With news that scientists have succeeded in growing a mini brain in a Petri dish, Mary Shelley’s “creature” might well be on the way to being created in a lab.
Mary Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
For our purposes, she was also married to the man who wrote a rather soppy poem about the guitar to Jane Williams with whom he was infatuated when his marriage was on the rocks.He was particularly taken by her musical gifts and skill as a housewife. Gadzooks! What a piece of male chauvinist lumber!
He was even too cheap to buy her what she really wanted, which was a harp from his friend Horace Smith in Paris, and when this proved too expensive gave her a guitar made in Pisa by Ferdinando Bottari around 1815. ‘I have contrived to get my musical coals at Newcastle itself’, he told Smith.
Category Archives: Media
Sing a long a Koyunbaba
This happened to Christina Sandsengen during a recent recording session. Sounds to me the way it should be, no?
More Britten Nocturnal?
Congress Passes Bill Standardizing Airline Rules for Musical Instrument Storage
Congress Passes Bill Standardizing Airline Rules for Musical Instrument Storage | News | BMI.com.
At last, some progress – we can only hope that this becomes worldwide.
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Dark Sky – more
In case anyone is interested, Dark Sky, the Chinese piece on which I based my concerto first movement is a Taiwanese song about an old couple fighting about what to cook!
Here is a version which influenced my choice by Maestro Wenarto, an artist, crossfitter, singer, Youtube opera star and aeronautical/astronautical engineer – I hope you enjoy. It’s worth sitting through to the end.
Hans Gál – new recording
I have already written about Hans Gál, the Austrian Jewish composer who left Nazi occupation to live in Edinburgh and got an OBE. He died aged 97, but his music has not had the same longevity so conductor, cellist, author and guitarist Kenneth Woods has been resurrecting his symphonies in a series of CDs.
More NYGE 2013 Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No.5
Here’s another clip of NYGE at Easter in Rugby School performing Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No.5 (arr.Chris Susans) with Belinda Evans.
This will be on the programme on Saturday 17th August at the Menuhin Hall and on Sunday 18th at West Dean Open Day
Greater than the sum of its parts
I happen to think that the sound of a guitar orchestra is special, that it is a sound world of its own and there is a sound that no other instruments en masse can reproduce.
There are many who disagree with me, who, through experience of bad ensembles, think that guitar orchestra is synonymous with out of tune, imprecise, unmusical quasi-ensemble.
Hebridean Songs – more NYGE 2013
To remind ourselves of the coming concerts on
Saturday 17th August at Menuhin Hall (1.30pm) and
Sunday 18th at West Dean (1.45pm)
here is a clip of the National Youth Guitar Ensemble with Belinda Evans at Rugby School last Easter.
The pieces are four Hebridean Songs I arranged for soprano and guitar orchestra.
The Poised Guitarist
My first experience of mapping was failing to connect with a bar stool which wasn’t where I thought it was. Many of us have a misconception of how our joints connect and where an action starts from. The Alexander teacher Barbara Conable has done extensive research and written books on the subject of body mapping.
A while ago I wrote an article about focal dystonia and mentioned Jerald Harscher, a guitarist and teacher with whom I had an enlightening session on Skype (even though I was beginning to feel self conscious about the spelling of my name when talking to him.)
