Hildegard Kleeb and Roland Dahinden’s CD Prelude for Meditation comes with a recommendation that one should experience this music at a low volume. Kleeb and Dahinden knew that a low volume encourages people to be quiet, slow down, relax, and listen. And not only to listen to the music, but to everything else too.
I’m not sure what all of this means; but, I can’t help but applaud the level of deep-listening the CMT guy does.
The controversial musician T.I. has released his first single after being released from prison.1 Here Ye, Hear Ye features a backing-track by The Neptunes’s Pharrell Williams. Williams is featured on the first verse of the track (operating under the name Sk8brd).
Speaking of verses, that’s all there is. No choruses, no instrumental breakdowns, none of it. It’s hard to even call them verses. The segments are very long and contain neither the musical or literary hooks that normally define the verses.
The song is 706 words of pure poetry more-or-less aligned to an electronic, nostalgic, synthesizer beat. The only repeated line comes at the very end and is the most poignent:
If wishes had wings, they’d all make it to heaven and we’d all be kings.
T.I.’s flow is impeccable. If he can manage to stay ou of prison and stop getting in gun-fights he has the talent to make a lot of art-music like this.
Grab it from iTunes or Amazon.
T.I. violated the terms of his probation which he was operating under since being released from prison in 2010 for a 2009 federal weapons charge. ↩
Kevin Nottingham has assembled a non-exhaustive list of the works by Isaac Hayes that have been sampled by hip-hop artists. Let’s just say: there’s a lot of them.
There’s a .zip file of .mp3s to download too. Hayes’s music is the epitome of funky-soul. If you’re into super-smooth ninth chords (I am) this is for you.
Colin Holter wrote this on New Music Box today:
“Someone built a better mouse trap” I can handle; “eff all y’all” is harder to swallow. Without denying that organizations have the right to handle their competitions however they want and can withhold the prize with no legal liability, I’m going to come right out and say it: Awarding no prize is a bitch move.
Outside of a few major international competitions, I see no reason for musicians to subject themselves to the degrading process of competing against each other.
Try this: instead of sweating every detail of a compulsory work in hopes to impress a three-judge panel who may, or may not be actual musicians; go make music that you really enjoy and can connect with on a deep emotional level.
Someday you are going to die and no one is going to care about what crummy little competition you won. Don’t waste your time.