Not a fan of RealAudio

RealAudio is not a portable format. It's no good on my iPod or Creative Zen. It makes it a pain for me to listen to stuff if I am away from my home PC, where I never wanted to install it anyway. That said, here are some links to make some songs a little easier to listen to; at least I don't have to be signed into Vista to listen.

Gabrieli's Motet in the Churches

Handel's “Rejoice Greatly, O daughters of Zion” from Messiah

Corelli, Sonata Trio (Pgs. 124 - 126)
Movement 1
Movement 2
Movement 3
Movement 4

To learn how to convert RealAudio to MP3, visit the Neural Gourmet (works in Mac and Linux).

Who was Judith?

I was perplexed when I was reading about Baroque music and saw the painting Judith Slaying Holofernes (c. 1613) by Artemisia Gentileschi. The subject of the painting is brutal and bloody, and I had to know the story behind it.

It turns out that Judith is a deuterocanonical book of Bible. It tells the story of a widow who charms an invading general, then cuts off his head as he sleeps (or while he was drunk - take your pick).

The story has inspired many paintings and other works of art, including the famous painting (above) by Gustav Klimt and musical pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart . In the lower right corner of Klimt's painting, you can see the severed head of Holofernes. I told you it was bloody.

Musica Antiqua

Musica Antiqua is a musical ensemble from Iowa State. Their site has a fantastic collection of articles about medieval and renaissance instruments. The instrument pages include photos and mp3s of each instrument being played. A couple examples are the hurdy-gurdy and the bladder pipe.

Now is the Month of Maying

Now is the Month of Maying is a 16th century madrigal by Thomas Morley. This Renaissance tune is full of double entendre, masked by the repeated "fa la la" in the lyrics. Apparently bawdy lyrics were extremely common in madrigals.

Music at Crossroads

If you're looking for a performance in the Seattle area, especially on the Eastside, check out Crossroads mall. They have an awesome selection of musicians who play there. Crazy thing is it's free. I just saw Pearl Django and really enjoyed it. Check out the schedule; there are great acts every week.

Seattle Music On Hold

The City of Seattle has a cool site where you can hear authentic Seattle music. This is the same music you'd hear if you were on hold with city offices.

Neat thing is, it's also available as a podcast, so you can subscribe and have iTunes grab the latest songs as they are posted.

Mozart and playing OGG files

I was just looking at the selection of Mozart media files and noticed that my web browser didn't want to run the java player.

As luck would have it, the selections are also available as downloadable OGG audio files, but neither iTunes nor Windows Media Player will play them.

If your player doesn't like OGG files, there's an easy fix. Download and install the VLC Media Player. It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it will play OGGs. VLC also comes with the Portable Apps suite, if you want to go that route and install it on a thumb drive. Very cool.

Tempo and dynamics terms

As usual, Wikipedia is a fantastic source for musical terms, this time tempo and dynamics. There are even more than those listed in the book, so don't be overwhelmed. The first article has a link to a cool tempo chart at Virginia Tech.

Preserving voices of world's finest violins

There is an excellent article in the Seattle Times about an Eastside instrument collector. He has some very rare and historic violins in his collection. Make sure you also look at the "Related" links.

I also strongly recommend watching The Red Violin. This film follows a fabled fictional violin over its 300 year life. It is available from the King County Library.

Beethoven & Wagner

Wikipedia has a great selection of Beethoven media.

Since the book doesn't have a listening guide on Wagner's Lohengrin, I used this article.

Vivaldi

In additional the the Wikipedia article on Antonio Vivaldi, there is a great Creative Commons MP3 selection at http://www.valeriodistefano.com/quattrostagioni.htm. I enjoyed the alternate performance, very different than on our class CDs.

The Wikipedia article also has OGG files of his Four Seasons, and you can play them with an in browser java applet. Cool.

Online resources for Music 108

I thought it would be cool to share online resources I discover for MUS108. So, here they are.

Enjoy,
Dave