Showing posts with label The Incredible String Band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Incredible String Band. Show all posts

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Video - Word Association of the Week



melisma [mi-liz-muh], noun. 
plural, melismata [-muh-tuh]
an ornamental phrase of several notes sung to one syllable of text, found everywhere from Indian classical music and Gregorian chant to the song of the Orthodox Jewish cantor and the Islamic muezzin, dirty blues, and American Idol-style crooning

Continuing Education:

"In Search of the Lost Melisma" and excellent video-essay on the origins of melismatic song by Jack Rusher, published on awesome epistemology blog Rhetorical Device. 

"How 'American Idol' Uses (And Abuses Melisma)", by Michael Katzif, NPR.






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Monday, April 20, 2009

Spirogyra, Bells, Boots and Shambles, 1973


Easily confused with the American smooth jazz nightmare by the same name (or almost: Spyro Gyra), Spirogyra were everything that their popular 1970’s alter egos were not: long-haired, musically conscientious, fiercely independent, and politically engaged. Perhaps musical celebrity is more than just a competition between analogous Google search terms, but information about the Canterbury acid folk outfit — like physical copies of their records, reissued or otherwise — is notoriously hard to track down. What we do know about the group is limited to a few vital stats: founded by singer and guitarist Martin Cockerham at the University of Kent in Southeast England and featuring a revolving cast of like-minded earthmuffins (vocalist Barbara Gaskin, bassist Steve Borrill, violinist Julian Cusack, and future Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks), Spirogyra produced three stunning records between 1971 and 1973, then vanished off the face of this space-time continuum.

Read the rest on Tiny Mix Tapes

Words: Emilie Friedlander, Spring 2009





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