tunequest

Specialized bike parts has released an intriguing holiday card for the 2006 season. It's an excerpt of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker suite, a perennial Christmas time favorite. The catch is that the piece is played entirely on bicycle parts. From createdigitalmusic.com: Glockenspiel & Clarinet melody = spokes. Cello & Violin pizzicatos = plucked derailleur cables. Triangle = disc brake hit. Percussion = shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, ...

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As if to prove my previous post for me, the tunequest-pod offered me these selections today (in order): pearl jam-live at the fox theatre in atlanta (which i skipped because i had just heard a live show yesterday) vince guaraldi's oh good grief (a decent jazz album) sonic youth experimental jet set trash and no star (my first sonic youth ...

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It's official: Tchaikovsky's No 5 is now my favorite symphonies of his. It had been running neck and neck with No 6 for a very long time, but a recent Berlin Philharmonic listening has pushed it to the head of the pack. In addition to those melodies that you just can't get out of your head, there's this one passage about 8.5 minutes into the fourth movement were the structure ...

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James Horner is a hack. That's my opinion. Some people think he's a good or even great composer. I don't. I happen think he has precisely 1.5 Good scores to his credit, namely Star Trek 2 and 3. Those two score, I also happen to think, are among the finest score of the late 20th century, with an asterisk. (the asterisk being that the highlights of each are highly derivative ...

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When it comes to organizing for iTunes and iPod, classical music is an entirely different animal than the "pop" formula the program is primarily designed for. Why tie yourself to an inefficient and illogical "album" model when classical works were never meant to be treated that way? iTunes allows you to appreciate individual works as they were conceived and executed: as individual, stand-alone works. :: Example of my tagging structure (click ...

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i heard tchaikovsky's 5th sympony on the way into work this morning and i can't stop humming it. this particular recording is by the leningrad philharmonic and was recorded in 1960. the 5th symphony has a number of very catchy themes that quickly burrow into your head and just get stuck there. every time i hear this symphony, i love it more. it has even eclipsed my appreciation of ...

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You know, Tchaikovsky wasn’t all that pleased with his Nutcracker and I’m sure he would be both surprised and concerned about its modern-day popularity, particularly in America. Regardless of his feelings however, it is, in this writer's opinion, indisputable, that the ballet (and especially the concert suite) is a fine, enjoyable composition. Maybe it’s because the pieces are simple, but clever. And if there’s something that Americans enjoy, it’s ...

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If you feel the need or want for some good simple piano music, check out Mikhail Pletnev's quite strong performance of Tchaikovsky's Morceaux: 18 Pieces for Solo Piano. On .

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