Thought for the day (July 23rd)

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 06:35 PM

Mine starts tonight! Except that we went off for a staff end-of-term bash, and I had to leave early, because they turned the sound up so I couldn't think, and it was a piece of last year of the 20th century defining something not really music, punctuated with a curious beeping noise produced by a human (?) voice: the very noise I thought I had escaped with the last departing boy.

"Stay!" my friends cried, but I would have gone mad!

Peace at last.

Penny

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: Fadac
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 09:54 AM

Thought for Friday. One more week, untill VACATION. Off to the hills just north of San Francisco, to the Lark of the Morning week long jam and workshop(s)

-Fadac (heeee Hawwwwwwww)

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: teller
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 09:31 AM

Surely it's the MUSIC that defines an era, not the instruments upon which it is played ? If you're looking for something that defines the 20thC, you're going to have to be a deal less eclectic. At the start of this century, into the 20's, there was a deal of variety, from chamber and classical to the birth of the 'jazz-age'. What instrument 'defined' that era ? Woodwind, I venture to suggest. We're moving forward here....and, hey!, guess what? The 'Big Band' era is with us and, yes, it's still woodwind! Lump into this equation the advent of the steam-driven radio, the more general availability of recorded sound, and NOW you have a move towards more 'populist' types of music. With the birth of the 'pundit' came all sorts of complications, but it only relatively recently that the guitar has become 'popular' - even if you choose ignore the classical works. And what has been at the fore of ALL these musical styles? GeorgeH had it.......the voice....and even that was used as a method of interpretation!!

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 08:49 AM

Er, Roger, these deep Thoughts aren't mine -- I just find 'em and type 'em...! Glad for help! My contribution for the day, an oldie but a goodie:

"The Moving Finger writes;
and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it."
--Omar Khayyam, the Ruba'iyat (E. Fitzgerald, trans. and adaptor, if truth be told).

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: GeorgeH
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 08:23 AM

OK, so how about "the human voice is the defining instrument of every century".

For heaven's sake, even so far as the Guitar defines the 20th C. (ALL of it? Really?) it does so primarily as an accompniment to the voice.

G.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 08:03 AM

Well, a year from now it won't really matter, will it?!

Subject: Thought for the day (July 23rd)
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 05:37 AM

Can't compete with Pete for depth but...
The guitar is the defining instrument of the twentieth century
From the Times preview of the Bath Guitar Festival
Banjo players please discuss; use one side of the paper only (do not go over the perforations).