rdio recently added the ability to browse by record label. I never realized it but Albany Records has over a 1000 streamable albums. If I had to over-generalize, I would characterize the label as "new classical music played on conventional instruments."
From the soon-to-close Borders, I purchased the CD of Ursula Oppens playing Elliott Carter. I wonder if that will be the last CD I ever buy from a national retailer. Maybe.
I still greatly enjoy record shopping at Amoeba (and somewhat less so at Rasputin and Streetlight, though.
I admit I haven't actually listened to this CD yet. The CD player doesn't work in my car. And I have a rigorous practice of ripping on my laptop, auto-syncing those files to my desktop, and when I get around to it, finally syncing with my iPod.
As I write this, I'm streaming from rdio.com to hear a steel drum version of Philip Glass' Etudes.
Eight years into this blog, it finally occurs to me that if I had instead called it "a-players" or some such and focused on performers and composers, I could have been the People Magazine of contemporary composition, instead of, in effect, recognizing written manuscripts. This critical decision would have certainly increased pages views; on the other hand, I was never much of a people person...
Being that classical guitar has deep roots in Spanish culture we decided that we needed to somehow pay homage to this fact. We decided that it would be too easy to add Gypsy flamenco to our set and say we covered Spain. In researching Spanish culture we decided that for our program we were going to add music of the Sephardic Jew. I came across Fred Hand’s settings of“Sephardic Songs” for soprano, flute, guitar and double bass. After contacting Fred Hand and discussing the possibility of arranging his music for violin, flute and guitar, we went ahead with the arrangement. Fred Hand’s settings of“Sephardic Songs” are heart wrenching tunes that display the tragic beauty of the middle ages.
By the way, Mr. Hand is the official guitarist of the Metropolitan Opera. One wonders his stand on the electrical amplification question.
catalog depth test: emusic 1, rdio 0, youtube 0, spotify 0 (no change from last post, unfortunately)
The crux of Ostertag's observations is that "This deluge of more music than anyone can hear will change the very meaning of ‘music’ in a profound way."
I unfortunately haven't had the time to download this album yet as my listening is currently stacked. On Spotify tonight, I was listening to a Joan Tower Naxos album that I somehow never knew about. Then, Steve Simels posted a "karaoke" version of a psychedelic Rolling Stones song that led me to interrupt Joan Tower and listen on rdio to the second disk of a Rolling Stones hits album that is mostly new to me as well:
I subcribe to rdio. I'm evaluating Spotify. Depth of catalog is important. But for say, Tom Johnson, both services have four of his albums. Rdio also has An Hour for Piano. Spotify has Rational Melodies. I'll call it a tie. User interface is better on rdio, though.
I'm trying Spotify for music streaming again. I had used it in Europe and wasn't particularly impressed. We'll see how it goes.
The first interesting discovery from Spotify is the Italian jazz pianist Enrico Pieranunzi. I found him through a Spotify playlist generator that works off of last.fm scrobbling history.
From an album Live Conversations, Pieranunzi has a long, excellent version of Autumn Leaves and at the end, he plays a surprisingly apt chorus of Blue Monk.
I just took the Q2 radio listener survey. At some point, they have you listen to various clips to determine which styles of contemporary music you want to listen to. All minimalism, all the time, for me I suppose.
Later in the survey, they try to zero in on what you think about vocal and choral music. I don't have a strong opinion but based on what the local KDFC does (not) program, I assume many listeners don't want to hear it.
This also prompts me to tally how I listen to music. As a guess, on a weekly basis, it's:
40% MP3s on an iPod
20% streaming on rdio.com from my PC
10% streaming on rdio.com from my iPhone
10% streaming on YouTube from my PC
5% streaming on Counterstream Radio from my iPhone and PC
5% CDs in the spouse's car
5% from sound leaking from the daughter's iPod
5% soundtracks while watching movies
Is Q2 competing for that 5% I listen to Counterstream Radio? Otherwise, I love choosing my own music too much to listen to a traditional radio broadcast format. So I'm unlikely to listen to Q2 despite the interesting hosts and content. I did suggest they have an iPhone app.
Update: For various reasons, turntable.fm, Google Music, Amazon Music, and spotify haven't cracked this list.
Study 2 showed that (a) observers were able to form consensual and accurate impressions on the basis of targets' music preferences, (b) music preferences were related to targets' personalities, (c) the specific cues that observers used tended to be the ones that were valid, and (d) music preferences reveal information that is different from that obtained in other zero-acquaintance contexts.
I like the earlier works by John Cage more than the later ones although I also likeFour6 as performed by Sonic Youth. Personality-wise, maybe I'm progressive but not radical yet open-minded. Or not.
