Glyph

Glyph is worse than some and better than others. He believes that life is just one damned thing after another, that only pop music can save us now, and that mercy is the mark of a great man (but he's just all right). Nothing he writes here should be taken as an indication that he knows anything about anything.

Related Post Roulette

45 Responses

  1. zic says:

    Certainly this:

    Report

    • zic in reply to zic says:

      And how does one going about turning my link into an embed?Report

      • Glyph in reply to zic says:

        Like zo.

        (Lately, if you include the YT link as standalone rather than embedding it in your text, sometimes WordPress appears to treat that link the same as an embedded video. But not always. No idea why. You can also use the “embed” option under “share” on the YT page, that will give you a little snippet of embed code).Report

      • zic in reply to zic says:

        I’m a luddite.

        But at least I know that she appears to be running AbletonLive on the laptop. And in the earlier portions of the video, there did appear to be a max patch on screen as she set her loops up.Report

  2. Glyph says:

    Since I mentioned last week that I may like this even more than the original:

    And because you can never have too much Arthur Russell:

    Report

  3. BlaiseP says:

    IMNSHO, the paragon of cellists, playing the ultimate composition for his instrument, Rostropovich playing Bach Cello Suite 5

    Mstislav Rostropovich stood upright before tyranny, speaking truth to power. For this, he paid a terrible price. With Solzhenitsyn, whom he protected while he could, and Shostakovich, whom he couldn’t, he was a pure light in a great darkness. His greatness cannot be overestimated, as a musician, but more importantly, as a human being. His star will shine in the firmament of true nobility for centuries.

    In the immortal words of MC Hammer: “Can’t touch this”Report

  4. Tod Kelly says:

    All I can say, Glyph, is that it’s a good thing your post wasn’t labelled “Saxophone!,” or I’ve had been making links all bloody night.Report

    • zic in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      A guest post, please.Report

    • Glyph in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      How about next week? I call Madness.

      A friend sent me a bottle of this for a so-belated-it’s-early birthday gift. Should I crack it?:

      http://www.ardbeg.com/shop/product/whisky/ardbeg-uigeadail.htmlReport

    • NewDealer in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      Rollins or Coltrane?Report

      • Glyph in reply to NewDealer says:

        I only have a small handful of jazz albums, but among them are a very nice vinyl reissue of this, and this Coltrane box.

        Both are pretty awesome if you ask me.Report

      • BlaiseP in reply to NewDealer says:

        I’m surprised you don’t have more jazz — well, perhaps you’re just saying you don’t have much jazz in physical media. With tastes as catholic as yours, tasteful too, I would have thought you grew up with a good deal of jazz.Report

      • Glyph in reply to NewDealer says:

        Nope, I pretty much missed that boat completely. I’ve got those Coltranes, a Miles (the one everybody has), a Mingus, a Montgomery, and that’s about it.

        Some stuff that borders on jazz sometimes, bossa nova type stuff like Gilberto and Lindsay and Os Mutantes.

        Frankly, it’s hard to know where to even start. If anyone ever wanted to do a guest post with a jazz starter kit, I know I’d appreciate it.Report

      • BlaiseP in reply to NewDealer says:

        Thing is, jazz was the part of the record store where you put all the records which didn’t fit into any of the other categories. I could write up a jazz starter kit for you, send you a few things backchannel. Maybe you could write something about your reactions to it.Report

      • Glyph in reply to NewDealer says:

        jazz was the part of the record store where you put all the records which didn’t fit into any of the other categories

        See, I was lucky, because by the time I was record-shopping, there was usually an “experimental rock” or “post-rock” section. There you might find David Axelrod, or Can, or the Sea and Cake.

        But straight-up jazz? I just didn’t venture over there much. How do you even know what’s what? The same track might appear across multiple records. There’s all kinds of compilations. It’s chaos!

        Seriously, I think I’d prefer someone do a guest post. I’m not sure I even have the vocabulary to describe jazz. Lord knows I don’t have the vocabulary to describe this Scotch.Report

      • BlaiseP in reply to NewDealer says:

        Jazz is a vast sea. I’m a keyboard player, so I could write to what I know and love in that part of the ocean I’ve sailed.Report

      • Glyph in reply to NewDealer says:

        I can only speak for myself, but jazz seemed pretty impenetrable to casual investigation.

        I did that 90’s electronic/dance music post. And in the hip-hop posts, I talked about how I was able to approach hip-hop, in part, as dance music. Once you get into hip-hop and dance, you can follow the threads back to the soul and disco and funk records they were sampling and building from.

        But jazz? There didn’t seem to be that many portals/intersections for some reason. At some point jazz got kind of isolated from the other branches (rock, or dance musics).

        Unless you count Tortoise, and I don’t, because I hate Tortoise.

        Except for this remix, which was pretty boss:

        Report

      • zic in reply to NewDealer says:

        @glyph one really good way to ‘get’ jazz is to follow one tune, listen to many different recordings of it; including different live performances by the same artists.

        I’ll see if I can put together something like that, but itunes would be a good source. Standard tunes, like Take the A Train, Summertime, or Giant Steps have been recorded over and over by lots of folk.

        Here’s a list of the top-50 most recorded:
        http://www.slidemeister.com/forums/index.php?topic=4894.0

        By following one song, you get the idea of how jazz even works; the format of song, incredible diversity in presenting the ‘head,’ how solos flow, how the band works together.

        My only advice for anyone learning this way is to pick songs they like to start out with.Report

      • Chris in reply to NewDealer says:

        After the late 40s, jazz became intentionally impenetrable. Part of what makes it great is that you can’t just listen to it, at least not the first several times you hear any piece. You have to engage with it. It’s like a poem written in a cipher, except most of the time, the cipher produces readable text of its own. The text of the cipher causes the original text to withdraw (I hope Still doesn’t read that), but if you actively listen, you can find the original text while still reading the text of the cipher.

        Listen to the opening of “So What”. He gives you the key to the cipher at the beginning with those pairs of notes, and then he explores the text in that first solo. Watch him do it live a few times — it’s different every time, like it should be — and you’ll start to see the text even clearer.Report

      • Chris in reply to NewDealer says:

        And I see that Zic has already said what I said, only clearer and, I assume at least, less tipsy thumb typing.Report

      • Glyph in reply to NewDealer says:

        @blaisep – dude, this is awesome. And speedy! Thanks!Report

  5. Mike Schilling says:

    Not to mention the last movement of A Quick One While He’s Away.Report

  6. dhex says:

    i always confuse violin and cello but pretend i posted a youtube vid with all the really hot gybe! stuff from f#a#.Report