Music odds and ends

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

The Bacon Cipher is listed among the top ten unbreakable ciphers known to man;

 

"The Voynich Manuscript is a small, illustrated composition written in cipher. Rediscovered in a Jesuit school in 1912, the contents were renamed "The Bacon Cipher" because history traces the origins of it's contents back to an Englishman by the name of Roger Bacon. Some historians discredit Bacon's involvement due to the inclusion of various alphabets not used during his time. Conversely, it's illustrations support claims of Bacon's contribution. He was well known for his interest in composing an elixir for life among other mystical teachings. Similar topics were mentioned within the Voynich Manuscript. Was Bacon privy to the realm of the unknown? We'll leave that up to someone else to debate, but one thing that goes undisputed is we don't know what the heck it means. Many attempts at breaking the code have been made. Many claimed it was rearranged Greek shorthand while others believed the key lies in the illustrations. Every theory proved to be ineffective. Those who still attest the cipher to Bacon are amazed at the information he had access to, things that weren't discovered by the masses until years after his death."

 

- Mike Brown (toptenz.net)

 

AVC writes: UFO reports often cite cryptic symbols on saucer surfaces and edges. None deciphered yet to my knowledge.

 

The HU, "Yuve Yuve Yu" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

The studio system

 

"In order to understand the role played by both music and it's composers in Hollywood cinema from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s - it's so-called 'Golden Age' - it is necessary to situate them in the context of a filmic production line driven above all by commercial interests, and in which the financial investors had an absolute power of veto over the work of the creative artists in their employ. One of the most egregious outcomes of this scenario, the ability of producers to reject and replace completed film scores on a whim, is still very much in evidence today. And the mythology of Hollywood is replete with tales of musical ignorance on the part of producers, witty enough to recount but enormously frustrating and dispiriting for those who have to deal with them in a pressurized working environment. Many have passed into the realms of legend: Hugo Friedhofer's having been told to use French horns for a film set in France; a producer requesting a solo flute play full chords; another proposing to fly Brahms out to Hollywood; yet another demanding music for clarinet and then, when duly given it, complaining that the composer had made a mistake - only to discover that by 'clarinet' he had really meant 'oboe'; and David Raksin's delight when asked to write a score in the atonal idiom of Berg's 'Wozzeck' having been somewhat dented by the producer in question later dismissing the opera as 'crap' when hearing it unannounced on a gramophone recording."

 

- Mervyn Cooke (A History Of Film Music)..pages 69 - 70.

 

Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Popular music in cinema;

 

"A large percentage of producers today are so unaware of their pictures they're looking for a musical gimmick to lure the public. Like the hit title tune, a harmonica surrounded by a choral group, the twanging sound of an electric zither, or the wail of a kazoo in an espresso café. Stuff like that. It only takes away from what's happening on the screen. (Bernard Herrmann, quoted in Hollywood Reporter 14 July 1964)

 

"I am particularly concerned with the need to break away from the old-fashioned cued-in type of music that we have been using for so long...unfortunately for we artists, we do not have the freedom that we would like to have, because we are catering to an audience...this audience is very different from the one to which we used to cater; it is young, vigorous and demanding...this is why I am asking you to approach this problem with a receptive and if possible enthusiatic mind. (Alfred Hitchcock, cable to Bernard Herrmann, 4 November 1965; quoted in S. Smith 1991, 268-9)""

 

- Mervyn Cooke (A History Of Film Music)..page 396

 

Victor Tsoi, "A Pack Of Cigarettes" ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Stanley Kubrick;

 

"The front-rank director who engaged most thoroughly and influentially with classical music was Kubrick, who in his youth had been deeply impressed by Prokofiev's score to Alexander Nevsky. Early in his career Kubrick directed a number of films with music by Gerald Fried, from his first foray into documentary making to the feature film that brought him international recognition (Paths of Glory, 1957)."

 

- Mervyn Cooke (A History Of Film Music)..page 440

 

As this next clip shows clearly, Kubrick was a master at selecting the exact musical composition to precondition the audience mind and mood for the type of dramatization about to unfold. 

 

The Shining, "Opening Credits and Breathtaking Musical Score by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind" - story by Stephen King ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

New technology;

 

"Towards the end of the silent era, various devices had been introduced to aid musicians in their attempts to synchronize their performances with the action on screen. In Berlin, for example, Carl Robert Blum invented a rhythmonome, which he exhibited in 1926. This recorded sound in the form of a rhythmogram, which charted the exact rhythmic course of the music in a diagrammatic form that was played back in accurate synchronization with the image projector so the conductor could match the tempo to the moving diagram; the device found an application in live theater, being used for the first production of Ernst Křenek's opera Jonny spielt auf in 1927."

 

- Mervyn Cooke (A History Of Film Music)..page 47

 

A medical ECG is a rhythmogram. Mapped out rhythm.

 

 

Aviators, "Bleeding Sun" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

State of the art: film music since the new Hollywood;

 

"After the crisis in the Hollywood film industry attendant upon the 1948 rulings by which the studios lost their monopoliesof distribution outlets, and fuelled by stiff competition presented by the enormous boom in television viewing in the 1950s, film-makers had attempted to lure spectators back into theatres with widescreen spectacles. Escalating budgets and poor revenue conspired to make many of these high-profile projects commercial failures, however, and the ailing studios came to realize that making feature films, documentariesand cartoons specifically for televisual broadcast - as well as generating income by selling existing films to television networks - was a more viable way of ensuring a 'stabilized economics of distribution' for it's products."

 

- Mervyn Cooke (A History Of Film Music)..page 454

 

Seve The Ballroom Maestro, "DET-style (urban-style) Ballroom Dancing" ;

 

 

Learn Detroit Style Ballroom Dancing ;

 

 

Stevie Wonder, "Isn't She Lovely" ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Early Indian cinema;

 

"A few India films survive from the silent era, and in these mythogical subjects predominate. Nasreen Munni Kabir relates how both these and imported films were exhibited with live music:

 

[English language films shown in India's big cities had a violinist and pianist providing the music...usually musicians from Goa - a Portugese colony at the time - who had studied music and could sight-read. The harmonium and the tabla (hand drums) were the main instruments played with Indian silent films...Bhaskar Chandavarkar notes that 'the harmonium and tabla playerswere not only the first music directors, but also dialogue writers and dubbers, as they were expected to stamp their feet, shout and trigger excitement during the action scene, crying "Maro" (hit him), "Chup, saale" (shut up you bastard), or "Khamosh" (silence), while the villain got what was coming to him.] 

 

Kabir 2001, 114. "

 

- Mervin Cooke (A History Of Fim Music)..page 354-5

 

Adriano Castagnoli, "West Party Line Dance" ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Cream, British rock trio formed in 1966, encouraged by producer/manager Robert Stigwood: Eric Clapton, guitar; Jack Bruce, bass; Ginger Baker, drums. Played blues-based material, some trad. ('I'm So Glad', by Skip James) but much written by Bruce with lyrics by Pete Brown; they were loud and passionate, with extensive improvisation in concert, unusual at the time: the 'power trio' concept was a big infl. on heavy metal genre. Took USA by storm, selling 15 million records in three years of Fresh Cream, 1966, Disraeli Gears, 1967, Wheels Of Fire, 1968. Seven top ten singles in UK incl. 'I Feel Free'; thre in USA incl. 'Sunshine Of Your Love'. The trio format was often augmented in studio but was soon exhausted; they became restless and broke up in 1969. Clapton must have known that their self-indulgence was the anti-thesis of the blues, but we forget that Clapton was not the center of the group: Baker formed it and Bruce was it's voice; especially on the US tours they fought each other rather than backing Clapton. There was a farewell tour of USA, two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London; one filmed as Goodbye Cream. Last LP Goodbye, 1969 incl. 'Badge', co-written by Clapton and George Harrison. Bruce has made a dozen albums mostly on Polydor or Epic; Bruce Baker Moore early 1994 was another attempt at Cream glory."

 

- The Penguin Encyclopedia Of Popular Music..page 314

 

Cream, "Strange Brew" ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Mervyn Cooke is Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. His books include studies of Britten's Billy Budd and War Requiem, Britten and the Far East, Jazz and The Chronicle of Jazz, and he has edited The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera, The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten and, with David Horn, The Cambridge Companion to Jazz. He is author of the article on film music in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, and is also active as a pianist and composer."

 

- Introduction, A History Of Film Music (562 pages)

 

Dave Canning and Mervyn Cooke (blue) ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences."

 

- Henry Ward Beecher

 

Dido, "Life For Rent" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect."

 

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

Angel Eyes (2001) a brief trailer...

 

 

From this brilliant film, a very enchanting melody;

 

Tamara Walker, "Angel Eyes" ;

 

 

Edited May 8 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong."

 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Steve Holy, "Good Morning Beautiful" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Faint hearts never win fair ladies."

 

- Danish Proverbs

 

Nicol Sponberg, "Here In My Heart" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely."

 

- The Land Before Time

 

LeAnn Rimes, "You Are" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Have thy heart in heaven and thy hands upon the earth. Ascend in piety and decend in charity. For this is the Nature of Light and the way of the children."

 

- Thomas Vaughan

 

Nick Lowe, "You Inspire Me" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"It's not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons."

 

- Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

 

Rare Blend, "Fly Away" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events."

 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Etta James, "Only Time Will Tell" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him."

 

- Jalal-uddin Rumi

 

Johnny Nash, "Love Ain't Nothin' ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"A heart in love with beauty never grows old."

 

- Turkish Proverbs

 

Shemekia Copeland, "It's 2 A.M." ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks about himself; a brilliant coversational is one who talks to you about yourself."

 

- Lisa Kirk 

 

Yul Brynner, "Two Guitars" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true."

 

- Oscar Wilde

 

Paris Texas, "Bombs Away" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true."

 

- Dorothy Parker

 

The Crystal Method, "Weapons Of Mass Distortions" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"The objection of the scandalmongers is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them."

 

- H. L. Mencken

 

Lex Lüger, "Virus" ;

 

 

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

'The Big Hit' (1998);

 

"Affable hit man Melvin Smiley (Mark Wahlberg) is constantly being scammed by his cutthroad collegues in the life-ending business. So, when he and his fellow assassins kidnap the daughter of an electronics mogul, it's naturally Melvin that takes the fall when their prime score turns sour."

 

- The Big Hit Film Synopsis

 

A trailer..

 

 

Mark Wahlberg, "Don't Sleep" ;

 

 

Edited May 9 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Walter John Kilner invented Dycenian dye. A film of purple Dycenian dye was layered into glass and the lenses mounted in goggles. The Dycenian layer offered the viewer a wider range of frequencies to observe. Kilner believed his glasses could distinguish between humans and fallen angels pretending to be human, based on their auras. Kilner reported that the people he observed had large numbers without auras. Some say Kilner's goggles were an inspiration for the movie, 'They Live'.

 

They Live movie trailer...

 

 

The WHO, "I Can See For Miles" ;

 

 

Edited May 10 by Avoiceinthecrowd