AKA: “Help! I’m a constipated cellist in a helicopter!”
7 Experimental Adventures in Classical Music | Mental Floss.
Tag: classical music
Rick Wakeman: Classical rocks
Occasional Yes keyboardist talks about breaking barriers between rock and classical. Video is amusingly punctuated with photos of Wakeman and his old capes.
Heavy classical music
This story shouldn’t be a surprise. Heavy metal owes a great debt to classical music, particularly the more bombastic efforts around the turn of the century. There’s a reason the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, purveyors of a “heavy” orchestral Christmas-radio staple, draws some of its personnel from turgid metal band Savatage.
One day, I’m going to make a Spotify playlist of rock music for classical fans to enjoy. Get ready for a good dose of Knights of Cydonia.
Take note: Why fans of heavy metal and classical music have a lot in common | Mail Online.
Washington Post “contemporary classical” piece makes clever use of Spotify
As a music major who didn’t pursue a career in music partially because I finally realized I just didn’t care that deeply for “classical” music, I thought this was a terrific guide.
Most notable: This is a creative use of Spotify. The Post set up a playlist of music that fits the story — basically a sampler of contemporary classical styles.
I’m a little annoyed with myself because I actually had this idea a couple of weeks ago, intending to do something that’s sort of the opposite of this piece — introducing classical fans to quality 21st century rock and pop. But I’m happy to see someone else thinks it’s a good idea.
The iPod has changed the way we listen to music. And the way we respond to it. – By Nikil Saval – Slate Magazine
The Slate excerpt of this article does its job well — it touches on several interesting topics but doesn’t fully develop them. I might need to find the print version to see if it says more about music and revolutions. At the very least, it needs to get to American Idiot.
Among the grab-bag of other points in the story is this roundup of how we perceive musical genres:
The rise of generic distinctions has lately reached a climax of absurdity, such that we can name off the top of our heads: house, witch house, dub, dubstep, hardstep, dancehall, dance-floor, punk, post-punk, noise, “Noise,” new wave, nu wave, No Wave, emo, post-emo, hip-hop, conscious hip-hop, alternative hip- hop, jazz hip-hop, hardcore hip-hop, nerd-core hip-hop, Christian hip-hop, crunk, crunkcore, metal, doom metal, black metal, speed metal, thrash metal, death metal, Christian death metal, and, of course, shoe-gazing, among others. (Meanwhile, 1,000 years of European art music is filed under “classical.”)
I’d love to see a radio stream proclaim itself “ALL ATONAL, ALL THE TIME!”
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