We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten about one of Leonard Bernstein’s major works, The Unan­swered Ques­tion, the stag­ger­ing six-part lec­ture that the mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist gave as part of his duties as Har­vard’s Charles Eliot Nor­ton Pro­fes­sor. Over 11 hours, Bern­stein attempts to explain the whith­er and the whence of music his­to­ry, notably at a time when Clas­si­cal music had come to a sort of cri­sis point of atonal­i­ty and anti-music, but was still pre-Merzbow.

But, as Bern­stein said “…the best way to ‘know’ a thing is in the con­text of anoth­er dis­ci­pline,” and these six lec­tures bring in all sorts of con­texts, espe­cial­ly Chomsky’s lin­guis­tic the­o­ry, phonol­o­gy, seman­tics, and more. And he does it all with fre­quent trips to the piano to make a point, or bring­ing in a whole orchestra—which Bern­stein kept in his back pock­et for times just like this.

Jok­ing aside, this is still a major schol­ar­ly work that has plen­ty inside to debate. That’s per­ti­nent a half a cen­tu­ry after the fact, espe­cial­ly when so much music feels like it has stopped advanc­ing, just recy­cling.

The above clip is just one of the gems to be found among the lec­tures, some­thing that one view­er found so stun­ning they record­ed it off the tele­vi­sion screen and post­ed to YouTube.

In the clip, Bern­stein uses the melody of “Fair Har­vard,” also known as “Believe Me, If All Those Endear­ing Young Charms” by Thomas Moore—recognizable to the young’uns as the fid­dle intro to “Come On, Eileen”—as a start­ing point. He assumes a pre­his­toric hominid hum­ming the tune, then the younger and/or female mem­bers of the tribe singing along an octave apart.

From this moment of musi­cal and human evo­lu­tion, Bern­stein brings in the fifth interval-—only a few mil­lion years later-—and then the fourth. Then polypho­ny is born out of that and…well, we don’t want to spoil every­thing. Soon Bern­stein brings us up to the cir­cle of fifths, com­press­ing them into the 12 tones of the scale, and then 12 keys.

Bern­stein can hear the poten­tial for chaos, how­ev­er, in the pos­si­bil­i­ties of “chro­mat­ic goulash,” and so ends with Bach, the mas­ter of “tonal con­trol” who bal­anced the chro­mat­ic (which uses notes out­side a key’s scale) with the dia­ton­ic (which doesn’t). (It all comes back to Bach, doesn’t it?)

And there the video ends, but you know where to find the rest. And final­ly we’ll leave you with this oth­er, more explo­sive, ren­der­ing of “Fair Har­vard.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Glenn Gould Plays Bach on His U.S. TV Debut … After Leonard Bern­stein Explains What Makes His Play­ing So Great (1960)

Leonard Bern­stein Intro­duces the Moog Syn­the­siz­er to the World in 1969, Play­ing an Elec­tri­fied Ver­sion of Bach’s “Lit­tle Fugue in G”

Leonard Bernstein’s First “Young People’s Con­cert” at Carnegie Hall Asks, “What Does Music Mean?”

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Before Pink Floyd, rock and roll was all about atti­tude. After Pink Floyd, it could be all atmos­phere. Though per­fect­ly suit­ed for head­phones and hi-fis, their sound is archi­tec­tur­al, and almost requires the grand­est of set­tings for its full real­iza­tion. The bom­bast of the band’s sta­di­um shows, with all their the­atri­cal excess­es, seems entire­ly jus­ti­fied by the music, unlike the Spinal Tap-like pre­ten­sions of many oth­er are­na rock bands. In 1989, Pink Floyd (sans Roger Waters) played for 20,000 Ital­ian fans from a mas­sive stage float­ing in the canals of Venice, a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trast to a 1972 per­for­mance, when the band played for no one but a film crew, in an amphithe­ater in the ruined city of Pom­peii.

Invok­ing these mag­i­cal moments, a street musi­cian named Serin plays the music of Pink Floyd in the streets of Rome, park­ing him­self right in front of the Pan­theon. With pre-record­ed back­ing tracks and a black Stra­to­cast­er rem­i­nis­cent of David Gilmour’s sig­na­ture instru­ment, Serin not only nails the songs, he gets the atmos­phere just right, an achieve­ment no doubt aid­ed by his choice of set­ting. At the top, see him play “Shine on You Crazy Dia­mond,” just above, “Com­fort­ably Numb” and, below, an excel­lent ren­di­tion of “Time” (on a white Strat this time). For comparison’s sake, watch Pink Floyd them­selves play “Echoes” at Pom­peii, fur­ther down. (Stream more clips of their Pom­peii con­cert film here).

For anoth­er ver­sion of the one-man-Pink Floyd-cov­er band con­cept, see 19-year-old Ewan Cun­ning­ham cov­er “Echoes,” “Com­fort­ably Numb” and oth­er songs, mul­ti­track­ing him­self on every instru­ment.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A One-Man Pink Floyd Band Cre­ates Note-Per­fect Cov­ers of “Echoes,” “Com­fort­ably Numb,” “Moth­er” & Oth­er Clas­sics: Watch 19-Year-Old Wun­derkind Ewan Cun­ning­ham in Action

Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Mas­sive Float­ing Stage in 1989; Forces the May­or & City Coun­cil to Resign

The “Lost” Pink Floyd Sound­track for Michelan­ge­lo Antonioni’s Only Amer­i­can Film, Zabriskie Point (1970)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

When it comes to musi­cal instru­ments, there are brands and then there are legacies—names so unques­tion­ably indica­tive of qual­i­ty and crafts­man­ship that play­ers swear by them for life. Mar­tin Gui­tars, for exam­ple, have inspired this kind of loy­al­ty among musi­cians like Willie Nel­son and John­ny Cash. Mar­t­in’s sto­ry—dat­ing back to 1833—inspires book-length his­to­ries and doc­u­men­taries. In the drum world, the longest-lived and most-sto­ried brand would have to be Zild­jian, the famed cym­bal mak­er known the world over, beloved by the best drum­mers in the busi­ness.

But Zild­jian is far old­er than Mar­tin Gui­tars, or any oth­er con­tem­po­rary instru­ment man­u­fac­tur­er. Indeed, the com­pa­ny may be the world’s old­est exist­ing man­u­fac­tur­er of almost any prod­uct. Though incor­po­rat­ed in the U.S. in 1929, Zild­jian was actu­al­ly found­ed 400 years ago in Con­stan­tino­ple by Armen­ian met­al­work­er Avedis, who in 1622 “melt­ed a top-secret com­bi­na­tion of met­als,” writes Smith­son­ian, “to cre­ate the per­fect cym­bal.” The short film above recre­ates in dra­mat­ic fash­ion the alche­my of Avedis’ dis­cov­ery and the glob­al his­to­ry of Zild­jian.

The brief Smith­son­ian his­to­ry can seem a lit­tle sen­sa­tion­al and may not be entire­ly accu­rate at points. Lara Pel­le­grinel­li, writ­ing at The New York Times, dates Avedis’ “secret cast­ing process” to four years ear­li­er, 1618. (The com­pa­ny itself dates its found­ing to 1623.) Pel­le­grinel­li notes that Avedis’ “new bronze alloy” pleased the Sul­tan, Osman II, who “grant­ed the young arti­san per­mis­sion to make instru­ments for the court and gave him the Armen­ian sur­name Zild­jian (mean­ing ‘son of cym­bal mak­er’). The fam­i­ly set up shop in the sea­side neigh­bor­hood of Samatya in Con­stan­tino­ple, where met­al arrived on camel car­a­vans and don­keys pow­ered prim­i­tive machines.”

Zild­jian cym­bals were admired by Mozart and his con­tem­po­raries, and “what came to be known sim­ply as ‘Turk­ish cym­bals’ were assim­i­lat­ed by Euro­pean orches­tras and, in the first half of the 19th cen­tu­ry, into new mil­i­tary and wind band styles” of the East and West. In 1851, Zild­jian cym­bals set sail on a 25-foot schooner bear­ing the fam­i­ly name, bound for London’s Great Exhi­bi­tion. Kerope Zild­jian intro­duced the K Zild­jian line of cym­bals in 1865, still in pro­duc­tion and wide­ly in use today. (The old K’s can still be heard in sev­er­al major sym­pho­ny orches­tras.)

As the jazz scene took off in the 1920’s, many music shops exclu­sive­ly car­ried Zild­jians, and drum­mers like Gene Kru­pa helped refine and devel­op the famous instru­ments even fur­ther, mak­ing them thin­ner, more respon­sive, and able to cut through the big band sound. The sto­ry of Zild­jian is the sto­ry of West­ern music and its unmis­tak­able East­ern influ­ence, an incred­i­ble his­to­ry four cen­turies in the mak­ing, full of intrigue and bril­liant inno­va­tion, and con­tain­ing at its heart an alchem­i­cal mys­tery, a secret recipe still close­ly guard­ed by the Zild­jian fam­i­ly.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vis­it an Online Col­lec­tion of 61,761 Musi­cal Instru­ments from Across the World

Watch a Musi­cian Impro­vise on a 500-Year-Old Music Instru­ment, The Car­il­lon

What Makes the Stradi­var­ius Spe­cial? It Was Designed to Sound Like a Female Sopra­no Voice, With Notes Sound­ing Like Vow­els, Says Researcher

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness