Suzanne Ciani

[Dennis Hardin]

I have loved this piece by Suzanne Ciani for a long time. It always makes me think of Richard Halley, although he would not have characterized it as being about love. For me, it speaks of struggle and striving and ultimate triumph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8bB1kud4E&NR=1&feature=fvwp

[Rich Engle]

I have loved this piece by Suzanne Ciani for a long time. It always makes me think of Richard Halley, although he would not have characterized it as being about love. For me, it speaks of struggle and striving and ultimate triumph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8bB1kud4E&NR=1&feature=fvwp

I don't know, man. If I wanted to pass out again, I'd have more turkey, and that is going to happen anyway (at least for another day or so).

Bad MIDI, bad . . .nasty! Just chugging along with string washes. Eew.

Between that and the totally nasty Moviemaker-meets-Wax video, it reminds me of sometime in the seventies when someone talked me into taking a fake 'Lude.

Maybe you have lost touch with what is actually out there right now.

I've seen John Tesh do better things. Go clean up and listen to Yanni: Live at the Acropolis, if you need that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, onto the ritual healing. There are only certain things that can be done here, if I want to get my dick back, so I'll try to go easy on my shrunken-self, after that debacle:

rde

Jesus, I gotta have a beer and go bang my wife.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Dennis Hardin]

I don't know, man. If I wanted to pass out again, I'd have more turkey, and that is going to happen anyway (at least for another day or so).

Bad MIDI, bad . . .nasty! Just chugging along with string washes. Eew.

Between that and the totally nasty Moviemaker-meets-Wax video, it reminds me of sometime in the seventies when someone talked me into taking a fake 'Lude.

rde

I completely expected such a reaction from you. If you had liked it, I would have found that truly disturbing.

[Rich Engle]

I don't know, man. If I wanted to pass out again, I'd have more turkey, and that is going to happen anyway (at least for another day or so).

Bad MIDI, bad . . .nasty! Just chugging along with string washes. Eew.

Between that and the totally nasty Moviemaker-meets-Wax video, it reminds me of sometime in the seventies when someone talked me into taking a fake 'Lude.

rde

I completely expected such a reaction from you. If you had liked it, I would have found that truly disturbing.

It's just produced like crap, Dennis. Do you even go out and see what's out there to go against? I mean, that is just mediocre. If you like the tune, find something better. Here, get sexed-up, you'll thank me some day--it's just a video of Tori Amos playing prepared piano in the nineties, but it's the only one I could find. I was thinking about John Cage so of course it ran to this and then Tori. And this is just a live video. Of course, there are also O-people that blacklist Cage, her, and well, anyone . . . ? But you are not one of those people, no? You are a psychologist. One who seems to be attempting to mirror Branden's career, but a good shrink, nonetheless. ;)

Try another example. That was cheese.

Respectfully,

rde

Dr. of Divinity Studies Laureate,

SW Florida Region

[BaalChatzaf]

I have loved this piece by Suzanne Ciani for a long time. It always makes me think of Richard Halley, although he would not have characterized it as being about love. For me, it speaks of struggle and striving and ultimate triumph..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8bB1kud4E&NR=1&feature=fvwp

More about longing than struggle, I should think. The rhythm and frequency range is not quite right for struggle. I would have listened for something more percussive.

Don't mind me too much. I am currently recording -Audio in Media- by Stanley Alten and I have added to my mental database a great deal of data on how music relates to feeling.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

That was lovely.

Just the wistful mood I needed to get me going in the right direction this morning.

Don't mind Rich. He's on a wavelength where that kind of music sounds syrupy and artificial, but he's on a good wavelength. (I enjoyed his selections, too.) Anyway, I have yet to meet a guitar player who likes Yanni.

Speaking of Yanni, the Suzanne Ciani piece sounds like his early music. I happen to like that stuff, much to the chagrin of many people who have known me.

In my musician days, when I was running a recording session in São Paulo and we were doing some hot jazz, someone mentioned Yanni. Our keyboard man was young and full of fingers and gumption. I liked him and he really looked up to me. (When he got rolling, he was dynamite. I can't remember his name right now, but I can see him as if it were yesterday.) Here is the conversation we had--translated of course and filtered through memory.

KEYBOARD MAN: Did I hear someone say Yanni?

(chortle, chortle, snicker, snicker)

Gawd! Who can listen to that crap? I mean, like, 40 minutes of C major!

ME (staring him down for bit, then speaking softly): I have a complicated mind. It gets me in trouble all the time. Sometimes I need 40 minutes of C major.

KEYBOARD MAN: Oh.

We had a great rest of the recording session.

I'm a sucker for this stuff, Dennis. And not ashamed.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Lovely piece, Dennis. Some of Ciani's music is a little too New Age -- or "Nuage," as Penn Gillette calls it -- for my taste, but I like this piece. I hope you don't find my agreement with you too disturbing.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

Wow! That was quite beautiful!!

It had a simple innocent serenity and joy to it. I'm going to go to amazon and see if I can buy an MP3 of it.

The best thing one can share with others is positive values, things which inspire or uplift or give heart.

"Show me your mountaintops and sunlit valleys, my brothers. Not your maimed. Not your sewers."

[BaalChatzaf]

Wow! That was quite beautiful!!

It had a simple innocent serenity and joy to it. I'm going to go to amazon and see if I can buy an MP3 of it.

The best thing one can share with others is positive values, things which inspire or uplift or give heart.

"Show me your mountaintops and sunlit valleys, my brothers. Not your maimed. Not your sewers."

Really? Then how shall we cure the maimed and fix the broken sewers?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Rich Engle]

I actually very much like her music. I just don't like seeing that done to it. I got turned on to her stuff a good while ago. But comparing to the fictional Halley (who was what, writing things like "The Firebird," or who knows. . .I guess we never will... that last attempt, what was that...Celestial Symphony or ? was not it)? It's just not at that proposed level. But meanwhile we have this, too...

HOWEVER! I will say you know what? If you are touched by music, in a good way, then it is a good thing. You know what would be fun for you maybe is to take that track and do a cool slide show of it. I don't know if you are a musician (too) or not, but it doesn't matter--that's a very neat exercise because it lets you pin together all these things you think are related, that you find, er, lovely, or even sacred.

Believe it or not there is actually very little music that is truly "bad." American Idol auditions are a bit much for me--those can disturb your mental setup for music.

Shoot, you know what I'm doing right now? My two giant choir showpieces? "Colors of the Wind," (Pocahontas) and "Seasons of Love" (Rent) Those are both beautiful ballads. And giant war-horses. It's pretty amazing to work with beginners, interspersed with a few professionals. Our music director spent a number of years with the Robert Shaw Chorale, so that helps.

rde

Edited November 28, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Dennis Hardin]

More about longing than struggle, I should think. The rhythm and frequency range is not quite right for struggle. I would have listened for something more percussive.

Don't mind me too much. I am currently recording -Audio in Media- by Stanley Alten and I have added to my mental database a great deal of data on how music relates to feeling.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

Thanks for your comments, but I do find your wording a bit odd. “More about longing than struggle, I should think. The rhythm and frequency range is not quite right for struggle…”

You “think” it’s more about longing?? I get a strong sense of struggle and striving, and all I can do is report what I feel. I doubt we are a point where the scientific study of music can say what people feel when listening to it. We have a rule-of-thumb in psychotherapy: you can question whether a given emotion is approprate, but never attempt to tell people what they feel.

[Dennis Hardin]

Dennis,

That was lovely.

Just the wistful mood I needed to get me going in the right direction this morning.

Don't mind Rich. He's on a wavelength where that kind of music sounds syrupy and artificial, but he's on a good wavelength. (I enjoyed his selections, too.) Anyway, I have yet to meet a guitar player who likes Yanni.

Speaking of Yanni, the Suzanne Ciani piece sounds like his early music. I happen to like that stuff, much to the chagrin of many people who have known me.

In my musician days, when I was running a recording session in São Paulo and we were doing some hot jazz, someone mentioned Yanni. Our keyboard man was young and full of fingers and gumption. I liked him and he really looked up to me. (When he got rolling, he was dynamite. I can't remember his name right now, but I can see him as if it were yesterday.) Here is the conversation we had--translated of course and filtered through memory.

KEYBOARD MAN: Did I hear someone say Yanni?

(chortle, chortle, snicker, snicker)

Gawd! Who can listen to that crap? I mean, like, 40 minutes of C major!

ME (staring him down for bit, then speaking softly): I have a complicated mind. It gets me in trouble all the time. Sometimes I need 40 minutes of C major.

KEYBOARD MAN: Oh.

We had a great rest of the recording session.

I'm a sucker for this stuff, Dennis. And not ashamed.

Michael

Michael,

I’m glad you liked the piece. I like some of Yanni’s music, but much of it is a little too gaudy for me. I cannot imagine ever feeling shame about saying I love a piece of music. It would be like apologizing for being born.

As for Rich, I follow a strict rule on webforums. If you kick me in the teeth with one of your posts, don’t hold your breath waiting for me to read anything else you have to say for a while. I am not a masochist.

[Dennis Hardin]

Lovely piece, Dennis. Some of Ciani's music is a little too New Age -- or "Nuage," as Penn Gillette calls it -- for my taste, but I like this piece. I hope you don't find my agreement with you too disturbing.

Ghs

George,

I’m delighted you enjoyed it, and thanks for saying so. And I agree with you about some of Ciani’s stuff being too “New Age.” A little electronic gimmickry goes a long way with me. She got the formula just right with “Velocity.”

[Dennis Hardin]

Wow! That was quite beautiful!!

It had a simple innocent serenity and joy to it. I'm going to go to amazon and see if I can buy an MP3 of it.

The best thing one can share with others is positive values, things which inspire or uplift or give heart.

"Show me your mountaintops and sunlit valleys, my brothers. Not your maimed. Not your sewers."

Phil,

Thanks, man. A really great post. Much appreciated, I assure you. (You can definitely buy it on iTunes, BTW.)

[anonrobt]

We have a rule-of-thumb in psychotherapy: you can question whether a given emotion is approprate, but never attempt to tell people what they feel.

Very very true...

[BaalChatzaf]

You "think" it's more about longing?? I get a strong sense of struggle and striving, and all I can do is report what I feel. I doubt we are a point where the scientific study of music can say what people feel when listening to it. We have a rule-of-thumb in psychotherapy: you can question whether a given emotion is approprate, but never attempt to tell people what they feel.

I wouldn't think of doing so. I have very little intuitive notion about what other people are feeling and I have less of grasp on what I "ought" to feel. Being an Aspie, I am mind-blind or nearly so and I have to rely on empirical means of making sense of the external manifestation of other people's feelings. I do not read face and body language fluently. Again, I had to learn empirically and did not grew up with the intuitive, almost instinctive grasp of body and face language that four year old "normal" children manifest. My grasp of feelings is like my grasp of art - painting by the numbers, so to speak. Also I don't do intentions very well. I have little idea of what other people intend other than what they say they intend which might be true or false or mistaken. For defensive reasons, therefore, I put very little weight on the declared intentions of others. I can tell you what someone else did, but I can't say too well what they intended. I am the "fair witness" of Robert Heinlein's -Stranger in a Strange Land-.

I find the idea of "telling" (i.e. commanding) what other people ought to feel rather repulsive.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

> Thanks, man. A really great post. Much appreciated, I assure you. (You can definitely buy it on iTunes, BTW.)

Dennis, what I did was go to Amazon and buy it there. Then I searched for all her music on Amazon and listened to 30 seconds for each song. Like George, I found a lot of her music too new-agey for me.

But having really liked one song, I thought there would have to be more.

And there were. I also liked and downloaded to iTunes: "Turning" and "Midnight Rendezvous". So your suggestion gave me not one, but three pieces of music to like!

Edited November 29, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Rich Engle]

Michael:

If guitarists don't figure out Yanni, then I guess that is their problem. I don't care for everything he does, but he is a good composer; I just happen to be a composer that plays guitar. Anyway, this ought to provide a reasonable example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYW63J648i0

Oh you can pick at it, as seems the nature of our people. But, a lovely approach to maybe "habanera" rhythms and Phrygian Minor scale stuff, amongst other very nice playing.

rde

Edited November 29, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Selene]

Michael:

If guitarists don't figure out Yanni, then I guess that is their problem. I don't care for everything he does, but he is a good composer; I just happen to be a composer that plays guitar. Anyway, this ought to provide a reasonable example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYW63J648i0

Oh you can pick at it, as seems the nature of our people. But, a lovely approach to maybe "habanera" rhythms and Phrygian Minor scale stuff, amongst other very nice playing.

rde

Yes, great composer. I love Yanni's music. The dueling violins in your selection is spectacular. Live at the Acropolis is supposedly the second best selling music video of all time.

He has been rather quiet for the last few years. I have not gotten his 2010 release which is Mexican in atmosphere.

Thanks Rich

Adam