Music for the cloth-eared generation and why a musical ear means luck in love.

Technological changes affect musical tastes according to the Telegraph: the piano allowed composers greater freedom to change volume within a piece of work, while the four-minute limit of the early phonograph player setting the standard for the length of the modern pop song. Those of us raised in the vinyl era prefer the sound you get from an LP or a single to later musical formats.

Now it seems that the flatter, tinny, sound associated with digital music is being chosen by some record producers as young listeners no longer appreciate high fidelity recordings.

Jonathan Berger, Professor of Music at Stanford University, California, has conducted an eight-year study in which students have rated various formats playing the same song. He found that, over time, there was a rise in preference for MP3 players and that there was no perception of inferior quality. Professor Berger said that the phenomenon was similar to the continued preference of some for music from vinyl records heard through a gramophone. "Some people prefer that needle noise – the noise of little dust particles that create noise in the grooves. I think there's a sense of warmth and comfort in that.

Rennie Pilgrem, a dance music producer, said he mixed his tracks while listening to them through iPod headphones to cater to the less refined tastes of today's youth. "To my ears iPods are not even as good quality as cassette tape," he said. "But once someone gets used to that sound then they feel comfortable with it."

Stephen Street, who has produced records for Blur, the Cranberries and Kaiser Chiefs, said the change had led to pressure to add volume at the expense of quality. "What you are hearing is that everything is being squared off and is losing that level of depth and clarity," he said. "I'd hate to think that anything I'd slaved over in the studio is only going to be listened to on a bloody iPod."

Personally I find the iPod to be very convenient way to listen to my music collection. I have getting on for 2,000 albums so a nice, big iPod means I can have a all the songs I still listen to in one place. The quality isn’t that great but a decent set of headphones (I prefer Ultimate Ears Super Fi5 pro phones)) does sound quality. The headphones that come with MP3 players are, quite frankly, crap. Still there’s nothing like dusting off an LP and putting it on the turntable.

Meanwhile, having a trained ear can be an advantage in a romantic relationship. According to a study by North Western University researchers (Again reported in the Telegraph).

Anyone searching for a lover with that elusive quality of being a "good listener" should pick someone who has gone through musical tuition, said the results of the study. Apparently the the ability that allows them to pick out a tune also means they can pick out 'emotion' in the human voice better than most. Lead researcher Dana Strait said: "Quickly and accurately identifying emotion in sound is a skill that translates across all areas, whether in the classroom, boardroom or bedroom."

For the test, the 30 volunteers were strapped to electrodes to measure the reaction of their brainstems. Wearing headphones they were asked to watch a nature film in a foreign language with subtitles in order to keep various senses occupied. Then a tiny blast of a baby's cry, lasting for a fraction of a second, was played through the headphones while their brainstem reaction was monitored. It found the brains of those with musical training locked on to the complex parts of the sound which contain the emotion.

Well there you have it. I wish I wasn't tone deaf (sighs)

I never knew the KFA had hymn

Apparently this is the hymn of the Korean Fuc...., sorry, Friendship Association. I suppose an anthem like this stirs the idiots to be soldiers of juche and warriors of Songum.. Sell at least bus spotters will never feel inadquate while the KFA exists!

Computer music, fifties style

A scratchy BBC recording, dating back to 1951, of Baa Baa Black Sheep In the Mood are thought to be the oldest known recordings of computer generated music. Originally captured during a visit to the University of Manchester, the recording has been unveiled as part of the 60th Anniversary of "Baby", the forerunner of all modern computers. The tunes were played on a Ferranti Mark 1 computer, a commercial version of the Baby Machine.

"I think it's historically significant," Paul Doornbusch, a computer music composer and historian at the New Zealand School of Music, told BBC News. "As far as I know it's the earliest recording of a computer playing music in the world, probably by quite a wide margin." The previous oldest known recordings were made on an IBM mainframe computer at Bell Labs in the US in 1957, he said but they were not the first to have a computer play music," That honour goes to a third machine called CSIRAC, Australia's first digital computer, which "stunned" audiences with a rendition of Colonel Bogey. "It played music months or weeks before the Manchester recording," he said.

However, no one has yet unearthed a recording of CSIRAC in action. Documentary evidence of the Manchester machine's musical abilities exists thanks to a BBC outside broadcasting team who had gone to the University to record an edition of Children's Hour.

What I was listening to about 26 years ago

Spirit - Bauhaus



Temptation - New Order



The Cure - 100 Years




Fireworks - Siouxsie and the Banshees



Asylums in Jerusalem - Scritti Politti



And for contrast Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden



and some Motorhead - Iron Fist

Saluting the Sea Cucumber Part III

Not only does the sea cucumber have potential medical applications, it has also been immortalised in music and poetry.

In 2003 academic Robin Gill produced a 480 page book called Rise Ye Sea Slugs which brings together (possibly for the first time in English) around 1,000 haikus on the subject of our holothurian hero. Apparently they have been the subject of the Japanese poetry form for centuries this including this one from 1690:

This sea slug
is it too beastly for
proper monks?

And one from 1951 by Gijô

A few drinks
and I am a sea slug
out of water

(Taken from Danny Yee’s review of the book here). Wonderful stuff. I feel a purchase coming on!

More famous of course is Erik Satie’s composition Embryons desseches. The first movement is called holothurie and concentrates on the so-called purring of the holothurians (????). In his description on the score Satie wrote: “The Holothurian crawls across boulders and rocky surfaces. This sea-animal purrs like a cat; also, it produces disgusting silky threads. Light appears to have an incommodating effect on it.”

Make of that what you will. Sadly YouTube has no footage of it being played. It’s a shame also that no artist deigned to paint this versatile beast. Albrecht Durer painted a beautiful hare. I’m sure he could have done the Sea cucumber justice too!

A song for Snoopy Doggy Dog?

A Very Silent Night was a Christmas number one in New Zealand and raised nearly £9,000 for the country's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. However, none of the people who bought the record would hear a thing as the CD was recorded at a frequency inaudible to humans but audible to dogs

The makers hope it will be a worldwide hit.

Minutes of silence? Infinitely preferable to Britney Spears in my view...

Skeletal Family

Lies

A bit of whimsy

Greeen Tambourine - The Lemon Pipers



Flight from Ashiya -Kaleidoscope (no actual video footage, sadly)



Jelly Jungle of Orange Marmalade - Lemon Pipers (again no video footage of the band)

Can't be bothered with any more words. Have some music instead

Wet Blanket - The Chills



Johnny Hit and Run Paulene - X



Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely - Husker Du

Singalongachavez

Perhaps this is an indication that Hugo Chavez is now considering options for his future career: presidential sources have stated that he has just released a CD of traditional folk music/ Titled Canciones de Siempre ( which roughly translates as Songs For All Time), the CD includes tunes that Chavez has sung during his regular Sunday programme Hello, President . At the close of each broadcast, Chavez regularly sings folk songs along with guest musicians and dancers.The CD will be available free in Venezuela.

Sadly I can only find one short clip of him singing. On the basis of this performance perhaps the CD is be intended as an alternative to custodial sentences for minor offenders.

Sources close to the President have also stated that Chavez has plans to follow this release with a collection of duets with world leaders. Although the track listing is yet to be confirmed it is believed that it will feature the following songs

People will say we’re in love - with Fidel Castro

Sometimes when we touch – with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Up where we belong with – with Robert Mugabe; and

With you I’m born again – with George W Bush

Reasonable choices but I would pay good money to hear Chavez and Ahmadinejad sing this one:

Photo Hunt Music

The theme for this week's PhotoHunt is music. Now I am tone deaf and can't play a musical instrument to save my life. Instead I have taken photos at some of the concerts I have attended over the last couple of years. All have appeared on previous blog posts.

Dave Brock of Hawkwind at the launch party for their last album Take Me To Your Leader, September 2005

Robyn Hitchcock performing at a Medecins Sans Frontieres benefit, December 2006

Peter Buck playing as part of the Venus 3 with Robyn Hitchcock, January 2007

Clare Szembek, keyboard player of a band called Captain, March 2007

Robyn Hitchcock, performing May 2007

Kimberley Rew, formerly of the Soft Boys and Katrina and the Waves, playing with Robyn Hitchcock at another MSF benefit, June 2007

I saw Robyn Hitchcock four times in the space of just over six months.You may have guessed that I like him a little!

The Brock/Calvert Project Finally Sees the Light of Day

I have been neglecting my Yahoo groups of late. I missed a post from Voiceprint records on Monday announcing the release of the Brock/Calvert Project CD.

Brock

Dave Brock is the mainstay of Hawkwind and the last founder member still in the band. Robert Calvert (whose image I use as my avatar) was also a member of the band, co writing Silver Machine with Brock and appearing on some of the band’s best albums (Space Ritual, Quark, Strangeness and Charm and Hawklords). He was also a poet and playwright. Calvert died in 1988. I was very fortunate to see him twice at the Hammersmith Clarendon in the year before his death. I never saw him perform with Hawkwind.

Dave Brock had a cassette tape of Calvert’s poems for many years. Rob Ayling, the Managing Director of Voiceprint Records, and asked him to put some music to the poems. The album draws a line under marks the final collaboration between the two artists (I am sure something of the sort would have been done long before had Calvert not died). The album also features musical contributions from Hawkwind drummer Richard Chadwick, keyboardist Jason Stuart, and former bassist Alan Davey.

Calvert

Two of the pieces, Small Boy and Ode to a Timeflower appeared on last year’s sampler album Take Me To Your Future . The album, which is issued as a limited edition of 1,000, is available online via a dedicated website.

I've bought my copy. I would imagine it will sell out pretty quickly.

Danielle Dax covers Tomorrow never knows

This is definitely not one of Daniellle Gardiner's finest moments but she definitely deserved far more success than she got (ie any!) A bit like Robyh Hitchcock, Paul Roland and many others who had something but not the breakthrough

Freedom of Choice - Devo

When I was 17, err 18

I was tagged a little while ago by Letha over at A Stitch in Time. Sorry for not doing this sooner Letha!

In this meme you should:-

1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com
2.Pick the year you turned 18 (look to the side bar and there are tabs for Billboard number 1 hits for each decade)
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the song affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

Popculturemadness is a US site so some of the songs that went to number 1 may not have been huge hits here in the UK (I don’t think Eddie Rabbit’s I Love a Rainy Night was a hit here). I turned 18 on 29 March 1981. The US number 1 was Rapture by Blondie. I loved Blondie and they had been huge here in the UK. Sadly their 1981 album Autoamerican was a clinker and Rapture had a silent C in my view!

Number 1 in the UK when I turned 18!

It could have been worse though the UK number 1 was Shakin’ Stevens’s This Ole House, (a cover of a Rosemary Clooney song) so I can’t be that smug!


I was a mixture of gloom and exuberance as an 18 year old, with a predilection for alcohol and angst in equal measure. I was a lot more political in those days (although I wasn’t dour and humourless about my politics) so the Specials second chart topper Ghost Town was one of the songs of the year for me:

Ghost Town

The summer of 1981 was a gloomy time: there were riots in several UK cities, the recession was biting – unemployment was rising, there was massive disaffection with the Tories. At the time it seemed that the Thatcher would be consigned to the dustbin of history, certainly not that she would dominate the political scene in the 80s. Ghost Town felt like the soundtrack to that time.

While I loved punk and new wave, I was also a bit of a grob. One of the concert highlights of the year was seeing Motorhead and Ozzy at Port Vale FC (I know, I know but I am glad to be a saddo!). It was a great day and I got my hearing back within 5 days. Motorhead was noise, noise, noise but for me it reminds me of laughs with old school mates (one of the poor sods ended up working for me a few years back!) and too much beer and rock bands at the Ruskin Arms

Ace of Spades featuring Lemmy with "Fast Eddie" Clarke and "Philthy Phil" Taylor

Despite my predilection for noise in more reflective moments I would like something far more melodic. The Garden by John Foxx was one of the best albums of 1981. Europe after the Rain was a minor hit. Foxx had a break from music from the mid 80s to the later 90s. He is still going strong and the not-wife and I had a great night last July seeing him live at the Scala in London.

Europe after the Rain as performed on TOTP

So who gets this next?

1. Elasticwaistbandlady
2. Alison over at Eleanor and I
3. Shaz at Us Danes
4. Tyger
5. Roland at But I am a liberal

Robyn Hitchcock at Games for May

Sadly these are about all the useable pics I took. Photography was forbidden so I was working without flash... Hih

Placebo - Nancy Boy

Mansun - Wide Open Space

Kinky Friedman - Get your Biscuits...

Kinky Friedman performing his very silly 70s song "Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed". It won him a Male Chauvinist Pig of the year award from the National Organisation of Women in 1974. In reality it is more daft than offensive.

I wish there was more Kinky Friedman on You tube. Some of his songs are very funny (They ain't making Jews like Jesus anymore); on the other hand his cover of "the Ballad of Ira Hayes" is possibly the best version of the song available.

Early Robyn Hitchcock

The Soft Boys performing "Only the Stones Remain" at Futurama 2 in 1980.