Edited by Michael Piper, Saturday, 13 Aug 2016, 19:33
A friend of mine has quite a technical job to do with computers and motion capture, and finds that when he has to spend hours coding the time passes more quickly if he listens to Jean Michel Jarre.
This sounds like my idea of hell.
The wife's study music of choice is dance music. Especially Chemical Brothers, ideally played loud through her headphones. Sometimes, as a contrast, it's Beastie Boys or Green Day.
I prefer the minimalism of Erik Satie or the modern romanticism of Debussy, who not only acknowledged the influence of Satie but often employed him as an opening act. Both are very evocative composers: Debussy's Prelude to a young deer on a summer's afternoon immediately transports me to a dappled glade in an ancient wood; Clair de la lune is post-midnight Paris with gaslamps reflecting on wet pavements; and Satie's Ogives are an immaculate musical extrapolation of the curved points of the Gothic windows of Notre Dame cathedral.
Yet this taste for culture when studying seems diametrically opposed to my normal musical predilections. While not completely plebeian, for I draw the line at Mr. Blobby or The Fast Food Rockers, most of what I like is fairly mainstream.
Thanks to my mother I have a love of proper (as she called it,) rock n roll. Let's face it, there have been few people who epitomise the expected deviation from accepted behaviour by popular musicians than Jerry Lee Lewis: thirteen year old brides; a drowned child; firearms offences; substance abuse; and expulsion from the seminary. On the theme of opening acts, he once soaked his piano in lighter fuel in response to having to appear first on the bill, warming up for Chuck Berry. After entertaining the crowd with his frenetic piano playing and vocals, he performed 'Great Balls of Fire' as his finale, and then, as he walked off to a standing ovation, he lit a cigarette lighter and threw it into the piano. As the instrument burst into flames, Jerry Lee walked past an astonished Chuck Berry who was waiting in the wings to come on. All he said to Chuck was, "Follow That".
Study Music
A friend of mine has quite a technical job to do with computers and motion capture, and finds that when he has to spend hours coding the time passes more quickly if he listens to Jean Michel Jarre.
This sounds like my idea of hell.
The wife's study music of choice is dance music. Especially Chemical Brothers, ideally played loud through her headphones. Sometimes, as a contrast, it's Beastie Boys or Green Day.
I prefer the minimalism of Erik Satie or the modern romanticism of Debussy, who not only acknowledged the influence of Satie but often employed him as an opening act. Both are very evocative composers: Debussy's Prelude to a young deer on a summer's afternoon immediately transports me to a dappled glade in an ancient wood; Clair de la lune is post-midnight Paris with gaslamps reflecting on wet pavements; and Satie's Ogives are an immaculate musical extrapolation of the curved points of the Gothic windows of Notre Dame cathedral.
Yet this taste for culture when studying seems diametrically opposed to my normal musical predilections. While not completely plebeian, for I draw the line at Mr. Blobby or The Fast Food Rockers, most of what I like is fairly mainstream.
Thanks to my mother I have a love of proper (as she called it,) rock n roll. Let's face it, there have been few people who epitomise the expected deviation from accepted behaviour by popular musicians than Jerry Lee Lewis: thirteen year old brides; a drowned child; firearms offences; substance abuse; and expulsion from the seminary. On the theme of opening acts, he once soaked his piano in lighter fuel in response to having to appear first on the bill, warming up for Chuck Berry. After entertaining the crowd with his frenetic piano playing and vocals, he performed 'Great Balls of Fire' as his finale, and then, as he walked off to a standing ovation, he lit a cigarette lighter and threw it into the piano. As the instrument burst into flames, Jerry Lee walked past an astonished Chuck Berry who was waiting in the wings to come on. All he said to Chuck was, "Follow That".
More musical likes to follow in the next post.