Category Archives: Music/Audio

Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

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Blind Willie Johnson – Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground

Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 in Marlin, Texas
a small railroad town in the heart of cotton country

He was not born blind

His mother died when he was an infant
his father remarried

When Willie was five
he told his father he wanted to be a preacher
and he made himself a cigar box guitar

When he was seven
his father caught his stepmother
with another man and beat her
to avenge the beating
she threw lye in Willie’s eyes

He spent the remainder of his life
in absolute darkness

His father would leave him
on street corners to sing for money
the myth of Blind Willie Johnson has it
he was arrested for nearly starting a riot
at a New Orleans courthouse with a his rendition of
If I Had My Way I’d Tear The Building Down
a song about Samson and Delilah

He had only five recording sessions
between 1927 and 1930

In 1945 his house burned to the ground
with no money and nowhere to go
Johnson slept in the burned ruins
on a bed of damp newspapers
he contracted pneumonia
was denied admittance to the local hospital
and died

His song Dark was the Night is on the Voyager spacecraft
as it explores the outer edges of our solar system
on its way to interstellar space

Martin Luther King Jr. on Music

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God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s forward for the program of West Berlin’s 14th annual cultural festival that opened on Sept. 13, 1964.

Helen Keller & Beethoven

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93 Seminole Avenue,
Forest Hills, L. I.,
February 2, 1924.

The New York Symphony Orchestra,
New York City.

Dear Friends:

I have the joy of being able to tell you that, though deaf and blind, I spent a glorious hour last night listening over the radio to Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony.” I do not mean to say that I “heard” the music in the sense that other people heard it; and I do not know whether I can make you understand how it was possible for me to derive pleasure from the symphony. It was a great surprise to myself. I had been reading in my magazine for the blind of the happiness that the radio was bringing to the sightless everywhere. I was delighted to know that the blind had gained a new source of enjoyment; but I did not dream that I could have any part in their joy. Last night, when the family was listening to your wonderful rendering of the immortal symphony someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations. He unscrewed the cap, and I lightly touched the sensitive diaphragm. What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments enchanted me. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. How the lovely speech of the violins flowed and plowed over the deepest tones of the other instruments! When the human voice leaped up trilling from the surge of harmony, I recognized them instantly as voices. I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still. The women’s voices seemed an embodiment of all the angelic voices rushing in a harmonious flood of beautiful and inspiring sound. The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth—an ocean of heavenly vibration—and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.

Of course, this was not “hearing” but I do know that the tones and harmonies conveyed to me moods of great beauty and majesty. I also sensed, or thought I did, the tender sounds of nature that sing into my hand—swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams. I have never been so enraptured before by a multitude of tone-vibrations.

As I listened, with darkness and melody, shadow and sound filling all the room, I could not help remembering that the great composer who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marvelled at the power of his quenchless spirit by which out of his pain he wrought such joy for others—and there I sat, feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a sea upon the silent shores of his soul and mine.

Let me thank you warmly for all the delight which your beautiful music has brought to my household and to me. I want also to thank Station WEAF for the joy they are broadcasting in the world.

With kindest regards and best wishes, I am,

Sincerely yours,

HELEN KELLER

Tchaikovsky’s Work Ethic

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Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to his benefactress, Nadezhda von Meck, dated March 17th, 1878, and found in the 1905 volumeThe Life & Letters of Pete Ilich Tchaikovsky:

Do not believe those who try to persuade you that composition is only a cold exercise of the intellect. The only music capable of moving and touching us is that which flows from the depths of a composer’s soul when he is stirred by inspiration. There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.

A few days ago I told you I was working every day without any real inspiration. Had I given way to my disinclination, undoubtedly I should have drifted into a long period of idleness. But my patience and faith did not fail me, and to-day I felt that inexplicable glow of inspiration of which I told you; thanks to which I know beforehand that whatever I write to-day will have power to make an impression, and to touch the hearts of those who hear it. I hope you will not think I am indulging in self-laudation, if I tell you that I very seldom suffer from this disinclination to work. I believe the reason for this is that I am naturally patient. I have learnt to master myself, and I am glad I have not followed in the steps of some of my Russian colleagues, who have no self-confidence and are so impatient that at the least difficulty they are ready to throw up the sponge. This is why, in spite of great gifts, they accomplish so little, and that in an amateur way.

The Artists who gave you mobile devices

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The American avant garde composer George Antheil, the Bad Boy of Music, (the title of his 1945 autobiography), is best known for a piece he wrote in Paris in his mid-20s, “Ballet Mécanique.” The work was originally conceived as a twenty five minute score to accompany a Dadaist silent film by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. The piece was intended to be performed by sixteen synchronized player pianos, but Antheil could never figure out how to get the pianos to play in sync. Together with the actress Hedy Lamarr, best known as a screen goddess of the late-1930s and ’40s. submitted an idea of a secret communication system to the U.S. patent office in June 1941

Hedy-Lamarr

On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and “Hedy Kiesler Markey”, Lamarr’s married name at the time. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. The idea was not implemented until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during the blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired.

Lamarr’s and Antheil’s frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as Bluetooth, COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections, and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones.

Miles Davis: The Art of Cool

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An exhibition of original artwork by Miles Davis,“Miles Davis: The Art of Cool,”  is at the Napa Valley Museum in partnership with Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at Lincoln Theater June 8-July 28.  The exhibition features sketches and oil paintings by Davis and some personal items including one of his trumpets, a 1989 Grammy Award and a Miles Davis Yamaha Amplifier. The showing is  inspired by Miles Davis: The Collected Artwork a new book by Scott Gutterman with Miles Davis, scheduled for release on October 10th.

The Napa Valley Museum and Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at Lincoln Theater are situated mid-valley in Yountville, Calif., between St. Helena and Napa. For more information about the exhibition and events, visit Napa Valley Museum.