music vs. kleenex

Subject: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 01:41 AM

Okay, I'm just here to vent. For the 4th of July, I attended a small-town celebration with family, and I was forced to listen to 2.75 solid hours of big-band music. Amplified.

A lot of people are getting music confused with products, such as Kleenex (facial tissues), aspirin, etc. When I reach for a Kleenex, I don't want to pull out a piece of wrapping paper or an envelope. When I reach for an aspirin, I don't want to find a penicillin tablet in the bottle.

However, when a band bills itself as a Big Band, that does not mean that it must confine itself to Big-Band music until the audience wants to scream. (We had to stay for the fireworks.) Lord, couldn't they play just one Dixieland, tango, Sousa march or Gay Nineties number and let our poor brains have a break?!

There still are people who hire big bands for celebrations, and if they are paying, and they want no variety, then so be it. But for an audience of the general public, variety isn't just good, it's humane.

When I am empress, I am going to pass a law that bands have to make every fifth number different from their usual product. I couldn't sleep the other night, and I thought of these suggested special numbers for the following groups.

1. The Rolling Stones - Merry Widow Waltz
2. A New Age ensemble - She'll be coming round the mountain
3. Classical-music string quartet - ragtime
   (but not "The Entertainer")
4. Symphony orchestra - St Louis Blues

what do you think?

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 02:09 AM

I think no one can know all the music...

When you're empress, I'm leaving....

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Kaleea
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 02:57 AM

As a matter of fact, I have heard a "classical" string quartet play ragtime. I've also heard a reed quartet play ragtime, too--& all by Eubie Blake. I have heard a "symphony" orchestra play The St. Louis Blues, too.   
I rather enjoy Big Band Music, as well as Dixieland, various tangoes, March Music by J. P. Sousa & other composers, & Music from the 1890's & lots of other Music. I have enjoyed concerts of Big Band Music which lasted longer, & the crowd--including myself--asked for more.
    If one is attending a concert of Music which one is uncomfortable with, I can certainly understand declining, or perhaps even stepping out for a bit. If I were being strong armed with having to be in attendance at a "rock" concert in this day & time, I would most likely suffer an accute 24 hour illness just prior to leaving for said concert. I can no longer physically tolerate the distortion of sound & the dangerous volume.
    If the band/orchestra was hired to perform Big Band Music because it is billed as being Big Band, then the Band certainly should honor the reason it was hired & perform Big Band Music.
    I play a wide variety of Music as do my band mates, but when my band is hired to play Irish Music, we play only Irish.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 03:56 AM

I sympathise... and I admire your fortitude, sticking it out for nearly 3 hours.... I'd have wanted to overdose on those aspirin by the end of the first 20 minutes!

I'm afraid that if a band is billed as a particular brand of music, then it's to be expected that they play that sort of music... but there are many MANY big band tunes that don't all sound the same. However, nearly 3 hours is beyond human endurance and they should be reported under the Geneva Convention.

I do like your idea though.. the thought of Ice T doing a big band number in the middle of his (C)rap concerts has me in giggles!

(I have attended a ceilidh where the band, Edward II & the Red Hot Polkas, would slip odd tunes into dance sets. Found myself doing a Nottingham Swing to 'Montego Bay' once!)

LTS

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 09:32 AM

Which is why my Old Time gang does a bit of Duke Ellington, Tin Pan Alley, delta blues, etc....

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 10:38 AM

The Boston Pops, on 4 July, plays something for every generation, ending, traditionally, with the 1812 Overture (artillery supplied by the U.S. Army). I haven't heard it recently, tho.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Love and cars make it safe to be mean. :||

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 01:20 PM

I've thought of another one. A rap group can do Gregorian chant.

I find it fun to think of these combinations - it requires one to consider the inner nature of a kind of music, then conjure up its opposite.

Wordsworth called this "unity in multeity."

I did wear my hearing protectors all evening. I saw another woman who was sitting with her family and had her fingers in her ears. I gave her a hearing protector from my box. She was pleased.

I like the Mack brand of hearing protectors, little blobs which look like (but are not) paraffin.

Not to get too contentious about this, there really are people who find it physically painful when two trumpets, not perfectly in tune, let 'er rip into a couple of amplifers 7 feet high. I asked my nephew if that didn't bother him, and he said, "No, I've gone to too many rock concerts."

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 01:37 PM

I think that one is not forced into anything unless one is physically bound and gagged, and that you could have taken the lead in moving away from the amplified music. That none of us have to go along with the fashionable victim mentality of our present culture.

~Susan

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 01:42 PM

The repertoire of a *good* big band ranges from klezmer to tango, passing through the entire output of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Noel Coward and Xavier Cugat on the way! It shouldn't begin and end with String of Pearls, Woodchopper's Ball and Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy ... but of course it often does because those are the tunes today's listeners recognize.

I wonder if, 60 years from now, a typical rock band will play three Beatles songs and a heavy metal medly?

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 01:52 PM

Unfortunately, the larger the ensemble, the less likely that all members can be expected to know how to play a given piece. Since this was, literally, a "Big Band," their repertoire would necessarily be limited to those numbers that they have studied and rehearsed together.

If it was a "community" (i.e., unpaid amateur) orchestra, as I suspect may well have been the case, it's even more unrealistic to expect the breadth of repertoire that a professional group ~ or any solo performer, amateur or professional ~ might be expected to offer.

Too bad you couldn't excuse yourself (for a l-o-o-o-n-g trip to the bathroom perhaps?) until the fireworks commenced.

The discussion has brought up some good opportunites for a few laughs, though. How 'bout requiring, say, Miles Davis to play "Orange Blossom Special"? Or maybe 50-Cent could do "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"?...

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Highlandman
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 03:27 PM

Hey, how about Willie Nelson doing a reggae number? Hah hah, hee hee -- er, say what? Really? Hm.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 03:52 PM

OK...getting into this spirit of this....Hildegaard's choir doin a rap piece in Locrian?

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 04:08 PM

I never found Kleenex very good for music. It just goes soggy and clogs the comb.
Try IZAL if you can find any....
You can play ANYTHING on a comb and Izal.......
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 04:25 PM

I don't konw what IZAL is, but if we're talking about that stiff waxy toilet paper more commonly found in the UK than the US, then yes, it makes a great kazoo when wrapped around a comb.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 05:13 PM

If I understand correctly, that this was a concert at which you were expected to sit and listen, then an hour would have been appropriate, perhaps. "Big Band" music is for dancing and they shoulda had a dance floor - or a section of street for the dancers. A 3 hour dance is about right, but nobody should be expected to "just sit and listen" for that long.

Excessive amplification is a common crime, and is almost to be expected at a "small town event," since few such places stage enough such activities to gather - or remember - the inevitable complaints.

Sitting in front of a blaring speaker is your own problem. Often such presentations sound better from about a half block away - which is where I usually listen.

Sitting in one spot for a 3 hour "event" that doesn't interest you just shows a distinct lack of initiative. At all such "small town" events I've ever been to, there's always something else going on, even if it's only the local alleycats fighting behind the drugstore, or the local "Ladies Association" swatting flies on the table where they hope to serve you a piece of pie after the concert.

Assuming a "sufficiently small" town, their 4th of July celebration was most likely put together from local resources and locally known "entertainment." Their purpose is to celebrate their own community. As an "outside visitor" your opportunity is to see what the town has - not what it can buy and import for your entertainment. Whining about their failure to meet your "big city" expectations is - in lieu of alternative descriptors - "childish."

It sounds to me like you missed an opportunity to observe the whole town by sitting on your butt at a boring (to you) concert.

I apologize if this sounds harsh; but I like small towns in small enough doses. I don't choose to live in one because I do understand how many of them do things.

John

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 10:21 PM

Hildegaard doing rap, that's a good one. Also Willie Nelson on the reggae. Keep 'em coming.

Maybe Jessie (sp) Norman would like to try yodeling.

Personal to Clinton: when I became empress, I was going to make you ambassador to Tahiti. Please reconsider.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Gypsy
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 11:10 PM

It is an interesting concept, but if they were playing what they were paid to do......i would be hard pressed to criticize. Perhaps it is the coordinator that should be yelped at, to have 3 different bands, instead of one 3 hour one. I mean, when we get booked, it is for european/irish music. If we came out with one of the top forty, would most likely get fired LOL!

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 12:32 PM

Willie Nelson doing reggae ~ no joke:

Mudcat thread on "Countryman" album

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 12:40 PM

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From:
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 01:30 PM

Personally, if I saw the bill said BIG BAND, that's what I would have expected. I would have loved it.

However there are ways to incorporate newer material and STILL play it in the style of the Big Band. Or is that what is being objected to, the style?

I've heard Howie MacDonald and Ashley MacIsaac play showtunes in CB Fiddle style. It works! But it is in the style of the performer, not the original style of the music.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 06:00 PM

I found it tiresome after a while because it was the same instruments, same tempo, same kind of percussion throughout. My brother used to play big band music for weddings, etc. He too got tired of the homogeneity of it.


However, my comments about that performance were mainly to inspire people to think of crazy musical combinations.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: open mike
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 09:33 PM

my post didnpt show up here
i was offering advice about
using kleenex to make ear
plugs with...

also remembering a TV documentaty
with a variety of music found along
a river--mississippi i think...from
native drumming to folk/fiddle/bluegrass
and then to the delta for blues and
dixieland and cajun. This seems to
be a good mix of music which represents
americana music...which would have been
ideal for julyu 4th. It was called River
of Song and I believe it was narrated by
Greg Brown or at least it featured him.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Kaleea
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 09:56 PM

" . . .1812 Overture"

I will never understand why anyone would celebrate America's Independence by playing an overture written by a Russian feller about Russia fightin' against Napoleon. Yes, it is one of Tchaikovsky's greatest "hits" but so what if it has cannons going BLOOMBOOMBOOBOOBOOOMing. T'ain't nuthin' about the USA.
    How about asking John Williams to write us an overture, or, gee, what about playing, oh, I dunno--the Stars & Stripes Forever? By the way, I have heard the Air Force "Glenn Miller" orchestra playing it, & it's great! Even if they do play alot of Big Band/Swing stuff, too.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 11:12 PM

Right on! The Symphony played "Stars and Stripes Forever" that very weekend. Love that piccolo part!

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Jul 05 - 06:01 PM

I think some people reading this have misunderstood about the hearing protectors. Hearing protectors allow a person to hear normal sounds, such as music or speech, better than before.

When I used them at the concert, they kept the highest, loudest notes from hurting me while allowing me to enjoy everything else.

As another example, I always try to use them on an airplane. On really long flights, I put them in, put headphones right over them, and listen to music. This blocks much of the deep rumbling of the plane and allows me to enjoy the music more.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Jul 05 - 07:25 PM

The movie "Stripes" already did the most memorable musical switcheroo when the soldiers marched to...

There she was, just a walkin' down the street,. Singin' Doo Wa Diddy, Diddy Dum, Diddy Doo,. Twiddlin' her thumbs, and a shuffl-in' her feet...

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 04:32 AM

If I was magic I'd be in a Cajun band and do "When I'm Cleaning Windows"
But I'm not so I won't.

Subject: RE: music vs. kleenex
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 04:55 AM

Make a band like Pantera sing "You are My Sunshine".