What Music means for me

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Mmmm!,So the Open University and Royal College of Music have launched the Lstening Experiences Database to try to understand the relationship between composers, performers and listeners.. I think that is much too facile. Take me for example….

NOW Listening to Scott Joplin piano rags. Three styles… The Stuart and Bradley James, the man himself and the music for the ballet Suite Elite Syncopations. All started by buying sheet music at a church Jumble Sale. Wonderful.

A crazy mixture of music experiences.

Now its WOAD...very modern. Powerful guitars.

1170 tracks on my tablet, 2200 on my main computer, most recently from Amazon and Spotify. Prior to that vinyl transfers to dpigital plus CDs.

Started with singing church music then learning to play the piano plus Scout campfires and Gang Shows plus the school choir (Walpurgis Night)

Winning piano competition …. Splfeggio. Marriage of Figaro TV broadcast from Big School.

My sudden interest inreacting to the ideaa of the database was caused by a brilliant concert. Berlin Philharmonic / Simon Rattle/ Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 / Lang Lang. Four. Geniuses. Wonderful. The camera work was superb.
NOW listening to it (Prokofiev) and the studio sound is even better.

Also over the last three years ballet from the shoi…..Soshtakovich,Tchaikovsky, Katchaachurian, Stravinskiy, Fuare, Mikus, Delibes, and also Brubeck Linchbury

Then here is West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, Mamma Mia! With each of these I became emotionally engaged.

Now Its Raining Men

TIMELINE

1947 Wind up gramophone with Puccini Madame Butterfly, One Fine Day. Then Sunday School and hymn singing starts. AND Frere Jacques, Sur le pant D’Avignon,
Allouette, gentile Allouette,
1948 Started to learn to play the piano, Schubert Mozart Chopin, Bach,
1952 Watched Mikado and other G&S a other amateur operetta’s
1953 Coronation marching bands plus later Military Tattoos and also Colliery Brass Bands,… The Post Horn Ga!lop.
1956 Stopped learning piano. Saw Ruxolf Nureyev dancing Le Corsaire.
1957 Mi!itary band for Queen Sout marchpast at Windsor Castle; Carol singing; Dancing g Rock and Roll,skip Jive; Country Dancing
1858, Week of Operas at the Alec, standing at the back.
1959 Abide with me. family funerals.
1966 Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring at our wedding; Vacationes enan Mallorca… Hava Nagula
1968 Rumania Circocilia and folk dancing
1976 Songs sung in Mandarin, extraordinary, so melifulous
1980 Singing the Marseillaise as we sail into a French harbours. Yacht club Dinner Dances for jive, rock and somtimes even a quick step, waltz.
2010 Found ballet again.Bright Stream, Spartacus, Le Corsaire, Concerto (BRB),
2014 Concert Simon Rartle , Lang Lang, Prokofiev Piano Concerto 3 with Berliner Philharmonic. Bought the down!oad from Anazon.

Stopped Spotify subscription.

Now Spirit in the Sky

Star Wars, Gladiator. Happy Feet animation ballet, Fantasia animation ballet.

Then there is exquisite playing eg Nigel Kennedy, Vanessa Mae, Kyung Wha Chung, Julian Lloyd Webber, Rachmaninov, Bernstein, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley,

And La petite Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Esther Ofarim, The Carpenters, neil Diamond,

So for me music comes in all shapes and sizes. There are composers and performers and listeners. There are a!so extemporisers ( both jazz and church organ introits) and amateur performers, including karaoke, plus active, participating listenrs eg dancers,skaters and then sedentary listeners. People wander across a few, many or all categories.

My preference is now the combination of people interpreting music in all forms whether skating or stage dancing or ballet or The Prottopopovs, Torville and Dean, Kenneth Macmillan, Frederick Ashton, even the choreographers on Strictly Dancing.

For me for the future I need to crack, the problem 9f sheet music for my digital piano and / or to learn the auto-backing in the CDP 220 and create my own music.

NOW listening to Liebestraum by Liszt

AND the good news is tioday’s break-through because rather than waiting to try to get Musescore.org on my (Ubuntu) computer I decided to adopt a more classic approach by getting a music stand and drilling a hole through my desk so tht the music is directly in front of my eyes. I mmediately rang the RNIB muusic Team to request a copy of large print score for Brahms wltz in A Flat. Let’s see how I get on.

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