A new interest...
Well my friends, I have taken my first tentative steps into the world of classical music. It's a whole new adventure for me and I am ready to open doors to a whole new world.
My interest in classical music goes back a ways. In fact, I have two Mozart CDs which I dated December 1989 (I used to inventory my CDs back when life was simpler). I've always had great respect for classical music and appreciated it, but I've never really tried to understand it until recently.
I am reading a book on Mozart - I figured that's a pretty good place to start. I haven't been disappointed. The man was just absolutely extraordinary. He was a virtuoso by the age of six and started composing around the same time - I can related to this, because he was roughly Ava's age when he started to become famous. Many thought he was a midget because a child couldn't possibly play and compose with such feeling and technical proficiency.
When he grew up, he was a rebel (for his time). He loved to party - he was a rock star 250 years before there ever was such a thing.
He was also very innovative (I suppose that goes without saying). One (of many) great stories of his ability to ruffle feathers in the music world (pun fully intended!): He had a pet starling that learned to whistle tunes that he was composing. For one particular piano sonata, the starling kept whistling a note that was sharp, so he finally decided to leave the odd sharp in the final score writing in the margin of the page "That was nice!"
He honestly reminds me of the Beatles and some of the things they left in their music that were accidents, but have become part of the history of rock and roll. Um... or should I say the Beatles remind me of him?
Anyone who has studied classical music knows this, but hacks like me are just learning: Another piece called "A Musical Joke" Mozart purposely ends on the wrong notes. The piece was actually a spoof on some of the music written by contemporaries, who Mozart called "incompetent composers." It is actually a very cool, purposely complicated piece, but meant to be insulting. Oh, the OUTRAGE when this was written 1787! I can imagine certain circles were mumbling under their breath, "That damn Mozart."
If you can't bear the sound of classical music, at least humor me (after all, you've taken the time to read my blog!) and forward to the final 30 seconds of the piece. This tune smokes and has to be extremely difficult to perform as an ensemble. This is how Mozart wrote the final movement:
Mozart was a prolific and brilliant composer; he wrote everything between the 1760s and 1790s. He died at age 35. The most advanced his technology ever got (as well as Bach, Beethoven and all the other masters) was a quill pen, ink well and paper. Oh, and an incredibly brilliant musical mind. No computer programs, no synthesizers, no Pro Tools... the first time he heard a completed piece - other than in his head - was when an orchestra played it. And we're talking some of the most complex pieces of music ever put to paper.
So I decided to go out on a limb and check some of this stuff out. I was delighted to discover that classical music is really cheap! In fact, in the iTunes classical section, the top download was "The 100 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music" for $5.99. Yeah, 100 songs - 10 hours of music - for $5.99! On top of that, I got an album called "Mozart 50" which is 50 of his "greatest hits" for $5.99. Altogether 150 songs.... nearly 15 hours of listening enjoyment for under $12. That's bang for the buck, kids.
I think J. S. Bach will have to be next on my reading/listening list. He was writing masterpieces before Mozart was a twinkle in his father's eye. What Bach wrote 300 years ago was mind-bogglingly complex. Actually, stuff I hear from guitar greats like Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen sound very, very similar to stuff Bach wrote long, long ago. So maybe this new interest is not such a giant leap for me?
My interest in classical music goes back a ways. In fact, I have two Mozart CDs which I dated December 1989 (I used to inventory my CDs back when life was simpler). I've always had great respect for classical music and appreciated it, but I've never really tried to understand it until recently.
I am reading a book on Mozart - I figured that's a pretty good place to start. I haven't been disappointed. The man was just absolutely extraordinary. He was a virtuoso by the age of six and started composing around the same time - I can related to this, because he was roughly Ava's age when he started to become famous. Many thought he was a midget because a child couldn't possibly play and compose with such feeling and technical proficiency.
When he grew up, he was a rebel (for his time). He loved to party - he was a rock star 250 years before there ever was such a thing.
He was also very innovative (I suppose that goes without saying). One (of many) great stories of his ability to ruffle feathers in the music world (pun fully intended!): He had a pet starling that learned to whistle tunes that he was composing. For one particular piano sonata, the starling kept whistling a note that was sharp, so he finally decided to leave the odd sharp in the final score writing in the margin of the page "That was nice!"
He honestly reminds me of the Beatles and some of the things they left in their music that were accidents, but have become part of the history of rock and roll. Um... or should I say the Beatles remind me of him?
Anyone who has studied classical music knows this, but hacks like me are just learning: Another piece called "A Musical Joke" Mozart purposely ends on the wrong notes. The piece was actually a spoof on some of the music written by contemporaries, who Mozart called "incompetent composers." It is actually a very cool, purposely complicated piece, but meant to be insulting. Oh, the OUTRAGE when this was written 1787! I can imagine certain circles were mumbling under their breath, "That damn Mozart."
If you can't bear the sound of classical music, at least humor me (after all, you've taken the time to read my blog!) and forward to the final 30 seconds of the piece. This tune smokes and has to be extremely difficult to perform as an ensemble. This is how Mozart wrote the final movement:
Mozart was a prolific and brilliant composer; he wrote everything between the 1760s and 1790s. He died at age 35. The most advanced his technology ever got (as well as Bach, Beethoven and all the other masters) was a quill pen, ink well and paper. Oh, and an incredibly brilliant musical mind. No computer programs, no synthesizers, no Pro Tools... the first time he heard a completed piece - other than in his head - was when an orchestra played it. And we're talking some of the most complex pieces of music ever put to paper.
So I decided to go out on a limb and check some of this stuff out. I was delighted to discover that classical music is really cheap! In fact, in the iTunes classical section, the top download was "The 100 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music" for $5.99. Yeah, 100 songs - 10 hours of music - for $5.99! On top of that, I got an album called "Mozart 50" which is 50 of his "greatest hits" for $5.99. Altogether 150 songs.... nearly 15 hours of listening enjoyment for under $12. That's bang for the buck, kids.
I think J. S. Bach will have to be next on my reading/listening list. He was writing masterpieces before Mozart was a twinkle in his father's eye. What Bach wrote 300 years ago was mind-bogglingly complex. Actually, stuff I hear from guitar greats like Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen sound very, very similar to stuff Bach wrote long, long ago. So maybe this new interest is not such a giant leap for me?
