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Saturday, February 20, 2016

Classical inspires the soul

The special thing about this piece is that there's no chord progression: there's only one chord. Like the touch of a cold winter gale gently rocking wind chimes in the still of winter, this piece displays a sense of eternity and timelessness as it expounds upon the profound depths of a single moment, frozen in time, yet lasting forever. - James Becker 
I was up ridiculously early this morning and I stood at my sliding glass doors with them open. The sun was just coming up and everyone was still asleep and this came on shuffle and it blew my mind. I watched birds fly over the orange and blue sky with total silence around my other than this song. One of the most beautiful moments in my life. - Chiara Keating
These inspired lines by James and Chiara are for the video below

Friday, February 12, 2016

Harp and the Harpsichord

Bach: Johann Sebastian Bach. German Composer. Among the bosses of Western Classical Music.

Harpsichord: A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed. The harpsichord had fallen out of popularity during the mid 18th century in favour of the fortepiano and keyboard. This is what it looks like:


Harp: The harp is a hand-plucked string instrument, usually triangular in shape, in which the plane of the strings is perpendicular to the soundboard. This is how it appears:



There are several compositions by Bach that I feel would do better without the use of the Harpsichord. Let us see

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Sweet violin 'noyse'

The King's Noyse is a violin ensemble from North America founded by David Douglass [website]. I came across their music on YouTube and enjoyed the sounds.

They play 'renaissance-style'. If you don't know about renaissance, imagine a cool cultural period between the 14th and 17th century with magnificent advances in science and art. So what is this style?
"the King's Noyse plays in a manner almost certainly followed by Renaissance fiddlers, playing from memory or improvising on standardized bass lines such as those