Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts

Saturday, July 28, 2018

3 Chords & the Truth: Musical truth


Like any product of the 1960s and '70s, I admit my fondness for the Top-40 radio of that now long-ago era. Whenever I hear a recording of that, from then, something comes over me.

Nostalgia, wistfulness, longing . . . whatever you want to call it. It's like an emotional wave crashing upon the graying sands of a middle-aged shore.

But Top-40 by definition is musical popularity, which is something quite different from musical truth. There can be truth in there somewhere . . . but my musical truth and yours isn't subject to the Billboard charts or a survey of local retailers.

Musical truth comes from the soul -- from what speaks to you and moves you, deeply and immediately. That is what 3 Chords & the Truth  is all about.

FOR ME, that's what this week's show is about, what last week's show was about and what every episode of the Big Show will be about. It's kind of like walking a tightrope without a safety net. You know the songs you play, and how you string them together, speaks to you. But will it speak to anyone else?

Good question, no pat answer.

It's an art, not a science. Science has its purpose, but this isn't one of them. Every week, I'm hoping for the best and fearing the deafening silence of the worst.

And I'm hoping for that kernel of musical truth for me and for you.

That's all anyone can do when it comes to the God's honest musical truth.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.


Friday, November 11, 2016

3 Chords & the Truth: Requiem aeternam Americae


Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.


Kyrie eleison. 
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulcra regionum
Coget omnes ante thronum.


MORS slopebit et natora
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit
Quidquid latet apparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quem patronum togaturus,
Cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salve me, fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuae viae,
Ne me perdas ilia die.

Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti crucem passus,
Tamus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis
Donum fac remissionis
Ante diem rationis.

lngemisco tamquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus,
Supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti
Et latronem exaudisti,
Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sum dignae,
Sed tu bonus fac benigne,
Ne perenni cremet igne.

Inter oves locurn praesta,
Et ab haedis me sequestra,
Statuens in parle dextra.

Confutatis maledictis
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
Cor contritum quasi cinis,
Gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies ilia
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus,
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona els requiem.



Saturday, March 14, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Best if played by . . .


. . . big speakers.

Really big speakers.

For that matter, if you're an audiophile, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth might be a hell of a way to test out that new setup you've been bragging to people about. Play it loud. Play it proud.

And if someone calls the cops, my work here is done.

Actually, that's not true. My work here is done if your neighbors come rushing over to ask you about that wonderful music you're listening to . . . loud.


I GUARANTEE there's one part of the show that will give your goosebumps goosebumps. You'll be amazed at what you're hearing, and at the incredible -- and incredibly unlikely -- mix of music. Note well, however: It's only unlikely before you think about it a minute, or if you don't listen to the Big Show much.

For regulars, it makes perfect sense. That's freeform radio for you -- even if its on the Internet.

OK, I'm done teasing you for now with this foray into high-fidelity click bait. Click on the links to the show . . . or on one of the embedded players for the show . . . and you'll hear the Big Show, and all will be well with the world.

And your curiosity.

It really is amazing, though.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Saturday, March 07, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Rock on, Beethoven!


Rock on, Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.

Rock on, Beethoven! Rock on, Beethoven!

Rock on Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.

The news is that this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, classical music isn't just for the stuck up, the snooty and the hopelessly square. I mean . . . in case you haven't noticed, some of your favorite rock bands have deep classical roots.

Likewise, some of your favorite rock icons have composed some nice classical pieces. We're talking about you, Sir Paul.

So who says you can't play classical music along with everything else in our little musical stew? Not me, because here we go . . . an entire set about how the classics can dig those rhythm and blues.

IN OTHER WORDS, rock on, Beethoven! Rock on Beethoven!

Rock on, Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.

You know, that's a lot to chew on for one episode of the Big Show. But here's the thing: That's only about a third of this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

And here's the other thing: If you want to find out what the other excellent two-thirds of the program is . . . you need to click somewhere to stream or download the Big Show, because I ain't spilling the beans on nothing else.

So there.

That is all.

For now.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Monday, December 09, 2013

Sequester, bane of man's inspiring


You can look at this video of a glorious flash mob by the The United States Air Force Band a couple of ways.

First, the pop-up Christmas concert at the National Air and Space Museum was a glorious thing -- an unexpected musical encounter with beauty and joy. If this version of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" doesn't move your heart, you may not have one.

Second, The USAF Band has been reduced to staging flash mobs. Thank your local member of Congress for that. It's too bad ol' Johann Sebastian never wrote a little something called the "Sequester Blues."

Ironically, it's those same trolls who befoul the U.S. Capitol who are most likely to see a performance of this scale by a military band. In the federal universe, Washington, D.C., is the center of gravity -- or, if you like, the black hole that sucks everything toward itself.

Still, even in Washington, a military orchestra has to resort to a flash mob. The sequester forbids the armed services from spending any of its own money on promotional or "community-outreach" events. This means that if you're a fan of service bands, you're seriously out of luck out here in the provinces.

http://odc.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=5002&p=4131
Last year's Heartland of America Band concert
IN OMAHA, the annual holiday concert by the Air Force's Heartland of America Band, based at Offutt Air Force Base here, used to be a glorious thing. For us and our friends, it was a Christmas tradition. In recent years, budget cuts shrank . . . and shrank . . . and shrank the band. This year, the sequester killed the Christmas concert.
A 26-year tradition of downtown Omaha holiday concerts by the Air Force's Heartland of America Band will end this year, a victim of federal budget cuts.

The Omaha World-Herald had sponsored the popular series each year since 1987, giving away free tickets to readers who sent in coupons clipped from the newspaper.

But the rules of the budget sequestration forbid the service branches from spending any money on promotional or community outreach events. It's the same rule that has grounded the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds precision-flight teams and canceled a summer air show at Offutt Air Force Base.

“We're sad that this tradition is coming to an end. I think the Heartland of America Band is sad, too,” said Joel Long, The World-Herald's communications director. “But with the current state of the sequester and financial constraints, there was no other choice.”

In place of the downtown concerts — held since 2005 at the Holland Performing Arts Center — a much smaller band will play a series of community holiday concerts at local high schools, said Doug Roe, the band's director of operations. Suburban Newspapers Inc., a World-Herald subsidiary, will underwrite concerts Dec. 14 in Bellevue, Dec. 15 in Gretna, and Dec. 20 and 21 in Papillion. The Opinion-Tribune newspaper will sponsor a concert Dec. 8 in Glenwood, Iowa.

“These high school auditoriums aren't the Holland Performing Arts Center,” Roe said. “But through the medium of music, we're still going to entertain.”

Military bands in America date back to the colonial era, a time when commanders sometimes used music to guide troops in battle. Bands always have played at funerals, promotions, command changes and military balls.

In the modern era, their public concerts also are a public relations tool — and for many civilians, their only direct contact with the armed forces.

“For that hour and a half we're on stage, we ARE the Air Force, we ARE the military,” Roe said.

But budget cuts have battered military bands generally in recent years, and the Heartland of America Band in particular.

In 2011, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., persuaded her House colleagues to slash the Pentagon's music budget from $388 million to $200 million a year.

“Spending $388 million of the taxpayers' money on military music does not make our nation more secure,” McCollum said in a message posted last year on her House website. “It is excessive and a luxury the Pentagon can no longer afford.”

That prompted the Air Force to cut 103 band positions across the service, eliminating two of the 12 active-duty bands and sharply cutting two others, including the Heartland of America Band.

As recently as 2007, the Heartland Band featured 60 airmen. That was cut to 45 in an earlier round of budget cuts, and then to 16 in June. The eight-state region it used to cover — stretching from Montana to Iowa, and North Dakota to Kansas — was cut to a single state, Nebraska, plus a few nearby counties in Iowa.
WE INHABIT a nation whose leaders have plenty of money for financing foreign fights and entangling the American people in pointless wars of choice. We endure a government that can find a billion or three -- or 500 -- for Wall Street interests, yet the Heartland of America Band can't even field a decent flash mob anymore.

But because "government spends too much," we haven't a red cent for music. For joy. Or for lots of other things that build America and Americans up, as opposed to tearing some other country down.

I would imagine Bach -- not to mention Jesu, of joy of man's desiring fame -- might take a dim view of that, and of the barbarians we have become.