Damned bloody depressing

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 05:04 AM

Been listening to some Justin Bieber. 'Fraid it's not my cup of tea - but then I'm not a teenage girl - and I've no interest in breathy singing and mushy words.

But what does it matter when, as I said earlier, I've 14,000 tracks of stuff I do like on my iPod?

As an old (German) friend of mine often reminded me, "In Germany, we have a saying - 'for every pot there is a lid.'"

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 05:10 AM

Its like this Jack. Every year even poor kids these days get a record of their choice bought for Christmas. So along comes the music industry and packages a dogturd in a shiny wrapper.

The week after Christmas - the kid realises the turd really stinks. Its been going on for about thirty years now. Pete waterman really kicked it off with Jason Donovan's first album. A ponger of epic proportions.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Johnny J
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 07:02 AM

Just checked out some of Justin Bieber's music and it's not really my cup of tea but, then again, he didn't make it with the likes of me in mind.

However, he seems fairly talented to me in his own field and not to bad a singer although you can make most things sound OK in a studio these days.
It's not beyond the grounds of possibilty that he may, some day, come out with something I might like or even mature into a better more rounded artist in years to come. Who knows?
Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'd ever buy an album or see him concert.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: autoharpbob
Date: 08 Jun 12 - 04:49 AM

I have a 35 year old daughter, who is getting a bit past this now, but all through her teenage years and beyond, she kept making me mix tapes (CDs) of the music she was listening to. I had an input of modern music. More recently I found another source - the gym! They always have some sort of MTV programme on the screens around the place, so I have heard all of Lady Gaga, JLS, One Direction and so on. And like all. USC there is good and there is bad I.e. stuff I like and stuff I don't. Maybe not my listening material of choice, but stuff I don't turn off. Try some Bruno Mars, Florence and the Machine, Elbow or Ed SHeeran - you might like them. Me, I'm still trying to work out Stairway on thef Autoharp.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 08 Jun 12 - 07:34 AM

"Its been going on for about thirty years now" There's always been some pretty lame stuff in the charts. For some reason some periods appear worse than others. Top of The Pops has been getting repeated on a weekly basis starting off from 1976. With our rose tinted glasses on both my wife and myself thoguht it'd be great as we were in our mid teens at that time and look back on it fondly. It's been week after week of pretty grim stuff with only the occasional gem thrown in. Luckily we record it on hard drive so can skip through. Up to mid 1977 now so hopefully it will start to get better!

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 12 - 08:16 AM

Yeah, lotta folks find that life in the rear view mirror is more appealing than moving forward... I like to listen to new stuff as well as old stuff... But most of the time that I listen to old stuff is to either borrow licks or redo an old song my way...

B~

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:02 AM

Dunno. Growing up in the Irish community music has always been an inter-generational thing so successive generations are always looking back to old tunes and old records as well as pinching tunes from Scottish, American, European and even English(!) traditions. On the other hand, a lot of young acts seem to have done nothing more strenuous in search of material than trawling through Youtube or going through their parents' record collections. If 'originality' just means a new generation of willowy young things with acoustic guitars and eating disorders I wonder how far we've really come.

On the other hand, I became a parent in my 40s and over the last 10 or 12 years I've been exposed to a lot of pop music it would never have occurred to me to listen to otherwise. Do you know what? Some of it is fucking great!

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 11:03 AM

over the last 10 or 12 years I've been exposed to a lot of pop music it would never have occurred to me to listen to otherwise. Do you know what? Some of it is fucking great!

But not so great rendered by a gang of 8 middle-aged guitarists doing it in the style of Neil Young.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 02:18 PM

I can't help but agree with Rick Nelson:

I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories and play our songs again
When I got to the garden party, they all knew my name
No one recognized me, I didn't look the same

CHORUS
But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

....

If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck.


I suspect people who get stuck on one musical era aren't reacting to the music, but the era, and that era is where they live. Adding other music means leaving home.

Bob

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 08:07 PM

*My* cutoff is about the time I was born (1937).

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: sciencegeek
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 02:43 PM

well... I grew up litening to classical, broadway, swing & the occasional folk tune... and the only radio station I tune to in the car is the all classical public station...   

in my teens my favorite ablums were Toscanni conducting Beethovan's Pastoral Symphony, A L Lloyd's Blow Boys Blow & Alex Campbell's Best Loved Songs of Bonnie Scotland. And they are still high on my list today. and I will admit to enjoying the Monkees and the Doors both then & now.

I believe I saw the Bieber during the Rose Bowl parade? or some such holiday show... it didn't float my boat... but I was also turned off by the screaming fans for Sinatra & the Beatles... insane behavior for what?

it took me 20 years to appreciate the Beatles - of course, listening to Hey Jude on the bus for 8 hours during my senior class trip could have been a factor there. I find I can deal with rock & roll more now than then. but it's still "death before disco" in my book.

but I find that I still gravitate to traditional music, and sea music especially, for an enjoyable time. I'm comfortable with my choices.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 10:11 PM

There's such a thing as growing as an artist. To grow as an artist if you start young is to be able to look ahead and realize you need to be appealing to an older and more diverse crowd. The Beatles did exactly that. I can't see Justin Bieber doing it. Like most teen pop crooners, he's locked into this one demographic and once he's too old to appeal to them anymore, he's history and some new annoying asswipe will have taken his place.

Likewise, there is also growing as a listener or consumer of music. I started off listening to rock music--what's called classic rock these days--but I branched out. I didn't force it, it just naturally happened--sort of like when your voice cracks in puberty.

That's why I have no patience for teens who listen to crap. I don't want to hear, "What else would you expect teens to listen to?" I expect them to start branching out as I did when I was a teen. By the time I was 16, sure, I had a lot of rock schlock shit but I also had more cerebral stuff as King Crimson, Kraftwerk, Gentle Giant, Eno, Ravi Shankar, even American Indian chants recorded by field units, old jazz like Chick Webb, Karlheinz Stockhausen, stuff by Tomita, Edgard Varese. I remember having the guitar music by John Dowland and an album called "Music of the Hoch Baroque". Sorry, but I did it as a teen and I expect other teens to do it. I don't accept excuses for mediocrity in what we choose to listen to.

It is YOUR responsibility and duty to branch out so branch the fuck out.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 12:23 AM

Yet it's so unpredictable as to what stimulates us to branch out. Like many, I discovered traditional music through the 'hootenany' groups like Kingston Trio, Chad Mitchell Trio, Highwaymen, etc.   I was introduced to earlier versions of their songs and found it fascinating.    And I'll never forget the day my mother accidentally was mailed, through her record club, Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste bw Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso. (Rafael Kubelik conducting)   She hated the record and gave it to me (I would've been about 10).   I loved it!   And it took me to a totally different direction, eventually discovering Ligeti, Penderecki, Luciano Berio......absolutely loved the stuff!

I don't know what what have happened if my mother had never ordered that record by mistake.

I guess what it means is that all of us have a duty to 'turn on' people to different kinds of music.   

So Josepp, give a listen to The Hold Steady: Stay Positive cd.

Or, if that's a bit too extreme, try The Eels: Beautiful Freak.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 05:32 AM

Well, you know, folks don't have a RESPONSIBILITY - as far as music is concerned - to do anything but listen to what they want to listen to. We can pooh-pooh what other people listen to, if we want to. We can consider their musical tastes to be no better than a worm's, if we want to. And we can feel unutterably sorry for them, if we want to.

But, in the end, it's their business. Why on earth should we, of an older generation, give a hot damn about what the current crop of teens like in the way of music? Let them get on with it and let's not be pejorative. How they grow and when they grow doesn't concern us.

When I was 12 (in 1956), "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Rock Around The Clock" hit me like a bolt from heaven. Since then I've listened to, and played, a vast quantity of music in all manner of styles and from all manner of genres. But, last Sunday evening, at an acoustic singaround in my local pub, I was suddenly bitten with the urge to blast out "Heartbreak Hotel" at full volume - key of E. It brought the pub to a temporary standstill for about 5 seconds - until everyone else joined in and two women in the corner started a slow jive. So - you never know, do you...?

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 09:17 AM

/////Well, you know, folks don't have a RESPONSIBILITY - as far as music is concerned - to do anything but listen to what they want to listen to////

I said you have a responsibility to branch out not that you can't listen to what you want to listen to. Why the hell would i tell anyone they can't listen to what they want to listen to. You can do that and should naturally branch out in the process.

////But, in the end, it's their business.////

It's your business too. Like it or not.

/////Why on earth should we, of an older generation, give a hot damn about what the current crop of teens like in the way of music?////

Why should we not care? Perhaps you never heard the old saying that are children are our future. Obviously, you don't care about it--you just said so.

////Let them get on with it and let's not be pejorative.////

Why not? Am I to pat every kid who listens to gangsta rap on the ass and say, "Good job, keep it up"? You think that stuff does not influence them?? Do you care it if influences them?

/////How they grow and when they grow doesn't concern us.////

Correction: It obviously doesn't concern you. It concerns me a great deal.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 09:45 AM

Different people have different brains. It's hard to believe, but some people just aren't interested in music. It doesn't stir them at all. Let them be.

One stormy afternoon I was riding my bike and took shelter at my sister-in-law's house. She had a record on the turntable, and finally I said, "Jane, are we going to listen to Carmen for the fourth time?"

She said, "Oh! Do you actually LISTEN to music? To me, it's just something going in the background."

She's different from me, and there's no point in getting worked up about it.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 10:34 AM

Josepp (I take it you were the last GUEST post) - you give the impression of being forever irritated at the world around you - thus:

That's his audience--unbalanced idiots who have made this vapid schmuck one of the top "entertainers" in the business

I'm actually a blank towards Bieber. i don't care if he lives or dies. It's his stupid fans I feel nothing but contempt and hatred for. 6-year-old girls listen to him

If you can listen to both Miles Davis and Justin Bieber and think their both great, you're just an idiot who doesn't have the slightest idea what constitutes good and bad music--you just listen to anything because you're a twit

if you can't see that then you're too goddamn stupid for me to waste a nonsecond arguing with about it

I hate his shit and i won't listen to it

he's history and some new annoying asswipe will have taken his place

I have no patience for teens who listen to crap

I don't accept excuses for mediocrity in what we choose to listen to

It is YOUR responsibility and duty to branch out so branch the fuck out

There are millions of people out there in the world with different tastes to you and me - not just in music but in many other ways - so why not let them get on with it? You don't have to listen to what you don't want to. As Leeneia sensibly says, "Let them be". Life's too short - we should work on improving what we do. As Voltaire said, let's cultivate our gardens.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 12:33 PM

I basically agree with Will Fly

But I do have a lot of fun throwing interesting and different songs onto the Music Share facebook site.....where a lot of young people who are often just 'acquaintances of acquaintances'.....just to see if anybody will bite.   Occasionally they do listen to the song and make an interesting comment.   Then I feel gratified that I've contributed to the expansion of people's tastes....which, I view, as one of my many duties in life.

But I have no problem with the majority who indicate no interest whatsoever in my own eclectic tastes.   People grow in their own way, in their own time.   Even Josepp. Maybe some element of the message of respect and tolerance might grab him!

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 01:14 PM

I don't care about people who don't listen to music. It's people who listen to it but have no idea what constitutes good from bad--that one is as good as the other. If that makes me intolerant then I'm goddamn proud of it and if that makes me bitter at the world then you bet I am.

I made a little survery and have posted at various websites. No trick questions, just very basic stuff. This is the type of info anyone should have in their heads and should be able to dash it off. These questions should be EASILY answerable.

Gender:

Age:

What other recording artists do you listen to on a constant basis?

Without consulting any sources, answer the following questions (if you don't know the answer, go with your first impression):

1.        Do you know who Miles Davis is? (Simply answer yes or no)

2.        Can you name a Miles Davis number or album?

3.        Do you know who Doc Watson is?

4.        Was Doc Watson in the news lately and, if so, why?

5.        Do you know who Duke Ellington is?

6.        Can you name a Duke Ellington song?

7.        Do you know who Johnny Ace is?

8.        Do you know who Howlin' Wolf is?

9.        Who was the driving force behind the band T. Rex?

10.        Name a T. Rex song:

11.        Complete the following sentence: John Coltrane played the ____________.

12.        Who was the Beatles' drummer before Ringo Starr?

13.        Ringo Starr's real name is:

14.        The Supremes recorded for what label?

15.        Do you know who Big Joe Turner is?

16.        Name a Big Joe Turner song:

17.        Complete the following sentence: Johan Sebastian Bach was a classical composer during the ________ period.

18.        Name an early form of European liturgical music:

19.        Name a Holland-Dozier-Holland song:

20.        Richard Strauss composed which piece? A. Blue Danube, B. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, C. Rite of Spring, D. Also Sprach Zarathustra, E. None of the above, F. All of the above

21.        Name a Cole Porter song:

22.        Complete the following sentence: Yo-Yo Ma plays the ________.

23.        What is "the Carter lick"?

24.        Antonio Salieri is important because: A. He invented many of the principles of modern music theory, B. He was the teacher of Franz Schubert, C. He murdered Mozart, D. He wrote many pieces for the pipe organ.

25.        What was Mozart's full name?

26.        Beethoven's teacher was: A. Johan Bach, B. George Frideric Handel, C. Antonio Salieri, D. Josef Haydn, E. None of the above.

27.        Beethoven is credited with starting what period of classical music?

28.        Name a Scott Joplin piece:

29.        Most of Joplin's pieces were written in which decade? A. 1890-1900, B. 1900-1910, C. 1910-1920, D. 1920-1930.

30.        Who was "the King of the Mississippi Delta Bluesmen": A. Charley Patton, B. Blind Willie McTell, C. Lightnin' Hopkins, D. Mississippi Fred McDowell.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 01:27 PM

What's the pass mark? I think I got them all except #24.   I know in the play Amadeus there is the implication that Salieri murded Mozart. I suspect that's false.   I'd probably choose "D".

Thanks Josepp. That was a fun quiz.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 01:30 PM

I find the original post rather judgmental in sweeping statements about music. You either like something or you don't. I make my living by playing and singing and teaching

I simply cannot afford to say to pupils "no thats bad music you cannot play/sing that" result poverty and no food on the table It would be very arrogant of me to be critical of their choices -my business is to make them achieve their goals not be negative

I think with Justin its a case of Bieber Las Vegas

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 01:46 PM

Indeed, GUEST. When I taught regularly (and I only teach occasionally these days), I always asked the pupil what he/she wanted to learn and play. It mattered not one jot what the answer was - whether I liked it or not was irrelevant - as long as what they did improved their playing, and as long as the lessons fuelled their enthusiasm for music.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 02:13 PM

////What's the pass mark? I think I got them all except #24.   I know in the play Amadeus there is the implication that Salieri murded Mozart. I suspect that's false.   I'd probably choose "D".////

We'll see if someone gets it but I hope they remember not to look it up. Yes, I included the question to see who is educated by pop culture rather than by proper sources.

/////Thanks Josepp. That was a fun quiz.////

It should be fun. Shouldn't be hard at all.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 02:45 PM

////I make my living by playing and singing and teaching////

So does my bass instructor and he says that I am BY FAR his most musically astute student. He can mention any artist or song and I know it. Usually, I have that song and that artist somewhere in my collection. Although he's teaching me double bass, I have played bass guitar for decades. When I played one his bass guitars, he was impressed that I had my own style but that he could hear so many other bass guitarists in my style. He complained that too many bass guitarists today sound like Jaco Pastorius. Now there's nothing wrong with Jaco but there's more to bass guitar than him. When I look for an influence to improvise my way through a passage, I have so many to choose from because I've listened to so many. These other guys have only Jaco to reference so guess who they sound like?

So I hope as a teacher, you are teaching your students songs and techniques by people other than the ones they listen to. It's YOUR job as a teacher to make them aware of new things. If you don't do that then, sorry, you're not teaching.

No, you don't tell them that what they like is bad. Who does that? But you open them up, expose them to more than they were ever aware of. Otherwise, they are not learning anything.

Frankly, I'm afraid Americans don't do that anymore. They have the Will Fly attitude: "Oh, just let them listen to whatever they want. It's not my job to teach them anything about music." Fine attitude for a teacher but it's not surprising.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 03:05 PM

They have the Will Fly attitude

If you want to know what my attitude is, Josepp, go to my website or to my YouTube channel. Here's the YouTube blurb:

After 40+ years of playing, my purpose on YouTube is - among other things - to help others to play guitar. I create simple acoustic guitar demonstration numbers - played fingerstyle - and also easy-to-use guitar instructional videos. I play some electric blues, and acoustic traditional music on tenor banjo, mandolin and mountain dulcimer.

You'll also find a large and ever-growing set of tabs/music sheets, written by me, which are freely available from my website plus free, downloadable audio files of many of the video soundtracks.

And here's the blurb from my website:

I started playing piano and blues harp as a teenager, and bought my first guitar in 1964. Over the years I've added tenor banjo, bass, mandolin and tenor guitar to my instrument collection. I've been a professional and semi-professional musician for over 40 years and now live in the county of Sussex in England.

When I started playing, all those years ago, I had the good fortune to play with and learn from some great musicians who took the time and patience to help me along the road. A few years ago I decided it was time for me to pass on what I've picked up over the years to new generations of players. You'll find a wide variety of music, chord and tabs on my site - all freely downloadable - relating to over 300 videos on YouTube. I hope you find something to interest you...

I have helped hundreds of budding guitarists over many, many years. My YouTube channel currently has over 5,600 subscribers and over 5,000,000 video views. Now, whether my stuff is any good or not - or whether you personally like it or not (which matters not a jot to me) - it should be plain to you that I care passionately about passing on my knowledge, such as it is, to other people. My website has around 200 PDF documents of music, chord and tablature - all created by me - freely available for anyone to download and use as they feel fit.

And yet I repeat to you that it is NOT my business to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like - or to act as some superior god and make pronouncements on other peoples' tastes. Neither is it my job to make irritable, bad-mouthed judgements on the likes and dislikes of others - which it what you seem to enjoy doing.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 03:23 PM

Oh - and here's a little postscript about showing people new stuff that they hadn't heard before. Comments on YouTube videos:

Wonderful Tune. Where did you dig all these fabolous songs from? Thank you for the tab again.

I learning some thing new about these great old songs, Thank u Will!

Thank you, Will. I'd never heard this one. I was surprised to find several vocal recordings of it on YouTube, including this nice one by Marion Harris: /watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&­v=r2bUjmYqpec

This is really infectious after one or two listens. I very much enjoyed your playing. You do a terrrific version for solo guitar. Out of curiousity I searched and found the Charlie Byrd version and as you say it's "wonderful" I also liked the Sidney Bechet's rendition. Many thanks for sharing these old standards with people like me who may never have heard them before.

These comments are from just 2 recent videos. The only thing that's "Damned bloody depressing" about this thread is your attitude.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 03:25 PM

I've forgotten what this thread was about.

Don't be nasty to Will though - he's allright.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 03:58 PM

What Will seems to do is very consistent with the best psychological/educational research for helping people to make changes. You start from where the client/student is at! And you help them create a curiosity and a sense of "discrepancy" between where they are at now and where they would like to be....then you are assisting them in guiding them toward their own goals.

It's not effective to suggest to a student that their own interests or taste is inadequate.

While I suspect that Josepp is an excellent musician with taste in music that is very similar to mine...and I respect his right to his opinions.....he is making a choice. (Back to the theme of the thread, Big Al) to stay in the 'damned bloody depressing' way of thinking and to stay frustrated about how rigid and non-exploratory people are about music.

My own choice (and it's a choice that seems to have worked well for Will Fly) is to try to do something about it in a way that is effective.   And Will is demonstrating that it works to come from the place where the student is......and motivate them to move further because they want to.

Josepp is making a different choice....and that's fine.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 04:08 PM

This thread has made me think about the music I prefer to listen to. I know the Ipod has had a huge influence recently - I can almost instantly find and listen to any sounds that I want to, and the things I want to hear surprise me. Echoes of my childhood (50s pop, occasionally 40s big band - from AM radio when I was a kid??), echoes of my childrens' childhood (lots of road trips and I worked HARD to find tapes we all could listen to), music from my young adult life (60s and 70s, a great era for all sorts of things) and some music I've found here on Mudcat (how could I have missed Art Thieme?) all come into it. I learned to hear modern jazz while rocking babies to late night radio, but there's certainly not much on my Ipod. My kids bring me music now, and some of it is great - William Elliott Whittemore, Great Big Sea, the Wiyos, Natalie McMaster, Michael Franti, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mahem, Gogol Bordello, among others - the kids know my tastes, but they bought it first.

The things that surprise me are: Robert Frost reading his poems, Julie Harris reading Emily Dickinson, Frank Crummit singing "The Prune Song," a proper rendering of "Nola" on piano (that took lots of browsing, I settled on Mark Tavener's version), and most recently, Beethoven's 9th conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Also the original 3 Hitchhiker's Guides, Richard Feynman telling about Los Alamos, and a reading of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

I rarely listen to a whole album anymore, but just let itunes shuffle it all up. I do edit occasionally to remove introductions, long unbroken tracks (I know they can be edited, but I haven't got there yet) and whatever doesn't suit today's mood. Do you guys listen by the "album" (coherent recording of one group) or do you shuffle?

If you shuffle, what are the next five tracks to hear? Mine are:
The Honeydipper, Gamble Rogers
Sometimes, Michael Franti
Matinicus, Bok, Trickett, Muir
Every Living Thing, Four Bitchin' Babes
All of Me, Billie Holiday

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Brian May
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 04:17 PM

I don't see that it matters one jot what music I like, it's my business. In fact I'm re-buying the stuff I played and listened to in the 60s and 70s (mainly).

If I WANTED to listen to the new stuff, I would. Each generation has 'their' music, so let the younger ones listen to what I prefer not to hear.

If you are that eclectic then good for you - but being 'depressed' by what others are happy with is really my wife's territory (she's a psychotherapist and can help disturbed people).

I find very little attraction in the newer music I hear, I am missing absolutely loads and I couldn't give a monkey's.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 04:23 PM

I had to ponder a bit about songs written by Duke Ellington and Cole Porter—plus a few others—as to who wrote what, and no, I don't know who Johnny Ace is. Very fuzzy about Howlin' Wolf. Heard more than I wanted of T. Rex when, in 1971, KISW-FM, a classical music radio station I was working for switched over to progressive rock, and for three months, I did a stint as a "rock-jock." Bailed out of that cacophony and possibly saved both my hearing and my sanity by getting a job at a station that played "elevator music" (i.e., "easy listening"). But after a few months of that snooze, I got a job at yet another classical music station.

Great job. I got to play some of the kind(s) of music I love (which, contrary to the idea of many who don't listen to "classical" music, is not just ONE KIND of music, but encompasses a wide variety under the loose and not necessarily accurate label, "classical"). I did a little news at the top of the hour, read a few commercials, and sat back with a cup of coffee and just listened. And they PAID ME QUITE WELL to do this!!

My musical tastes are quite broad. I performed traditional folk music for years in coffeehouses, in concerts and recitals, on television, and at folk festivals. And I have given occasional classical guitar recitals for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society.

I enjoy almost all kinds of music. I do not, however, listen to any of the "acne-rock" stations on the radio. Styles change every few months, often the same old stuff under a new and "hip" sounding moniker, all "disposable" music. In vogue for a few months or a year or two, then sinks from sight to be replaced by another musical fad. Most of them tend to be aesthetically shallow and uninteresting.

And the commercials these stations play! I refused to do "screamer" commercials when I was in radio and I hate them with a purple passion. Fortunately, the stations I worked for didn't call for them.

I taught music for many years:   private lessons in folk and/or classical guitar, and class lessons in folk guitar. My main idea in teaching was to give my students the technical skills to play the kind of music they wanted to play.

By the way, I have studied voice for several years with two different teachers, I took many years of classical guitar lessons, plus a couple of months of flamenco guitar lessons from one of the guitarists at the Spanish Village exhibit at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. I also had two years of study at the University of Washington School of Music, another two years at the Cornish College of the Arts (a sort of conservatory), and private lessons in composition and arranging from Mildred Hunt Harris.

Oh, yes. I am also a season ticket holder to Seattle Opera.

So if I don't know who Johnny Ace is, and I'm a bit fuzzy about who among Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Johnny Mercer held the pencil and who sat at the piano when they were assembling "Satin Doll," I hope that doesn't leave you TOO depressed, josepp. . . .

Don Firth

P. S. But all of my study and practice and performance of "serious music" does not prevent me from getting a big snort out of stuff like the parody of a Kenny Rogers song in which a guy has an automobile accident, and the chorus line goes, "You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel!"

P. P. S. By the way, if I were to do it all over again, I might take a somewhat different approach. I think I might strive to appeal more to Early Music enthusiasts. After all, I know a number of songs that go back many hundreds of years. Accompany myself on the lute or Baroque guitar for the first half of a concert, then do more recent, American folk songs, in the second half, accompanying with a modern classic guitar.

Jus' thinkin'.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 05:40 PM

You don't have to like any of that stuff, Don. That has nothing to do with anything. I asked about T. Rex because "Bang a Gong" is extremely well-known song and has been redone countless times. I want to know how many kids today even know who did the original. Another example is "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson. Kids today know the song because Danni Minogue redid it some years ago. And one admitted to me that he had no idea there was a previous version. When I asked him if he ever heard of Harry Nilsson he shook his head.

Johnny Ace was the world's first rock and roll star. He was dead by the time Elvis started his career. He was also black with a huge audience of white fans--particularly females but a lot white kids liked him. He could croon sweet love ballads and belt out badass R&B with booming bass and drums. He was also a top-notch pianist and started off playing piano in the WDIA house band that was led by BB King. When BB left to record, Bobby "Blue" Bland took it over. When Bland got drafted, Johnny took over the band and hit it big but his career was over in only about two years. He killed himself Christmas Day in Houston in 1954 between two sold-out shows. No one really knows why. Believe it or not, David Alan Coe is a huge fan of Johnny Ace and said that for years he couldn't sing Johnny's last (posthumous) hit, "Pledging My Love" without choking up. I met a guy on Youtube who told me he and his buddies cried when the DJ on the car radio announced Johnny's death. Ace's career lasted as long as Buddy Holly's but we have to concede that Holly is remembered better because he was white.

And Antonio Salieri was the teacher of Franz Schubert. The movie forgot to mention that in its zeal to depict him as a talentless hack whose only thought was to destroy Mozart. Salieri was considered one of the finest composers in Vienna. He was quite brilliant and was famous for his comedic operas and was not the dour-faced character portrayed by F. Murray Abraham. He knew Mozart but there was no particular rivalry between them. Also in the movie, Handel's music is mentioned to Mozart whom he dismisses with "Nah, I don't like him." In fact, Mozart loved Handel's music and said so.

I tip my hat to guys like Kurt Cobain who popularized Leadbelly to young people after he covered "Where Did You Sleep Last Night". THAT is what people with influence today need to do. Introduce the young to what they missed. When Steve Vai tried out for Zappa's band, Zappa handed him a bunch of 45s of old doo-wop songs. He told Vai if he wanted to play with the Mothers, he had to know the basis of the Mothers' music--doo-wop. Vai hated doo-wop--or so he thought. He loves doo-wop now because Zappa taught him how to listen to it. It's an endless well-spring of ideas.

Yes, every generation has its own music but we don't need to teach this generation its own music. There's no point to teaching them what they already know. I'm just thankful that the old recordings are still around. No one taught me to listen to that stuff. I found it on my own but thank god there was still something to find.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 06:39 PM

When I was a kid taking in the Saturday matinees (double feature, newsreel, cartoon, previews of coming attractions, and the thirteen chapter serial—"The Masked Marvel," "The Mysterious Dr. Satan"), I saw a lot of Hollywood-style bio-pics such as "A Song to Remember" (Cornel Wilde as Chopin, Jose Iturbi doing the piano playing), "Song of Scheherazade" (Jean-Pierre Aumont as Rimsky-Korsakov), and the excellent "Tonight We Sing" with David Wayne as impresario Sol Hurok, with all sorts of great people playing earlier performers, such as Ezio Pinza as Russian basso Fyodor Chaliapin and Tamara Toumanova as Anna Pavlova).

I was exposed to some really great music when I was in my early teens, but it didn't take me long to figure out that, as entertaining as they were, these movies could hardly be relied on as authoritative biographies of the people being depicted.

I brought that early-learned awareness to "Amadeus," and indeed read up a bit on the lives of Mozart and Salieri before I saw the movie. So, although the movie was quite entertaining, I was aware that any similarity between what I saw on the screen and actual historical fact was purely coincidental.

Among my other studies at the U. of W. School of Music and Cornish was music history, which included much about the composers.

Apparently, when Johnny Ace was doing his thing, I was busily practicing my first guitar chords and learning songs out of A Treasury of Folk Songs by John and Sylvia Kolb and The American Songbag by Carl Sandburg, and from the records of Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Susan Reed, and Cynthia Gooding.

You've heard of them, josepp?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 06:48 PM

I looked through Josepp's quiz and thought "Yes, I can answer most of those questions".

Then I thought "So What?"

What I really find objectionable about the Josepp's original post and about his subsequent ones is his dictatorial attitude.

It's good to try and broaden youngsters musical horizons, but you can't bludgeon them into it. As the saying goes, You can lead a horse to water...

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,tony Rath aka Tonyteach
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 07:05 PM

Josepp - I have been teaching for 10 years - 100 percent pass mark for all exams across singing guitar and bass. I teach flamenco guitar - jazz and blues piano - singing - bass - acoustic and fingerstyle - flat picking = rock and blues guitar and musicianship

I am not employed by anyone so if people do not like me they vote with their feet - that to me is the acid test

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,johncharles
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 07:10 PM

josepp starts with I and moves to We. implying that I is somehow right.Democracy appears to have no place when it comes to music.
p.s. Will fly is the business, OK.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 07:26 PM

I agree with Tootler.

josepp said I don't care about people who don't listen to music. It's people who listen to it but have no idea what constitutes good from bad--that one is as good as the other. If that makes me intolerant then I'm goddamn proud of it and if that makes me bitter at the world then you bet I am.

Probably should have stopped the thread right there. Clearly it isn't interested in sharing, it's about showing off and simultaneously dismissing personal tastes of others.

SRS

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 11:20 PM

Folks, if you don't like my thread, you're perfectly free to flee to another. If this is just so offensive to your oh-so-sensitive natures, go post on somebody's 90-year-old Uncle Fred in the hospital thread and have a ball. Or are "WE" finding this thread just a tad more interesting?

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 11:43 PM

/////Apparently, when Johnny Ace was doing his thing, I was busily practicing my first guitar chords and learning songs out of A Treasury of Folk Songs by John and Sylvia Kolb and The American Songbag by Carl Sandburg, and from the records of Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Susan Reed, and Cynthia Gooding.

You've heard of them, josepp?////

Not Reed or Gooding. Then again, I might. My older brother was a folkie when I was just a tyke and I grew up hearing all kinds of folk stuff. My oldest sister too. It's a large universe. Someone here mentioned sea songs and chanteys, I have a lot of those too--Johnny Collins, A.L. Lloyd, John Townley, The Boarding Party, etc. So I'm still discovering the folk universe. Burl Ives was probably the first one I ever heard. I remember hearing "Blue Tail Fly" when I was very, very young. But I also remember the Rooftop Singers from around that same period.

//////Josepp - I have been teaching for 10 years - 100 percent pass mark for all exams across singing guitar and bass. I teach flamenco guitar - jazz and blues piano - singing - bass - acoustic and fingerstyle - flat picking = rock and blues guitar and musicianship. I am not employed by anyone so if people do not like me they vote with their feet - that to me is the acid test////

But if some kid wants to play blues guitar, do you teach him a bunch of Jimmy Page licks or do you teach him about, say, John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters? Hopefully, the latter two. Not that there is anything wrong with Jimmy Page but if he wants to learn blues he needs to be learning about the men who founded it and made people like Page want to play it. Sure, teach him some Clapton stuff--nothing wrong with that--but he needs a real background in blues to understand blues. When I studied blues, I bought books and read articles on sharecropping. I felt that an understanding of blues required an understanding of the conditions that spawned it. It was eye-opening.

And while I am not totally opposed to teaching online, I am skeptical of its effectiveness. How does a student know when he is doing it right without a teacher right there to correct him? If he's having a problem executing, there's no teacher standing there to show him how to proceed. I've seen double bass lessons on youtube and they are worthless. You can't learn the bass that way. A real teacher is so critical that there is no point to learning without one. Guitar may not be quite that hard to learn but still...

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 11:50 PM

/////Do you guys listen by the "album" (coherent recording of one group) or do you shuffle?/////

In sequence because often one tracks segues into another and shuffling breaks the continuity.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 12 - 11:52 PM

Threads aren't the personal property of the person who started it. Never have been, never will be. You took a shot at starting a conversation, and if it's a reasonable premise, people will generally stick to the topic and it will flow. But this was a flawed premise and you're now going to waste a lot of time defending that original position.

For what it's worth. Dismissing the remarks of people who think you're a bit nuts is your prerogative.

SRS

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 02:23 AM

I'm still a bit confused as to what the bone of contention is...can someone enlighten me?

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 02:32 AM

Susan Reed and Cynthia Gooding were two "biggies" in the early days of serious interest in folk music in this country, before it hit the pop charts. They were well before Joan Baez and Judy Collins. This was also well before the Kingston Trio even met. The Rooftop Singers were one of the later groups.

Susan Reed. Sang in a lovely, sweet soprano, accompanying herself on either Irish harp or zither. Sang songs from America and the British Isles. She was in one movie in 1948, playing a young girl dragged up from the southern mountains to sing in a New York night club. Lousy movie, but beautiful singing by Susan Reed.

Cynthia Gooding. She sang folk songs in several languages in a rich, strong contralto. I first encountered her album of English folk songs, but later I learned that she knew songs in several languages. It was inevitable that she and Theordore Bikel would do an album together: "Young Man and a Maid."

You do know who Theodore Bikel is, don't you?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,Josepp
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 08:14 AM

Yes, I know Theodore Bikel.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Bettynh
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 11:27 AM

:::In sequence because often one tracks segues into another and shuffling breaks the continuity.:::

Yes, but if the collection is your selection in the first place, the continuity becomes YOUR BRAIN, not the selection of some other. I find the mix that I've come up with interesting, if only to show myself how weird I am, and to bring up music i enjoy but have forgotten I have.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 02:22 PM

Theodore Bikel
The man they couldn't tickle
If you don't know him
You know very lickel.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 03:25 PM

Theodore Bikel sang a concert here in 1962, during the Seattle World's Fair. Sang in Seattle's brand new 3,100 seat opera house. The following day, I, along with a couple of other of Seattle's "folkies," had a chance to sit and chat with him for a couple of hours. Very interesting man!

He commented during the concert that he was glad to get back to singing folk music concerts. He had created the role of Baron Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" on Broadway, and he said it was a relief to get on the road again and escape from a routine of night after night with seven children and twenty nuns!

Last time I saw Bikel, he was in an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation in which he played the human foster father of Lieutenant Worf, and a retired starship engineer.

####

There was quite a number of singers of folk songs extant before the "Great Folk Scare" of the Sixties. Cynthia Gooding died quite young in 1984, someone told me of ovarian cancer. And the "Great Folk Scare" completely bypassed Susan Reed for some reason. She ran an antique shop first in Greewich Village and then on Long Island.

By the way, josepp, I heard Lightnin' Hopkins live at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival, and wound up at a private after-concert party where he was jamming with a couple of other bluesmen from the Bay Area.

Does that count?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 14 Jun 12 - 10:07 PM

I'm starting to get back responses to my questionnaire and, sure enough, people under 30 have trouble with it. A European girl could answer most of the classical music questions including knowing her classical music eras. American kids? Forget it.

None yet can name Pete Best or know Ringo's real name. Nearly everybody knows Mozart's full name and every single responder knows Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. Everyone knows the Supremes recorded for Motown. No one could name a Miles Davis song or album. None heard of Doc Watson or knew that he had just died. None heard of T. Rex or could name a T. Rex song. One guy guessed that Coltrane played sax. None heard of Johnny Ace or Howlin' Wolf. One guy guessed Charley Patton but admitted he really didn't know who was the King of the Delta Bluesmen. One person believes that Salieri confessed to killing or trying to kill Mozart but he didn't elaborate. No one else even answered the question. None could name a Duke Ellington song but all had heard of him. None knew who Cole Porter was and so could not name any of his songs.

So that's where we're sitting so far. I'll give it to the end of the week and I'll post up the answers for their benefit. It should not have been a hard test if kids are taught music appreciation properly but I truly expected better than this. Now I know this is hardly all that conclusive but the pattern is there: older responders can answer most of them and the younger cannot so I think the results are accurate in a general sense. And that's not good.

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Jun 12 - 01:11 AM

Well, actually, I'm not greatly surprised that people under 30 couldn't name these folks or were generally ignorant of what they did. I can't say that I found it depressing though. People that age are not necessarily stupid, it's just that they don't know a lot yet.

Hell's bells, at my advanced age, I've learned one helluva lot of stuff and could best nigh most anyone in "Trivia." But being generally fairly alert, I learn new stuff every day.

It's the human condition.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Damned bloody depressing
From: Bettynh
Date: 15 Jun 12 - 01:26 AM

My kids (who are 30) know who Ringo Starr is - he's the conductor on "Shining Time Station" who introduces Thomas the Tank Engine animations. They don't know what his real name is, and really see no reference to music in the question. Actually, they were a bit old for Thomas when the series came out, so they think Ringo's pretty lame. My kids have heard Beatles' music, much as I heard big band - old folks play it all the time. Some of it they even like, but they're just now beginning to admit it.