Music is at the very root of Humanity. Music means things to people, and conveys messages and emotions and ideas across a very broad spectrum of Experience. This take on the subject emphasizes "roles music plays" with a suite of examples that occurred to me in a half hour or so of list-making; another day the examples would be different. My prescription: sample these, but also recognize that a full performance conveys a completed immersive something to the audience it surrounds. Keep coming back, keep trying to see/hear what I saw in choosing these samples from many thousands at my fingertips.
I believe we're at the brink of a new form of listening to music, one which intimately involves fans in the music experience, and creates an environment that could unleash the kind of creative community that only happens when new technology explodes. With that will come new music, and new ways to play it, new ways to explore the emotions it brings up, and new kinds of community, deep ones, far deeper than those we've been able to create on the silent Web. This is one of the most exciting things going on, technologically and artistically, at the turn of the century.
(Dave Winer, July 2000)
YouTube changes everything, engaging the eyes as well as the ears, making the magic of instrumental virtuosity less mysterious and much more accessible, and conveying the personalities of the musicians. In the audio dimension, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have made even very obscure musics accessible, and smartphones have made listening a walkaround activity. Recommendation algorithms know what you've listened to before, and provide a smörgåsbord of new material. What could possibly go wrong?
more qawwali, a Pakistani Sufi genre
Where are you going, my silver one
Where are you going, my fresh sprig of basil
To lose your bloom?
You are not meant to descend into the black earth
You will repent my boy, a thousand times an hour
for the decision you made to die
There where you have gone
they call it the land of no return
Where two together do not sit
and three do not talk
and no marriages are made
and no festivities held
and there are no fields where you can play with your horse
("Three widows in black, crouching at dusk by kerosene lamplight, intoned this dirge in praise of a young man. Laments like this are heard only in Epirus, Mani, and parts of Crete. Village superstition decrees that if keening occurs and there is no death, ill-luck will befall the inhabitants. The recording was made secretly with the help of the mayor [who was not superstitious; on his advice we left the village immediately afterwards.]")
Geeshie Wiley
(only TWO copies of this disc exist)
Rhiannon Giddens contemporary version
Son House: Death Letter Blues
Bob Dylan: With God on Our Side
Buffy Sainte-Marie & Tanya Tagaq "You Got To Run (Spirit Of The Wind)"
Punch Brothers: Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
T'was the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'
"Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
At seven PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
"Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
It was up at Mike's the other night,
There was really quite a sight,
Gather round, folks, while I give you all the lowdown.
Tables were filled with bloody frails,
Chewing on their fingernails;
They were waiting for the man from Harlem.
Drinks were served six bits a throw,
Things were moving kind of slow,
Everybody's nerves were getting jumpy.
All at once the room was still,
Men forgot all about their bill,
Who should enter but the man from Harlem.
Everybody rolled their eyes,
Women starting heaving sighs,
Someone hollered, Music, lights and gin,
Everybody cleared a space,
They had big, broad smiles on every face,
How they all loved to see the man from Harlem.
When he started in to step
He filled everyone with plenty pep,
He twitched and squirmed; it just was a dirty shame.
Everyone was in a daze,
Women watched him with amaze,
Each one said she'd have the man from Harlem.
He looked over in the corner,
And saw a couple of frails
And they sure did look kinda low.
Another cat walked up, and said to the man from Harlem,
Go over there and see what's the matter with them girls.
And they said, I'm kinda low.
And he said, I've got just what you need:
Come on, sisters, light up on these weeds and get high
And forget about everything
Spike Jones
The Persuasions: The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Taksim Trio
Marcin Patrzalek
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