Music Wise

1. Stuff done this week Yeah! I'm proud to say that my band's debut album is now available from Spotify. It is rather an oldie (2 years old?) and I'm sort of embarrassed by the quality... but heck: I'm still proud! Please, feel free to check it out on  Crimson Inc on Spotify.  (Or rather: feel free to buy it, to sponsor my further musical education ;-). Further started mess around with the music notation software Sibelius to transcribe an Irish Traditional: The Galway Hornpipe. I used an audio file of this tune being played by my mandolin teacher. I believe it is pretty accurate. Haven't figured out how to add grace notes yet.  The Galway Hornpipe transcribed by Nils Bruijel 2. Listening done this week I attempted a listening assigment. From the list of music pieces below I attempted to try to identify whether they were written in duple, triple or quadruple time. Tritsch Tratsch Polka (Johann Strauss) I found this rendition of Strauss

1. Stuff done this week This week was rather busy with work, performances, chores and parenting. I feel a bit exhausted and desperate. I'm giving myself a hard time. I requested my HR department to calculate how much it would take me back if I reduced the amount of hours I am working. I feel I finally found in music something that has my passion. I am kind of worried though that this is perhaps not a wise thing to persue. I did not go to band practice thursday; used my time to squeeze in a work-out. Need that to ease up a little. Read and re-read some more music theory from  Nickol's Learning to Read Music . Need to memorize the key signatures; that will be helpfulin my music practice. Further explored scales up the neck on mandolin; it is a tedious exercise, but I am beginning to get rather proficient at finger shifting. I play the octaves on the E, A, D and G string without the shift being noticeable. Further getting three octaves smoothly across the strings fo

1. Stuff done this week: - Further practicing the Irish reel "The Star of Munster". My sight reading is still slow and I feel tempted to study by ear again. - Notes on the Portative organ. - Finished writing a song called "Lay me down" for my band Crimson Inc.. - Thinking about a music timeline. I like this example . - Performed with Crimson Inc. at the Backroads Roots Festival in Utrecht last sunday. Here some footage: 2. Listening done this week: 2.1  Chant in honour of anglo saxon saints It is a series of religious chants praising Saints like Gregory the Great; Augustine of Canterbury; Kyneburga; Cuthbert of Lindisfarne; Edmund, King of East Anglia; Dunstan of Glastonbury; Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester;Wulfstan of Worchester. The chants are sung unaccompanied by any musical instrument; it is the pure sound of consonant voices. One sometimes hears a male tenor or baritone voice chanting a single line, followed by a chorus of voices singi

1. Stuff done this week: - Read more from Burkholder et al (2014) about Medieval Music history. - Mandolin lessons have focussed on arpeggio's. Studied arpeggio's over G, C, D, F chord progressions. - Wrote a Sixteen bar blues for mandolin called the " Hang Man's Swing" , a quaint folky murder ballad . It is a sixteen measure blues. - Listened to a selection of Medieval instruments (Lejeune, 2009). - Started practicing a tune on mandolin called "The Star of Munster", in A-Dorian mode. Having read up on Medieval Music I start to understand more about modal music. The Dorian scale has a rather minor quality to it. - Watched a fascinating documentary about the life of Bob Marley. Here is a  Trailer . 2. Listening done this week: - Hildegard von Bingen - Listening on repeat to  Hildegard Von Bingen - Ave Maria, O Auctrix Vite ... Jeees, just easily the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Ave Maria, O Auctrix Vite The poe