From the 1940s through the 1960s, even into part of the 1970s, instrumental music reigned supreme in the popular consciousness. The swing era brought the music of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller to large audiences. Even as the end of World War II brought about rock and roll, many widely recognized groups still […]
Far too often, people perceive music as a solely auditory experience, something heard but which does not affect the rest of the listener’s body. The reality, however, is far more complex. One can physically feel the energy of acoustic waves. It is a large part of why the audibly impaired still appreciate music, even when […]
Joann Wolfgang von Goethe once remarked, “Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music.” But the philosopher is hardly the first to notice the shared facets – terms rhythm, texture, harmony, and proportion – between musical and physical blueprints. Some architects have attempted to examine their works’ connections to music. With 3+3 (Cuneiform, 2024), cellist […]
Artists have long written compositions that express emotional depths possible only through music. These songs can bring the listener to tears, cause goosebumps, make them want to move or call them to action. But some of the best music is not so heavily preplanned. For one, Miles Davis’ classic “So What” (Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959) was […]
The love song is one of the oldest and most primal forms of musical expression, dating back to ancient Greece, if not earlier. Charles Darwin even theorized that the love song was the first form of human musical expression. Of course, the emphasis on romance in songs has continued to the present day. It is […]
John Coltrane once noted he would “like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words… to speak to their souls.” The idea is for an artist to produce art not to win acclaim or respond to a momentary issue in their life but to use their gifts to respond to an […]
Miles Davis once remarked, “It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.” This emphasis on evolution does not necessarily mean needing to adapt a new voice. The key is to retain your core identity while stretching into new realms. Miles certainly did, and so have many of his protegees, including […]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once noted that “melody is the essence of music.” This may be true, but such a perspective overlooks how melody can also serve as a restraint. For an artist seeking to freely express themselves, would not adherence to a central motific theme stand in their way? As a result, in the mid to late Twentieth Century, as composers of […]
Since the first electric violins hit the market in 1930, the concept of electronically manipulating the violin has maintained an aura of mystery. While musicians including Joe Venuti and Stuff Smith readily adopted amplification to their instruments over the decades, there has remained a resistance among many to change one of the most virtuosic touchstones […]
Thirty-seven and a half million people visit New York City’s Central Park every year. That, by itself, is a fascinating statistic when one considers the entire population of the metropolis is less than a quarter of that amount. What brings so many New Yorkers and tourists alike to the nation’s first landscaped park? Park architect Frederick Law Olmstead answered this question well by noting […]
