It might help explain things...

[bholder]

that, as an impressionable young teen in those formative years, my two favorite and most transformative pieces of music were:

This:



And This:



To me, perhaps bizarrely, they seem cut from the same cloth. I think Mr. Fripp and Mr. Barnes-Chance would get along rather well...

 

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And a few more (the "next tier" as it were):





"Deranged" and "Bombastic" seem to be on the allowed list of adjectives lol...

 

[Old Blastard]

It is now becoming clear!

 

[turf3]

Yeah, I guess I can relate.

When I was a boy, my mother had classical music running on the stereo pretty much all day every weekend. Her tastes ran very very much toward Wagner and the 20th century. So when other kids were listening to Mantovani or kids' records, I was imbibing the Rite of Spring, Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes, Gotterdammerung, Messiaen, Revueltas, etc.

It wasn't a very big jump to Ornette Coleman or King Crimson.

 

[Old Blastard]

Mom was a mezzo-soprano and trained in opera, an accomplished pianist and organist and dad a hillbilly. I grew up with a big console stereo taking up one wall of the little house and about a dozen records piled up, playing everything from Bach and Beethoven to Leonytyne Price and Tennessee Ernie Ford alternating with Tex Ritter, Johnny Cash, Eddie Arnold and Sons of the Pioneers. My poor kids got the same sort of upbringing.

 

[Old Blastard]

I was at a gathering at my daughter's house when "The Swan" followed a Taylor Swift song. A friend looked at her and questioned why it was playing.

"I'm classically trained in viola," daughter replied, to which several folks laughed.

"It's true," I told them. "I paid for the lessons."

 

[FilterFunk]

One of the many great things about classical symphony orchestra music is they don't give a rat's rump about trying to keep the volume high throughout the piece, unlike so many modern music recordings that are produced and compressed to within an inch their lives in order to make the music consistently LOUD!!!

 

[Jeff Scott]

Yeah, I guess I can relate.

When I was a boy, my mother had classical music running on the stereo pretty much all day every weekend. Her tastes ran very very much toward Wagner and the 20th century. So when other kids were listening to Mantovani or kids' records, I was imbibing the Rite of Spring, Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes, Gotterdammerung, Messiaen, Revueltas, etc.

It wasn't a very big jump to Ornette Coleman or King Crimson.

All the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons we watched as kids (and still do, occasionally) are stuffed full of classical music.

 

[5StringBlues]

Mom was a classical piano teacher. When yes fragile came out I was 6. That album and rick wakeman's solo records made total sense to me.

 

[EliasA]

You know, I feel a correlation between Quizizz background music: and

 

[Zooberwerx]

All the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons we watched as kids (and still do, occasionally) are stuffed full of classical music.

"Kill da wabbit...kill da wabbit...."

Riis

 

[J Wilson]

I was trained as a classical pianist from kindergarten through 12th grade.

My teachers took me to Houston to twice see Arthur Rubinstein perform, and once to see Vladimir Horowitz. These men were giants at their craft. Rubinstein was already a very old gentleman by then, and I was struck by two things: After a lifetime of playing so many pieces, he never practiced, and watching him in his 80's strike the keys so hard in the sforzando moments (the largest of all accents in written music), his butt would come off the bench slightly ! After his concerts, he always had one Martini waiting, and left with a MUCH younger woman on each arm.

I began to think classical music wasn't as stuffy as I once thought. . . .

Horowitz was the more emotive, flamboyant of the two, by a little. I was a teenager, and to see these Old Masters was a stunning revelation, and yet I was too young to understand a life spent at the mercy of their craft, and how that much living informed their playing.

Here, he's being interviewed for 60 MINUTES by Mike Wallace back in those days. During the Second World War, he'd take part in War Bond shows, and would often play 'Stars and Stripes Forever'. Wallace asks him about this, his vanity takes over and complains it's been too long, and in a moment every musician instantly understands, his wife leans in and says, 'Oh go ahead, would you?!?' Big shot artist, huh? Nope, her husband !


Roll up to 4:15 and listen to him whine !

 

[BargeOn]

Golly, I didn't get no musical training as a kid. But listening to my Mickie Mouse records, I waited for the singer to shut up so I could hear the "real" music in the middle part. No surprise, I found bebop jazz, the instrumental stuff, at an early age.
And then there was prog rock. The words didn't always make much sense, so you could ignore them :}

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Whenever an audience goes full zombie (which these days is 3 out of 5 shows) I imitate the DJs I used to listen to on WGBH radio. "That was an early Stravinsky piece, we will now play a fugue by Rimsky Korsakov in A minor..."

 

[SDC1-ClickClack]

You prompted me to try to find an on-line video or audio file of the "Bogus Pomp Orchestra" performing a gorgeous, deluxe orchestrated medley arrangement built around "Let's Move To Cleveland" by the late Frank Zappa, but sadly I cannot find one.

Therefore, I will post the following alternative live performance video, in the hope that you might enjoy it as much as I do. Granted, there is no bass guitar involved, but still....

The Asphalt Orchestra performs "Zomby Woof" live at a farmer's market.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

"WITH MY SPEAR AND MAGIG HELLLMET!!!

 

[KeepItMoving]

Whenever an audience goes full zombie (which these days is 3 out of 5 shows) I imitate the DJs I used to listen to on WGBH radio. "That was an early Stravinsky piece, we will now play a fugue by Rimsky Korsakov in A minor..."

Good stuff! And when you need a little extra you could add, “as performed by the Academy of Ancient Music at St.-Martin-in-the-Fields under the direction of Sir Neville Mariner.”

 

[alembicbones]

I played Incantation and Dance in high school as a tuba player. Very cool piece of music.

Bones

 

[Jeff Scott]

I was trained as a classical pianist from kindergarten through 12th grade.

My teachers took me to Houston to twice see Arthur Rubinstein perform, and once to see Vladimir Horowitz. These men were giants at their craft. Rubinstein was already a very old gentleman by then, and I was struck by two things: After a lifetime of playing so many pieces, he never practiced, and watching him in his 80's strike the keys so hard in the sforzando moments (the largest of all accents in written music), his butt would come off the bench slightly ! After his concerts, he always had one Martini waiting, and left with a MUCH younger woman on each arm.

I began to think classical music wasn't as stuffy as I once thought. . . .

Horowitz was the more emotive, flamboyant of the two, by a little. I was a teenager, and to see these Old Masters was a stunning revelation, and yet I was too young to understand a life spent at the mercy of their craft, and how that much living informed their playing.

Here, he's being interviewed for 60 MINUTES by Mike Wallace back in those days. During the Second World War, he'd take part in War Bond shows, and would often play 'Stars and Stripes Forever'. Wallace asks him about this, his vanity takes over and complains it's been too long, and in a moment every musician instantly understands, his wife leans in and says, 'Oh go ahead, would you?!?' Big shot artist, huh? Nope, her husband !


Roll up to 4:15 and listen to him whine !

WE saw Lang Lang last Thursday with The Cleveland Orchestra. Fantastic is hardly enough to describe his playing and his personality while performing.

I've been going to Cleveland Orchestra concerts since I was in elementary school.

 

[Pauly 4001]

Can you explain how a chemistry professor wrote this?