Matthew" in your "huge read" thread is so very wrong. Pop music covers a lot of territory and you really can't make generalizations pointing to only one performer. The Beths make songs with terrific hooks and smart, heartfelt lyrics. For me, they are pretty close to power pop perfection.

[Joe Guy]

Very recent performance of a very sad song...

[Joe Guy]

[BoSoxGal]

The next video after that one was a young woman playing the main theme for Interstellar which I finally got to see this last weekend (another stunning film by Christopher Nolan) and I just read in yesterday’s news that the reviews for the opening of Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer are rave - and I’m sure it will have a terrific soundtrack too so that’s my music recommendation to make this fit. And go see Oppenheimer!

[Burning Petard]

Is this a thing in Britain? I have seen 'many' videos of one or two musicians playing in airport corridors or shopping malls. It looks like strangers meeting spontaneously. After watching them a while I have decided it is all carefully planned, rehearsed. The gimmick is watching the passersby, in a hurry to some chore, then stopped by the joy of the music. May be a setup, but still fun and good music.

snailgate

[Sue U]

Is this a thing in Britain? I have seen 'many' videos of one or two musicians playing in airport corridors or shopping malls. It looks like strangers meeting spontaneously. After watching them a while I have decided it is all carefully planned, rehearsed. The gimmick is watching the passersby, in a hurry to some chore, then stopped by the joy of the music. May be a setup, but still fun and good music.

snailgate

I'm inclined to think it's a set-up. "Do you happen to have the piano reduction of the string orchestra score for the Four Seasons memorized, and in particular Summer?" "Why yes, as I'm constantly being asked to play it accompanying strange violinists in train stations." Would have been more believable if it were Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata or one of the Bach sonatas for violin and piano, as you'd expect those to be in the normal repertoire of performing classical pianists.

Don't care though. Anything that gets the arts -- and particularly music -- out in public is fine by me.

My son and several of his late-20s friends recently attended a concert for "young professionals" put on by the New Jersey Symphony as an outreach program to draw in younger audiences. Joshua Bell was the soloist doing the Bruch violin concerto -- not a long piece and usually though of as a crowd-pleaser, performed by one of the world's superstar violinists. My boy (a jazz-fusion bassist in his spare time) was super impressed with Bell's technical mastery and the concerto as a whole, but his friends found it dull (!!!!????!!??!). On the other hand, they were surprised to find that they really enjoyed Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Go figure.

[Big RR]

Anything that gets the arts -- and particularly music -- out in public is fine by me.

I 100% agree. I'm not a lover of flash mobs, but if people listen to sung chorale pieces, all the better.

And the concert your son saw seems like a good one--Joshua Bell? I'm impressed. As for Stravinsky, maybe they recall it from some of the cartoons they saw as youths? That's some of the earliest serious music I heard outside of church; we had a stellar organist and I learned a lot from him early on.

[Joe Guy]

This kid has a nose for talent....

[BoSoxGal]

I was reading a thread elsewhere about the controversy over Jason Aldean’s new racist country ditty and someone linked to this hilarious critique of contemporary country music which I felt compelled to share:

[Jarlaxle]

Have you not listened to it or are you simply a bandwagon-jumper?

[Scooter]