Category: Music

Categories
Music

Rock nostalgia

"Record" from Unsplash, released under a CC0 dedication

I’ve been listening to albums that I had on very heavy rotation about 20 years ago, this week. I’m not sure what this rock nostalgia indicates for me, although I still like many of these albums.

The first band I revisited was Pearl Jam. I was really into them during my university years, and went back to two albums in particular, Ten and Vitalogy.

Then, this morning, I went back to Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion II that I first listened to because one of the tracks was used in Terminator 2.

I haven’t listened to this music in decades (literally). I’m a little surprised that I still enjoy most of it, especially after my 80s Pop revival.

Categories
Film Music

The Greatest Showman

Photo by Becky Phan on Unsplash

Our daughter has been asking to watch The Greatest Showman for a few weeks. We watched the movie over the weekend, and it was wonderful.

I don’t know where she encountered the movie, but she’s been listening to various Spotify playlists featuring music from the movie that’s based on part of P T Barnum‘s life.

We watched the movie over the weekend, and it’s a spectacular movie. It reminds me of Moulin Rouge, in a way (another movie to introduce our daughter).

The music is terrific, and this is one of the few movies our daughter actually watched without distracting herself with her phone (mostly).

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s well worth watching. You can also find the soundtrack on Spotify. Here’s the opening song:

Photo by Becky Phan on Unsplash

Categories
Events and Life Mindsets Music

Comforting familiarity

Jamie Rubin wrote about waning motivation, and comforting familiarity yesterday –

Maybe it is familiarity during a time of uncertainty that I find comforting. The unknowns pull the levers of anxiety. Because of this, I have to limit myself to thinking about today and not worrying too much about what may happen tomorrow. When I start to think about tomorrow, or the next week, I find that my motivation is sapped just a little bit more.

No Motivation | Jamie Todd Rubin

We do find familiarity comforting. I’ve had a 80s playlist on Spotify on heavy rotation lately, and I realised earlier that it’s probably because this is my comforting familiarity.

Whatever works, and helps make each day a little lighter, and more productive, right?

At the same time, we’re in a challenging time. The pandemic challenges our ideas about how we live, how we relate to each other, and what “normal” is.

Perhaps this is also about tempering this unnerving change with familiarity to help us adapt better?

Categories
Music People

When Lin-Manuel Zoom-bombed Some Good News and a young girl was speechless

Ok, the title really could have been longer. Actor John Krasinski (The Office, Jack Ryan) has a YouTube series titled “Some Good News“. In Episode 2, he, his wife, and friends rendered a young girl utterly speechless when they surprised her on a Zoom call.

Oh, the friends included Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the cast of Hamilton.

Missing Hamilton due to COVID-19

This young girl was due to go see Hamilton with her mother, but their trip was cancelled due to the pandemic. Her mother tweeted to Lin-Manuel about this, and Krasinski picked up on this.

He called this young girl, and what followed is just fantastic:

One of my favourite parts is around 11 minutes when she is utterly speechless as Lin-Manuel joins the call.

It definitely gets better, though, as Manuel’s friends (aka, the cast of Hamilton) join the call too to perform her favourite song from the production.

Categories
Music

Winter thrills with Vivaldi

Photo by Baher Khairy on Unsplash

I really enjoy Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and I’ve been listening to variations of a few of the movements/pieces/parts (I’m not sure what the terminology is) from Four Seasons in the last day or so.

Two of my favourites are these:

I’ve also really enjoyed watching different performances on YouTube, such as these:

We’re expecting rain in the coming week. It will be a perfect opportunity to play one of these pieces for dramatic effect when a storm arrives. Just for fun.

unsplash-logoBaher Khairy
Categories
Applications Music

Spotify recommendations are spot on today

Photo by Luana De Marco on Unsplash

I’ve been listening to one of my Spotify Daily Mixes that comprises instrumental movie and TV soundtracks. It has been giving me some excellent choices, many of which I haven’t heard before.

I’m really impressed! Here are a couple tracks that have become new favourites:

If only my YouTube recommendations for videos were as accurate!

Categories
Events and Life Music People Travel and places

Music in the park with Tal Kravitz

Tal Kravitz performed in the park as part of Modiin's Autumn Festival

Tal Kravitz performed at one of our city’s annual Autumn music festival events in a neighbourhood park yesterday. According to his bio on his Facebook Page –

Tal Kravitz is a musician and a singer educated at Israel’s finest music institutions. He is also a traveler who journeyed on a personal search for original tribal music in far corners of the world not yet exposed to Western civilization. Tal plays piano, harp, guitar, a variety of bagpipes, the musical saw, African percussion instruments and more.

We really enjoyed the event. Kravitz is really engaging, and involves the audience (who loved him).

Fortunately we arrived early enough to find good seats. I took advantage of that for some photographs.

Kravitz used a range of musical instruments including an Irish harp, a saw (the kind you use to cut wood), bagpipes, and some sort of electromagnetic/sonic device.

Categories
Music

My favourite songs this week

Photo by Luana De Marco on Unsplash

I’ve heard some terrific new music lately, and I thought I’d share some of my favourite songs this week.

I don’t recall hearing this artist’s music before. This track is a great intro, though.

Nick Mulvey

I’ve been listening to more Nick Mulvey’s music, and enjoying many more of his songs. Here are my current favourites:

I have a growing “Liked Songs” playlist on Spotify that includes all of these tracks. It’s probably a bit too big to share directly, but these songs are some great highlights from songs I added recently to that playlist.

Featured image by Luana De Marco