The Music Thread.

[BBP]

The initial link was written for a roller coaster, so unless you visit a certain Dutch theme park you're not likely to hear it in the wild. When I heard it it got stuck, I was singing it for days, and it became my ringtone for a while.
The roller coaster is about a gold mine haunted by "witte wieven" (if you recall my Gabriel Knight fanfic...) which are white female ghosts of Dutch folklore. This ghost is admonishing us for trespassing on the mine she protects and you hear this just before plunging into the dive coaster's darkness.

The original original pre-published version was written by Lloyd-Webber veteran text author Richard Stilgoe but re-written by Charles Hart. Due to it being English, the English version has a "goth" feel that no other version could capture, but what sets the Dutch translation by comedian, author and translator extraordinaire Seth Gaaikema apart, is he does a lot to lift the lyrics to a higher poetic plan. Clever lyrical finds, assonance, alliteration...

Compare:
The Phantom of the Opera is there inside my mind - dull

Het spookt hier in de opera, het spookt ook door mijn hoofd - combines a pun, (if it "spooks through your head" you cannot let go of a scary thought, it haunts you) and an assonance of the spooky oh sound.
There's tons of examples like this but I won't bother you with those.

Last few bits and bobs of me on the matter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnJwXEzjbcw
If you wondered what they looked like back in the day.
And here's the Dutch Think Of Me by the still very beautiful Joke de Kruijf, sadly accompanied by a comedian.
Joke doesn't just look and sound like a Disney princess, she also voiced Belle (along with Henk Poort as Gaston), Cinderella AND Sleeping Beauty.

[Tawmis]

I mentioned LILIAC several times in this thread - they just recently did a show. And it's amazing. The vocalist is so wonderful - love her voice. But really the rest of the band. But how she carries her vocals. <3

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm. This needs to be played, and played, and played again and again ... in every school, every hospital, every place. EVER.



Science and reason are not the enemies of belief or fact. Science and reason ... complement our beliefs. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we'll all be. And -- and maybe I'm just yelling into the void, maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better by repeating this, but hey. Whatever works in making sense of a nonsensical world. Enjoy!

[Tawmis]

Could not make it more than 1 minute and 10 seconds... lol

[Rath Darkblade]

All right, so now I have to ask the obvious question: Um, why?

Sure, there are small bits of it that are NSF work, or kids, or deeply religious people. But there's truth behind those bits ... or at least a truth, maybe just one of them, and I say that because I don't want to offend people who believe in crystal healing and so on. But, um, on the other hand ... crystals won't do anything for a headache, and so on. It's amazing to me that some people believe they will.

Sure, it's fine to believe in fairies and unicorns and other creatures. No problem. But when people start rubbishing science because they don't believe in it? Science exists, it's not a question of belief. Scientists gave us lots of good things, like aspirin. It's not a doctor's fault if the companies that make aspirin are greedy ... well. I don't know, but so what? I won't point fingers and scream. So ... again, it's amazing, and confusing, that people do.

Sure, I don't know lots of things too. I don't know much about carpentry, or plumbing, or playing rock 'n roll. Not knowing about science doesn't make a person 'bad' or whatever. It's the attitude that counts: being willing to say "Maybe I don't know" and listening to someone else, instead of "Rah! Science is EVIL!" etc.

Anyway, I didn't mean to preach. My bad. Sorry!

[Tawmis]

All right, so now I have to ask the obvious question: Um, why?

Because it was irritating (to me)? The voice? Singing, or lack there of?

Not my cup of tea!

[Rath Darkblade]

No problem. There's no singing, but he's doing a piss-take um, parody of beat poetry. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and all that lot.

Perhaps this is easier to listen to:



A beautiful song about Christmas time in Australia and celebrating it with family ... except, as it happens, you're far from home. But you're looking forward to the next time you come home.

It's somber, and "hits you in the feels", but it's so beautiful, I can't help choking up. 'Scuse me while I reach for the tissues.

[Tawmis]

No problem. There's no singing, but he's doing a piss-take um, parody of beat poetry. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and all that lot.

Yeah, guessing beat poetry is not my thing.

I will listen to the white wine song when I get home later.

[Rath Darkblade]

Thank you, Tawm. I'll be curious to know what you think.

Just a little note: since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, Christmas here is in the summer. (Yep, we're upside-downy folks).

One of the lyrics mentions "socks, jocks and chocolates" as possible Christmas gifts. "Jocks" is a euphemism for underpants here and in the rest of the British Commonwealth, but I'm not sure if that's also the case in America.

Anyway, none of this changes the song, which is a beautiful song about ... family, and missing them when you're far away, and loving them so so much when you meet them again, and raising kids and loving them too and ...

Gosh, 'scuse me, I think there's some dirt in my eye;
but that's OK, in a nice way, 'cos I'm allowed to cry
or at least shed a tear,
'cos we're all grown-ups here
and if that didn't please you, then 'lend me your ear'
and perhaps I will write a Shakespearean sonnet
or maybe I'll eat a ham roll, with cheese on it.
So thank you for reading my spontaneous nonsense rhyme,
and I hope you didn't think 'twas a waste of time.

[Tawmis]

So, Apple has a thing where if you play an album, it will auto play something in the same vein... (several services do this...) but there I was playing TORA TORA, and when it finished - another song kicked in.

And I was like, "What the heck?"

Because the music (instruments) were playing "Sad But True" (from Metallica).... but the lyrics were not Sad But True, but had me laughing so much... it's a tribute to 80's metal, but it's freaking hilarious...

So the band Tuff made a song called "American Hair Band"...




So many lines in the song are references to a bunch of 80s songs...

[Rath Darkblade]

Yep, that was very 80s sounding ... and lots of references to 80s bands and 80s songs. I like it!

And here's my pick for the week: Gustavo "The Dude" Dudamel leading the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar at the BBC Proms (2007), playing "Danzón No. 2" by Arturo Márquez.





If you've never heard it before (which I doubt), the piece is a vibrant and colorful orchestral piece that reflects the dance style of danzón, which originated in Cuba and became popular in Mexico. It was composed by the Mexican composer Arturo Márquez in 1994.

I dare anyone not to smile while listening to this. Better still, get up and dance like there's no-one watching. Saludos from México -- er, Australia!

[Tawmis]

I dare anyone not to smile while listening to this. Better still, get up and dance like there's no-one watching. Saludos from México -- er, Australia!

I'd be dizzy trying to dance to this. It starts so slow... then around the 2 minute mark suddenly goes hard... then goes back down to slow... then some pizzaz again... then slow again...

[Rath Darkblade]

Yep, music tempo isn't all "fast and hard", all the time. If it was, the musicians would get exhausted. That's why most "fast and hard" pieces of music are only 2-3 minutes long. After the fast bits, most of the orchestra takes a breather, and the soloists (e.g. the piano, the violins, the flutes) take over for a bit, evoking a sense of calm. Then the orchestra comes back, and things get wild again.

I love the slow bits here - e.g. around the 4-minute mark, the orchestra 'passes the melody' along; first the piano (and then the violin) take the melody (and everyone else keeps the harmony going), then the string section (violins and violas) take the melody, then the flutes take over ... and it slows down a little, makes you think it's over. And then (at the 6-minute mark) -- surprise! -- everyone comes back in, this time with the trumpets and drums, and things get fast and wild, and it's dance time again!

"American Hair Band" has a tempo of about 100 bpm (beats per minute) throughout, which isn't too fast. The tempo is "Danzon #2" varies between 60 bpm at the start, up to 120 bpm or even 140 bpm in the truly fast passages. I think that's what makes it exciting - you just don't know what to expect.

[Tawmis]

Yep, music tempo isn't all "fast and hard", all the time. If it was, the musicians would get exhausted. That's why most "fast and hard" pieces of music are only 2-3 minutes long. After the fast bits, most of the orchestra takes a breather, and the soloists (e.g. the piano, the violins, the flutes) take over for a bit, evoking a sense of calm. Then the orchestra comes back, and things get wild again.

Yeah but what I am saying is - that beast is 9 minutes long. I think most people might get tired from the constant shift of tempo trying to dance to that. (But then I don't dance to that type of music... or dance, really... at all...)

[Tawmis]

This woman just blew my mind...

Her renditions of metal songs on a piano are... so incredible... I still hear the song properly... but it sounds so incredibly majestic on piano...

Electric Eye from Judas Priest...




And one of my all time favorite Iron Maiden songs... Wasted Years....








EDIT:

Just saw she did Testament's "Return to Serenity" which in itself... is, as close as Testament has as a ballad... and again, one of my favorite songs from Testament... It's wild how, I can hear the lyrics in my head, but this song especially (probably because it's a bit of a ballad, tragic and sad)... this version just sounds like a regular piano song, rather than a "metal/thrash" song...