"Darkness Falls Across the Land..."

WARNING! - SUBJECTIVE POST!!

Princess Di, Elvis, Karen Carpenter......We will all remember where we were when we learned that they had gone.

And now, Michael Jackson.

Given that he in his later years was, shall we say, a little "Off the Wall", there is no denying that his contribution to the music business was nothing short of phenomenenal.

John Landis recognised the potential when he was asked to direct the video "Thriller". Upon hearing the music, his immediate remark was "Why not make it into a two-reeler?", and subsequently a legend was born.

And now he is gone.

I was never a particular Jackson fan, but it has to be said, "he could dance a little".

I choose "Smooth Criminal" (long version) here as the obvious would have been well, obvious. His last best video and the climax to his movie "Moonwalker".

I loved his Persona. I loved his Style. I loved his Dancing. I loved the Coin.



This is my downloaded version.

Here you can watch in fullscreen on YouTube



His videos will now be collectors items.

It was in this light I decided to download Smooth Criminal and Thriller three hours after the news broke.

I expect the YouTube versions to be deleted in about six weeks (the probable date that the Post Mortem result will be revealed)

You Go For It

In the spirit of Eurovision I post this for my little cousin Yuko.

They are called "Hinoi Team" and Yuko can dance this one.

Keika is the leader and what is astonishing is that the girls were aged twelve and thirteen (two of each) at the time (2005)

Yuko can do this and I have no dance in me.

I am too old for this Sh*t, as Murtaugh would say.

The title is "Ike Ike", which means "Go, Go", or, in Western terms, "Go for it!"

Fifty Bonus points only for sussing the pun in the post title.

Don't get me wrong - I am not going soft - watch this space for a deep physics post.

No Way!

WARNING: OBJECTIVE POST!




The previous post was written by a love-sick pre-teen and she has offered an apology, poor girl.

The Eurovision Song Contest, lampooned by many and oft shunned because of the terrible music.

Saturday, May 16th, and there where 42 countries voting for 25 finalists (where does Europe HAVE 42 countries???).

This is a contest, the winner of which will be singing a song that would appeal to all the Euro members. Sadly, a few countries (like Armenia) still cling on to the myth that singing about their own culture is sufficient to win a contest spanning an entire continent.

Norway, by tradition or otherwise, usually finish last, many times with zero points. There seemed to be a chance in a million they would ever even get "un point". Most critics wrote them off as, at best, a "bad idea". No chance of winning anything.

And then, after many years in the Doldrums, Norway came up with this one. Alex is famous in Norway for both song and violin. I watched all 42 entries prior to the contest and noted three potential winners: Iceland, Norway and Estonia.

Alexander Rybak absolutely STORMED away with the victory, becoming the highest points scorer in the history of the 50+ year contest.

This author predicts a worldwide chart hit for this song.

For You, My Ben

WARNING: SUBJECTIVE POST!




Alex is so FIT, but Ben I love you.

I'm in love with a Fairy Tale....

Jeez I am so in love with you. You are my Fairy Tale, Ben, and I will never leave you

Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, Anni-Frid

There was a time when these guys' humanity was put into question, simply because they seemed to be able to do no wrong.

Hit after hit after hit.

They had relationships inside the band, but this was their last greatest hit, in 1981.

"The Winner Takes it All" is a thinly veiled bittersweet account of their last days, when their relationships went sour, especially for Agnetha, the singer here.

Great song, but poignant simply because it can be interpreted on two different levels.

Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, Anni-Frid...

A B B A

The boys went on to write the music for the musical "C H E S S", in 1986. It ran in London until 1989 at the Prince Edward Theater, near Cambridge Circus.

SOFT- (loud)

This is the one that almost does not belong here.

Yundi Li.

I did not want to put this here since it is so seemingly NOT science. However, I have known this piece since I was about four years old. It is one almost every pianist knows by heart (without reading it, that is. Like a tune you whistle to automatically)

Regretfully, though, it IS science, simply because Mr Yundi does not even have to look at his hands. His eyes seem to know more, even when he is not using them.

The director is brilliant because he films the performer's hands in the reflection of the manufacturer's logo "STEINWAY AND SONS", the greatest piano constructors ever.

My professors make an analogy with physics people - The material is so familiar that no effort is required.

I know almost every note of this - it is played all across the World, and Yundi plays every note on time and in all the right places.

(It seems I am always chasing rainbows, but this takes the biscuit)

I have just noticed - he makes an error on the pedal, just before the trio.

Yundi is absolutely GORGEOUS. ( Sorry Ben )

Spirit of Love

This movie I have loved ever since I first saw it

Alan Tam is gorgeous and he does the singing also.

It is tragic, funny, ghostly, and a doomed love story.

I have seen it many times but I do not have a copy of it.

"Esprit D'Amour"

"Yam Yeung Cho"

Joyce Ngai, Alan Tam.

It is basically a tragic love affair with a beautiful ghost.

Alan Tam is the confused insurance clerk (Koo-Chi Min).

Joyce Ngai, the girl (See Yiu).

The theme is phenomenal. The song is called "Illusion".

At the beginning, he nearly runs down a beautiful girl in the rain.

Just after, she is tragically killed in a bizarre skateboard accident.

The insurance company decides it was suicide. It was not.

Her spirit returns, to obtain justice for her daughter, with a beautiful theme.

The clerk and the spirit fall in love.

She returns to claim the insurance money for her child.

The company refuses to pay.

The Spirit screws up the company in amusing ways.

BUT his fiancee finds out that he is in love with a spirit.
and takes steps, involving a "Door Of Death" through which the spirit must pass through.

After the spirit is exorcised, he tries to follow her by going through the "Door of Death", thus trying to commit suicide, by throwing himself out of the same window , saying "See Yiu - wait for me" (in Cantonese)

He sadly survives

At the end , after he recovers, he looks up at the sky. In the rain, glad to be alive, but glad to have known her Spirit. And then a girl in a car nearly runs him down, just like he nearly ran someone else down on a similar, rainy night...

CAN SOMEONE AT LEAST GET ME THE DOWNLOAD OF THIS?????

Genius

WARNING SUBJECTIVE POST!!

This man is an absolute genius.

The album (Tubular Bells II) was recorded with just him playing ALL instruments, rerecording it time and again, in his own studio.

Take a look at how many musicians (keyboards, etc) are needed to perform the same thing LIVE.

John Gordon Sinclair joins Viv Stanshall (RIP) and Alan Rickman (Hans from Die Hard)in the announcement of the instruments. The post person spelled "Edinburgh" wrong

Note the change in guitar at the end. Wonderful! Note also the way he plays the guitar. Side swiping the strings, not up and down (Space Invaders???) and unique.

Check Mate???

This is the piece I have been looking for ..... The Chess Chorale from the Musical.

What makes this piece so fascinating is that the Chorale, are "placed" on a large Chessboard, with equal numbers of "players" in "black" or "white" robes. The "piece" begins with a recital of the names of every single World Chess Champion to make a "move".

Tal, Steinitz, Lasker, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Smyslov, Alkehine, Morphy, Spassky, Fischer, Capablanca, Korchoi, Karpov, Kasparov . Check out the names NOT in the Intro!!


The first two minuets of CHESS - ENDGAME !!!

The Great Gig in the Sky

Richard (Rick) Wright died today aged 65.

One of the founder memebers of Pink Floyd, the quintessential English progressive rock band.

He was the drummer and keyboardist.

Their most famous album being "Dark Side of the Moon" (1973), and quite out of the blue, Rick wrote this.

Or did he? There is a rumor that Clare Torry improvised the whole thing and they published it anyway.

Either way, the only piece ever to come close has been Mike Oldfield's "The Inner Child" from "Tubular Bells III".

Comments are welcome.

I Love You , Dad

This one is for my father, who introduced me to Mike Oldfield when I was ten and Tubular Bells II came out. I know you read this.

He got me TB I after I enjoyed TB II, and when when TB III came out I was entranced, and took it across the world with me.

This video is a very small pastiche of TB III.

"And the Man in the Rain picked up his bag of secrets, and journeyed up the mountainside, Far Above the Clouds, and nothing was ever heard of him again, except for the sound of Tube - You - Lah - Bells "....





The sight of Big Ben at the end is no accident, of course. Mr Oldfield wanted the last clang to be exactly at the same time as Big Ben chimed Ten ( Big Ben is the name of the Bell in the tower, not the tower!)

Mike Oldfield has such a distinctive style of guitar playing that I can now tell if it is him or not just by listening. The reason is that he uses his fingers sideways, not parallel, to the guitar arm. It is quite unique and no-one else does it.

And all this thanks to my Father, Yoshi.

Thank You Dad!

Now When I'm Smiling I Know Why.......

Perfect Day, Perfect Night,

Perfect Song, Mr. Right...?

A H S S A !

It just does not get any better than this!

This song is still very popular in Korea. The guys who sing it are almost National Heroes. Everyone knows the Turtles!. The song impresses me simply because they ALL seem to be able to sing. My upbringing is such that I am not English anymore. I am more Korean than anything else - even Japanese.

In this wonderful happy song, there is "Hana - Dul - Se - Ne" which means 1-2-3-4, and "Ahssa!" (Yahoo!) One of my students was named Hannah and I made fun of her because it sounds like "1"!!

Suffice it to say, this video just about sums it all up for me right now. The translation is clear to see, if translation is needed!

There IS more to life than McFly or Leona Lewis!

I feel so ALIVE - - - SO - - - Don't Stop Me Now!

I am having such a good time right now. Physics, travel, job, travel, Physics, travel, job, Ben, travel, Physics, Ben, friends, and of course Sex on the Beach!



Supersonic Man outta you! Miss FaranHEIGHT (FaranHITE) Travelling at the speed of Light!!! Yeah! (Lady Godiva???)


(Lots of lens flares at the end! Does my noticing physics things like this detract from my enjoyment? NO WAY! It merely ENHANCES it!) Thanks Freddie!

Anger Management.....

WARNING!!! SUBJECTIVE POST!

......by Francois Frederyck Chopin.

This is one of my favorite pieces of all time, the etude (study), Opus 10 number 12 in C-Minor. It has been played by Igo Pogorelich (unique interpretation), Rudolph Kerer, Vladimir Ahskenazy, the Grandaddy of them all (RIP) Artur Rubinstein, and the closest I have ever heard to THIS interpretion, Tamas Vasary, but there's Good, Damn Good, and then there's Aya Nagatomi. She has a touch I have not heard since Vasary, even on this, one of the most difficult piano pieces of all to play.

It is not a long piece, but was reputedly written by Chopin (1810 - 1839), a Pole, after he learned that his Beloved Warsaw had fallen to the Russians in 1831. The anger is clear to hear, but this has never been more beautifully played here. Nagatomi uses the "piano-forte" feature of the grand piano (soft-loud) quite effectively, and has fine use of the pedal at the end. The accoustics of both piano and room are superb.

What fascinates me about the piano is that there is so much physics in it, for such a simply arranged instrument.

I post this in protest at a video posted to me on the Chess website, by someone who shall remain nameless, who obviously is not into this more "cultured" stuff.



Next post, my eclectic taste in music continues with an Iron Maiden classic.....

What has four or six or even twelve strings, but no frets?

OR......"Music hath charms, etc" Part two

Once Again! As the brother of Manuel used to say,

That fancy music stuff where you play two notes at the same time is called “harmony”.

There is a simple and easy illustration of it using a chain (not thin necklace), with links about the same size and weight as a door-lock chain, but about 18 inches long.

What you do is hold it from the top and make your fingers go in a circle, to twirl it round slowly. It just goes in a loop, or rather, rotates in one.

Not very interesting. Something happens as you twirl it faster though, and it happens all of a sudden. As you twirl it faster, something quite unexpected happens – you get a kink in the rotating chain! A very marked “bulge” appears about 1/3 of the way down, and there is a point about 2/3 down, where the chain actually stays still!

If you are really quick with practice, you can go even faster and get TWO “bulges”.

So what is happening? The chain is simply playing a “note”, only there is no sound. The principle is exactly the same though.

When slow, this is the lowest note, faster and the note is “higher”, in fact three times the frequency. Fastest, the note is still “higher”, in fact, five times the frequency. We call these the “Base frequency”, “1st harmonic” and “2nd harmonic”.

The same chain is making different “notes”. This is what piano strings also do. How do we use this? We just play two different notes at the same time, but in the piano’s case, it is not the same piece of wire, they are different wires, linked exactly like the “notes” in the chain.

Then things got really clever. The musicians finally found a use for the “sustain” pedal. This is the pedal on the piano, if you remember, that keeps the music going even after your finger has left the key. In certain circumstances, the musician wants to play a SINGLE note, but with a richer sound than normal. They found they could do this by allowing a note to harmonise with itself.

The concept of octaves here returns with a vengeance! To get a note to harmonise with itself, you press keys at the same time that are exactly an octave apart !!

To get the full effect of this, you must also press on the sustain pedal with your foot when doing this - phew! – three things at once, four if you are also reading music.

There are two striking examples of this happening. The first is Chopin’s Prelude No 14 in D Flat Major, which is also called the “Raindrop” prelude, for its repeated single note (A-flat) played with only the ring finger. Chopin wanted to bring drama into the middle of the piece (in songs, this is often called the “bridge”, but in classical music, it is called the “trio”). So he did exactly the above. You can actually tell the exact point when he switches from the single A-flat to two A-flats an octave apart. What is even more amazing, is that just over halfway through, the A-flat played by the left hand, becomes A-flat played by the right, and a little later, reverts back to the left hand! (so THAT is the difference!)

A more familiar example is the Chariots of Fire theme by Vangelis. It starts off, the percussion kicks in, and the melody is played. Then the second part of the melody is played, with fingers on two notes one octave apart ( this is a little more difficult than playing a single note all the time, and then just bridging the octave).

…and all this just from a little physics. However, these two posts only touch the surface of just what can be done, if you simply know how……….


PS If you can read music you probably don't need this link to prelude No 15

After you download Sibelius scorcher (the link is on the bottom of the page in IE6) you will see the sheet music, and can play the prelude and watch the music at the same time.

For the curious, "pp" means "very soft", "ff" means "very loud", the straight lines like slim sideways "v"s mean louder or softer as you go on, and the funny squiggles and dotted lines below each double line of music are actually squiggles to tell you when to press the foot-pedal.

The point where the "one-note an octave apart" happens is quite clear. Notice the "ff" above this double effect. This is exactly what I meant about the "richness" needed. Try it!

Incidentally, if you think the music boring, it is. It is as played by a computer with no human touches at all. Try listening to Artur Rubenstein, Rudolph Kerer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, or my favorites, Tamas Vasary and Igo Pogorelich. They are all different, and quite stimulating.

What has three pedals, four feet and stops? (Part one)

"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast" or so the saying goes. Ok, so why is music so good to hear?

There's talk of such things like pitch, tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony, but none of these are ever thought about when listening. We just know it is good at the time. Truth is, we ARE using these concepts, but many people do not realise this.

A possible explantion may be put forward.

The simplest musical instrument possible can be found in the physics lab, and is called the "Sonometer". A very fancy name for what it is : One piece of metal wire stretched between two points. What you do is hit it. It goes either "bing" or " bong".

This, is music. Ok, so it is very simple, but the music we listen to consists of nothing but "bings" and "bongs", plus maybe a 'twing" or "twang", but the difference is that real music is the combination of these and their interaction. Actually, there are more than four, there are eight, and they are called an "octave".

But what exactly is a "bing"? The answer is a "bing' is that which you hear when you pull the wire up and let go. This is called "plucking" the wire.

So what is a "bong"? This answer is the same, but made with a longer sonometer or wire.

Both are called "notes". Thus, there are eight "notes" in an 'octave".

This is where the skill of the musician comes in. She combines each note or notes to make something good to hear.

To explain further, let's return to the sonometer. The earliest musicians thought "Why should I have a row of sonometers, when I can ask the local carpenter to put them all in a machine?" Well, he did, and it was called , figuratively speaking, the "harpsichord". What this did was it plucked a string of your choice when you pressed one of the "keys" - an array of mechanical objects arranged to finish on the front of the machine, looking rather like a straight set of white teeth. We now call this a "keyboard".

So now, you could get a "bing", "beng" ,"bong" and even a "bung" and all the other 4 notes. The reason why the keyboard had more then 1 octave was because the musician found that using more than 1 was better. Simply put, a higher octave has wires which are exactly half as short as the regular octave.The lower octave , of course, had wires exactly twice the length.

Then people found they could combine the notes in many different ways, and found that certain notes played in succession sounded much better than the same notes played at random. This was called a "melody". The simplest melody I can think of is the Kop at Liverpool FC singing "Walk On" ("bing-bang-bong") a melody of only three notes. Another simple melody but excellent to hear is "Crockett's Theme" by Jan Hammer - 14 notes coming together that sound REALLY GOOD.

But there are only so many good melodies to make, even with the whole keyboard and a gifted musician. One of the last masters of the Harpsichord was Bach, and probably took the concept of melody to its limits. (check out his "Well-Tempered Clavier")

Others found that combinations of notes played AT THE SAME TIME sounded better too. This was called "harmony".

It was also the case that musicians were getting tired of the same note always having the same amplitude. That is, play a key, and no matter what you did, the sound was always just as loud.

This led to the invention of the "piano forte" or 'piano" . This allowed the wire not to be plucked, but "hit" by a hammer, and, the softer or louder the hammer blow, the softer or louder the note became. This allowed a key to be depressed softly, "Biiiiingggg" or forcefully"BINGGGG". "Piano" is Italian for "soft" and "Forte" is italian for "loud".

Once the piano was born, a new generation of musicians came along to play it, notably, Rachmaniov, Beethoven and Chopin. More or less like new movements of music today eg, Punk taking over from Country Music, etc.

These piano musicians became masters of the "soft-loud".

It was actually said that Chopin composed his Etude in C-Minor because he was angry upon hearing his beloved Warsaw had fallen to the Russians in 1831, and it shows. He used the LOUD option with vehemence. However, he was also master of the "soft' option, for example, take Prelude N04 in E-Minor, and he uses both options in the Prelude No14 in D-Flat-major.

It must be remembered that the analyses presented use the piano as example , being easier, but the arguments, are, in fact, general.

But the piano had more scope than this. It has another feature, called "sustain". This is because when you release a key, the note stops ringing. But sometimes this is unwanted, and this is where the right hand pedal (sustain pedal) comes in. If this pedal is kicked down and held there as you press the key, the sound is as if you still have your finger there!

The left hand pedal does the opposite, and deadens the note as soon as both a pressed.

BUT, what happens when you want a richer sound? You gotta use physics! It's best explained with the sonometer. Think of what happens with two sonometers side by side, one double the length of the other, and you pluck both wires. You get a "bing AND a "bong", but they seem related - are they? Yes, they are. As one is double the length, that is, gives a lower sound. Everybody has twanged a ruler in school at some point - the more ruler to "twang' , the lower the sound is. The sonometer just measures how much lower. Here's an idea - try plucking the longer wire twice as high and let go, you get another 'bing" but louder, and....different..?

Hmmm.

What is happening now is NOT as simple. But easy now you know the above.....

Take On Me.........?

This astonishing video appeared in 1985 in England from Norwegian (Yes, you did read it right !) band A-Ha. It was a top 5 in the UK charts. Astonishing because there are no computers involved.

Nothing had ever been done like this before, and it was WAY before videos became 'Statements, Harrumph', and before any directors were complacent about the facilities at their disposal.

I ask that you play it for the sheer genius it was. It actually has a story.

It a feast for the eyes. A wonder to behold.


This is ...... a.....