Category Music

Entries 13 Total Description

An universal language.

I’m In Love With Your Nightingale

Jul 27, ’16 12:13 AM

These days I’ve been filling my head with the bad news from Turkey. I shouldn’t do it because the desire to understand never leads to a better picture of what’s going on, it just makes me nervous and gloomy. Plus because I’m not there I can’t feel the normalcy of everyday life in Istanbul which makes it worse. Lucky for me Ilgaz posted this video of people dancing in Kadıköy (my old neighborhood) showing the spirit of the Turks that I knew best. Something open hearted, joyful and goofy.

Facebook translate is bad

The video is great but I had get her to translate her comment on it for me because Facebook translate does a terrible job of Facebook translating. The message she wrote under the video when she posted it translated like this:

Blow Ohal or something, right in the head. Actually you all interim Boyle, right? Come on guys admit it :) Not quite the azcik watch, would you rather:

Thank’s for nothing Facebook translate. Here is a better translation of her comment:

OK, OK there’s a coup, a state of emergency and everything. But admit that this feeling is inside all of your heads.
If do don’t feel it, just take a look and you will find joy again.

Much better. Then I asked her to translate the song which doesn’t quite flow in English the way it does in Turkish. But who cares, let’s dance!

I resent my destiny, it didn’t hurt again
I swore to my destiny, the black night
This strange heart, I’m in love with your nightingale

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Harpo Tickles Ivories

Jun 19, ’13 12:56 AM

Watch this great scene from the Marx Brother’s A Night At The Opera. The brothers have stowed away for America on a cruise ship and in this scene Harpo plays for a group of Italian kids. Musical slapstick, check it out!

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Something about Masks

Apr 18, ’13 4:59 PM

Here is an impressive clip from a new music video that shows the drastic affect lighting has on a person’s face. It’s dizzying! The same face completely changes form just by the light swinging around. I wish it was in slow-mo to see the effect up close.

I got excited about the video because it reminded me of something I read about the best Japanese Noh masks. On the wall they appear expressionless but on a performer and in motion the the mask comes alive. Light catches a hidden plain or a dark edge and the mask smirks, twitches, or frowns. Feel where those angles are, and you start to understand what that mask is capable of.

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Theremin Busker in Ljubljana

May 3, ’12 12:58 PM

Zhenya, Ana and I heard the strange music while standing on the triple bridge. At first I thought it was a saw player but as we got closer it was clear that the man was playing a homemade Theremin. His set-up included a PA system, mini disk player, CD player, all hacked into a homemade case and powered by a small gas generator 20 feet away and behind a sound baffle. Wonderful!

UPDATE:

Just a few hours after posting the video on YouTube someone called copperleaves made this very informative comment:

The busker is Romanian thereminist, Benedict Popescu. Other videos of this very unusual musician playing his even more unusual theremin can be found here on YouTube.

Comments (4)

Univore

Jul 2, ’11 4:23 PM

It’s better not knowing what is going on here.

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