Music from the Final Fantasy games arranged for chamber ensemble. I couldn’t find an unabbreviated video of the tune I wanted, so here’s the entire album. The playback should start with the seventh track, “Gold Saucer” from FF VII, but it’s all good. Most of the tunes were composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
Tune of the day #139
Some good old-fashioned Irish hard rock, with electric guitars and uilleann pipes.
Tune of the day #138
From Haibane Renmei, a favorite anime of Steven Den Beste, and one of mine.
Tune of the day #137
Alicia de Larrocha’s recording of Iberia is one of the most-played albums in my vinyl collection.
Tune of the day #136
Luckey Roberts was the first of the Harlem “stride” pianists to record, in 1916. However, the technology of the time wasn’t capable of handling his dynamic playing. He did record again toward the end of his life, after strokes and an automobile accident in which his hands were shattered, and he still sounded pretty good. In his prime he must have been overwhelming.
Tune of the day #135
A comprehensive introduction to the music of Frank Zappa. It’s also very silly, which is a good thing with Frankie.
Tune of the day #134
While eccentric musicians can be found everywhere, Finland must have the highest concentration on the planet — Laika and the Cosmonauts, Steve ‘n’ Seagulls, Ensemble Ambrosius, etc. And Värttinä.
Fourteen in twenty-eight
If you’re musically-inclined and have wondered if there is a challenge like the (defunct) NaNoWriMo for musicians, there is February Album Writing Month, or “FAWM.” The goal is to write fourteen songs in four weeks. “Song” is broadly defined; it can be anything from an abrupt miniature like Melt-Banana to an inflated prog rock epic. Expertise doesn’t matter — much — and it is possible to get by with just your pocket moloch. How to do it and what to use are discussed here.
I haven’t decided yet if I will join in myself this year. I’ve been trying to get the hang of yet another DAW, Presonus Studio One Fender Studio Pro. While all digital audio workstations do essentially the same thing, each is just different enough that skill with one doesn’t transfer to another.1 If I by the end of January I spend more time writing music than yelling at the computer, I might give it a shot.
Tune of the day #133
Most recordings I’ve heard of the complete L’ Histoire Du Soldat suffer from stunt casting, e.g., Rudolph Nureyev as the soldier.2 The suite fortunately is entirely instrumental.
Frosted
After several weeks of dithering and dallying, winter finally fully arrived yesterday. It’s time for the annual frost pictures, taken at the front door.
Tune of the day #132
I haven’t posted any Celtic music yet, and I need to remedy that. We’ll start with a medley of Carolan tunes by The Chieftains.
Tune of the day #131
Another anime march, but of a very different character then yesterday’s. It’s from the eccentric series Tsuritama, the most approachable show directed by the idiosyncratic Kenji Nakamura. The soundtrack is by the Kuricorder Quartet, who, with a few extra musicians, earlier recorded the music for Azumanga Daioh.
Tune of the day #130
The premise of the anime Girls und Panzer is absurd — few people realize that tank warfare is one of the feminine arts — but it was amazingly popular a decade or so back.
Tune of the day #129
John Renbourn, a Renaissance dance tune, and (modified) Heath Robinson art.
Tune of the day #128
Another medieval/modern hybrid.
Tune of the day #127
GG, MM and BB venture into Eric Johnson territory.
Tune of the day #126
Piccio Dal Pozzo is probably the outstanding Italian example of the Canterbury school of prog rock. This is from their 1976 debut.
January color
Outside it’s cold and dreary. Inside the purple-red miniature Cattleya is blooming again.
Tune of the day #125
I’ve mentioned Kapustin before. Here’s some more of his music.
Tune of the day #124
This color-coded visual aid might make it a little easier to follow the counterpoint in Nancarrow’s “12-voice canon in which the 12 tempos are proportional to the pitches of the notes of a chromatic scale.”