Jerry Leiber, Writer of Enduring Rock Classics, on What’s My Line? (1958)

in Music, Television | August 23rd, 2011

Jer­ry Leiber died yes­ter­day at the age of 78. Leiber was­n’t a house­hold name dur­ing most of his career. But his com­po­si­tions are known world­wide. Along with his part­ner Mike Stoller, Leiber wrote “Hound Dog,” “Jail­house Rock,” and â€śTreat Me Nice,” among oth­ers songs made famous by Elvis Pres­ley dur­ing the 1950s. They also com­posed “Stand by Me,” a tune sung by Ben E. King in 1960, then cov­ered count­less times. (We par­tic­u­lar­ly like this ver­sion.)

The clip above takes you back to 1958, when Leiber and Stoller appeared on the long-run­ning tele­vi­sion show What’s My Line?. If you’ve watched some of these vin­tage episodes, you’ll know that the pan­el usu­al­ly wore blind­folds lest the iden­ti­ty of the guest be imme­di­ate­ly revealed. But there was no risk of that in the case of Leiber & Stoller. And, by the way, it’s worth men­tion­ing that Vin­cent Price made a spe­cial guest appear­ance on the pan­el that night.

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The Guardian’s Guide to Opera (and Free Opera Until Sept. 12)

in Music | August 22nd, 2011

“Opera is thrilling, vibrant, ver­sa­tile – and thriv­ing. In fact, there has nev­er been a bet­ter time to fall in love with the art form” — Simon Cal­low.

This week­end, The Guardian pub­lished a handy mul­ti­me­dia guide called “How to Enjoy Opera,” and it coin­cid­ed with the stream­ing of a live per­for­mance of Ben­jamin Brit­ten’s The Turn of the Screw. If you missed it (we men­tioned it on our Twit­ter stream), you can still watch the per­for­mance online (and for free) until Sep­tem­ber 12th. In the mean­time, we would hearti­ly rec­om­mend spend­ing time with The Guardian’s accom­pa­ny­ing primers. They start you off with a list of The Top 50 Operas from 1607 to 1978, and then give you a tuto­r­i­al on how to sur­vive your first opera; a look at opera in the mod­ern age; and Simon Cal­low’s take on why “opera has nev­er been more alive.” All worth a look…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Klaus Nomi: The Bril­liant Per­for­mance of a Dying Man

Bill Bai­ley’s Remark­able Guide to the Orches­tra

All the Great Operas in 10 Min­utes

Learn Ital­ian for Free. Part of Learn 40 Lan­guages for Free

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The Beatles: Why Music Matters in Two Animated Minutes

in Animation, Life, Music | August 18th, 2011

Lee Gin­gold makes the point rather artis­ti­cal­ly by way of The Bea­t­les.

Music can shape our youth­ful minds (which reminds me of this great ani­mat­ed short, I Met the Wal­rus).

Music pro­vides the emo­tion­al sound­track for the good times and bad times in our lives.

It fires the imag­i­na­tion.

It brings us togeth­er. Just watch 13,500 peo­ple sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square.

The bot­tom line? Music mat­ters…

via Kim Sher­rell & @Alyssa_Milano

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The Cookie Monster/Tom Waits Mashup

in Comedy, Music | August 17th, 2011

Tom Waits and Cook­ie Mon­ster. They are one-of-a-kind char­ac­ters … and yet strange­ly inter­change­able. Above, we have the body of Cook­ie Mon­ster chan­nel­ing the voice of Tom Waits, singing “God’s Away On Busi­ness.” And if you doubt the sim­i­lar­i­ties, sim­ply give a lis­ten to the all-time favorite C is for Cook­ie…

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and we’ll deliv­er great cul­ture right to your vir­tu­al doorstep, day in, day out.

via metafil­ter

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Pachelbel’s Music Box Canon

in Music | August 10th, 2011

Johann Pachel­bel (1653 — 1706) wrote his Canon in D major in the late 17th cen­tu­ry, then it dis­ap­peared for a good 300 years. It did­n’t mount a come­back until Arthur Fiedler first record­ed the Canon in 1940, and until the Jean-François Pail­lard Cham­ber Orches­tra pop­u­lar­ized the piece with two famous record­ings (lis­ten here). Now the Canon is every­where. You hear it at wed­dings, of course. It finds its way into Bea­t­les’ tracks. It goes fan­tas­ti­cal­ly viral on YouTube. (This leg­endary clip has 91 mil­lion views.) And now it gets cranked out of music box­es.

This video arranged by Vi Hart has a nice way of strip­ping things down and remind­ing us what a canon is fun­da­men­tal­ly about. Along very sim­i­lar lines, you will want to check out this clip show­ing how a Bach Canon Works. It’s pret­ty amaz­ing.

via Metafil­ter

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Harry Partch’s Kooky Orchestra of DIY Musical Instruments

in History, Music, Technology, Video - Arts & Culture | August 9th, 2011

Com­pos­er and instru­ment inven­tor Har­ry Partch (1901–1974) is one of the pio­neers of 20th-cen­tu­ry exper­i­men­tal instru­men­ta­tion, known for writ­ing and play­ing music on incred­i­ble cus­tom-made instru­ments like the Boo II and the Quad­ran­gu­laris Rever­sum, and lay­ing the foun­da­tions for many of today’s most cre­ative exper­i­men­tal musi­cal instru­ments.

In this Uni­ver­sal News­reel footage from the 1950s, Partch con­ducts a stu­dent music per­for­mance on his instru­ments, built with insights from atom­ic research and Partch’s 30-year obses­sion with find­ing the elu­sive tones that exist between the tones of a reg­u­lar piano. The set­ting is Mills Col­lege in Oak­land, CA. The unortho­dox orches­tra per­forms music tuned to the 43-tone scale Partch invent­ed, rather than the usu­al 12-tone, even though indi­vid­ual instru­ments can only play sub­sets of the scale.

For more on Partch’s genius and sem­i­nal inno­va­tion, see his excel­lent 1949 med­i­ta­tion, Gen­e­sis of a Music: An Account of a Cre­ative Work, its Roots, and its Ful­fill­ments.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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Mariachi Band Serenades Beluga Whale at Mystic Aquarium

in Life, Music | August 5th, 2011

Last month, the Mari­achi band, “Los Trovadores de Amer­i­ca,” played at a wed­ding held at the Mys­tic Aquar­i­um in Ston­ing­ton, Con­necti­cut. Before wrap­ping up, the guys were good enough to ser­e­nade one of the bel­u­ga whales. And, you know, the sea crea­ture seemed to appre­ci­ate it. Enjoy the week­end … H/T @sheerly

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The First 10 Videos Played on MTV: Rewind the Videotape to August 1, 1981

in History, Music, Television | August 1st, 2011

On August 1, 1981, MTV took to the U.S. air­waves, for­ev­er chang­ing the land­scape of Amer­i­can music and pop cul­ture. If you were around then, you’ll remem­ber the Apol­lo 11 moon land­ing, the astro­naut plant­i­ng the MTV flag on the moon’s sur­face, and then the first apt­ly picked video — the Bug­gles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Fast for­ward four years, and we were all say­ing, I Want My MTV.

A list of the first ten videos aired on MTV appears below. Click the links to take a walk down mem­o­ry lane.

  1. “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Bug­gles
  2. “You Bet­ter Run” by Pat Benatar
  3. “She Won’t Dance with Me” by Rod Stew­art
  4. “You Bet­ter You Bet” by The Who
  5. “Lit­tle Suz­i’s on the Up” by Ph.D.
  6. “We Don’t Talk Any­more” by Cliff Richard
  7. “Brass in Pock­et” by The Pre­tenders
  8. “Time Heals” by Todd Rund­gren
  9. “Take It on the Run” by REO Speed­wag­on (not orig­i­nal)
  10. “Rockin’ the Par­adise” by Styx (dit­to)

Thanks Robin for the reminder…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Time Cap­sule: The Inter­net in 1995

“Jer­sey Shore” in the Style of Oscar Wilde

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