The Contact Lens Saga Seems to Be Over

The better-adjusted pair of contact lenses came today. It makes a giant difference. (Hurray for focus!)

Old Bollywood Videos

Scratching Post picked up the very cool song “Jaan Pehechaan-Ho”, which the video makes cooler.

I counter by figuring out there’s probably a video for “C.A.T. Cat Mane Billi”.

Sometimes you may think a lot of Bollywood singers sound the same. Actually, it’s probably because you keep hearing them play records by Asha Bhosle at the Indian restaurants. She worked the same profession as India Adams or Marni Nixon; but in India, she became a star, whereas our ghost singers stayed in the shadows. (And the title of “playback singer” is a lot better than “ghost singer.”)

Recreated Lyre and Pipes from Ur

I like this sort of musical exploration based on archaeology. Of course, there’s no way to tell if the music was much like this, but these were some of the tools in their toolbox.

From several thousand years later and a lot further south, here’s an Ethiopian begena (the lyre), accompanying a hauntingly beautiful Ethiopian Orthodox song in Amharic. There’s a partial translation in the combox: “I would like to learn from my Fathers how to praise and glorify your Holy Name, using the ten-stringed harp. King David didn’t care about his throne when he was singing all day, just calling your name… Paul and them gave thanks to you while in jail, until the chains on their hands broke off and the jail doors opened….” More about the begena.

This excursion into ancient bass sounds has been dedicated to my favorite bass player!

An excellent, excellent single-stringed bow player from Ethiopia! In Europe, you had similar instruments like the crwth/crowdie, etc., but they had frames. This is more like the Chinese erhu, but that has two strings. Notice how he uses one hand to totally control the string to play all sorts of notes, without having frets to guide him. Someone this virtuoso doesn’t need frets and extra strings.

There are tons of fascinating Ethiopian videos on YouTube. It’s amazing stuff. Even the modern stuff features some pretty unique sounds. Here’s one with a music video, telling a story about cowherders and a cute girl from the village. Yup, it’s a cowboy song, but not like they play on your country music station. 🙂 It’s in an Eritrean/Ethiopian language called Tigrigna.

O’ Carolan, Sir Walter Scott, and Beethoven Collaborate

FPB posts an impressive art song adaptation of one of the old Irish tunes. The tune is “Young Terrence O’Donough” (“Toirrdealbhach Og Mac Donnchadh”, aka “McDonough’s Lamentation”) by the great O’Carolan, but the song is “The Return to Ulster,” with words taken from the vast poetic corpus of Sir Walter Scott. This is one of 25 Irish songs arranged by Beethoven (who loved both Scott and Scottish and Irish music, like any self-respecting Romantic). (There were two other collections of 37 other Irish songs, and a few more here and there.)

The project was set up as a moneymaking proposition by the Scottish sheet music publisher George Thomson, who provided Beethoven with good old tunes and matched them with “arty” lyrics from various sources. (His previous go-to guy was Haydn, who arranged a bunch of Scottish and Welsh tunes for Thomson, but allegedly didn’t have the energy for an Irish collection.) The intended audience was at-home groups of piano, cello or violin, and singer. (But the songs were designed so you could have piano alone, violin alone, or duets also.) In response, it seems that Beethoven came up with some very solid, popular stuff over the course of a decade. But apparently it was too easy-peasy to get much attention from classical music mavens, until now, when hardly anybody plays piano at home. (But there’s been a couple of Celtic music revivals, too, which helps.)

Irish art songs from this period, of this sort, were often either old harp tunes or trying to be. But this is one of the last of the old harp tunes, by one of the last of the old harpers and one of the greatest of Irish composers. It’s bittersweet, because the pianoforte/harpsichord (and Irish poverty) destroyed the harpers, but also preserved their work. (And Scott’s poem refers to this decline of the harpers, so Beethoven is referring to it also. The frontispiece of the book was a picture of St. Cecilia as an Irish gentlewoman playing Irish harp, so Thomson was milking this hunger for lost harp music also.)

By using the cello as well as piano, the traditional harping sound of a simultaneous melody and bass line, with constant variations, can be created by home musicians. But Beethoven does his own “modern” thing, too. There’s a lot going on, in a small space.

“Young Terence McDonough” was written in memory of the son of Terence O’Donogh, the only Catholic barrister allowed to practice in Ireland during the years 1692 to 1718.

Other tunes arranged by Beethoven include “Planxty Kelly”, “Abigail Judge” (here’s a non-Beethoven link), “The Pretty Girl Milking Her Cows” (“Cailin Deas Cruite na mBo”), “The Black Joke”, “The Snowy-Breasted Pearl”, “The Summer Is Coming”, “The Bold Dragoon”, “Garryowen”, “Peggy Bawn” (not the version we mostly know, but a pretty tune), “Kitty of Coleraine”, “The Twisting of the Rope”, “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning”, “The Moreen” (aka “The Minstrel Boy”, after Moore got done with it), and “The Groves of Blarney”. Most of the lyrics are by Joanna Baillie or William Smyth, but there’s several by Scott and Boswell. (Gotta keep up the Scottish lawyer-literary combo!) There’s also at least one by Byron (“The Kiss, Dear Maid, Thy Lip Has Left” to a nameless tune) and several by Burns. A lot of Beethoven sources are kinda confused about Scottish versus Irish songs, partly because Thomson did some mingling. (For example, this arrangement of the tune “Tell Me, Dear Eveleen”.)

The useful thing here is that some of the Really Old Tunes show up on the classical side also, which I didn’t know. Good for Thomson!

Dearbhail Finnegan playing O’Carolan’s “Bridget Cruise” on an Irish harp.

“Brian Boru’s March” on harp, demonstrating the use of bass line with one hand and melody with the other. This was so typical for Irish harp tunes that it almost went without saying.

There were two kinds of old harp: gut-strung (for a softer sound) and metal-strung (for the big harps played by using long fingernails as picks, which was what the old Irish harpers preferred, and which was why there was a fine on anyone who damaged their fingernails).

Paul Dooley playing a little metal-strung harp with his fingernails.

Here’s a guy dressed up as Thorin playing a big metal-strung harp.

I Woke Up This Morning Feeling a Lot Better

I slept pretty well, woke up feeling reasonably human, and didn’t have any trouble getting things done today. I’m glad, because having the blahs was really getting tedious.

I started moving ahead on my ebook. There’s a lot more editing to do than I thought, but now I understand where it’s going. My eyes are bugging me still, so I can’t work too many hours at it, but I got a good chunk of work done.

It turns out that my new contacts really weren’t fitting right or working right, so I’m getting another pair instead. (As part of what I already paid.) Also, they gave me a more serious wetting solution for my eyes for the next week or so.

There was a sale on chocolate milk at the store. Why, yes, I did take advantage of it!

P.D. James Put Out a Fanfic??

Y’all are not telling me the important stuff, people!! And yes, I did stop in some bookstores over the holidays and since, so I’m amazed I could have missed it.

It’s called Death Comes to Pemberley. Yup, it’s Darcy and Elizabeth with an heir and a spare, investigating the murder of Wickham after Lydia comes screeching up the drive in a carriage.

I’m carefully not saying anything about authors who publicly disapprove of fanfic, but are totally okay with getting paid for writing fanfic of long-dead authors. I don’t remember P.D. James being one of them, particularly, you see. But it’s hilarious all the same, any time the good and the great engage in fanfic in public.

Particularly since almost everybody exposes the difficulty of doing it right, by failing in some significant way. Reviews point out that James is many things, but a lively writer like Austen she is not. Still, it’s nice to see an old experienced author trying something new.

Vorkosigan. Pony. Quest.

Yep, it’s the story of Miles Vorkosigan, had he been born in a magical fantasyland of pastel ponies.

The Age of Wind and Steel.

No idea what they were thinking, but it is pretty darned epic.

Cow Waterbeds

The old saying about contented cows is true!

Cow waterbeds mean better milk and savings on sawdust bedding.

The Boogieman Bible

Coverdale’s 1535 translation of the Bible into English is apparently called “the Bug Bible” by book geeks, because Psalm 90/91:5 is translated as “Thou shall not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night” instead of “terror”.

“Bugge” here doesn’t mean “insect”, but “ghost”. It is, in fact, the older version of “boogieman”.

Boogie down, my friends, and fear no boogie by night.

Stuff Choristers Say

Apparently this skit follows a famous Internet meme that’s several years old, yet I only heard about it a couple days ago. Heh, I think I failed memes class….

Anyway, for those of you who’ve never been in choir, I assure you that we do say this stuff. The rest is vocal exercises. (Also, read the comment box for some old choir jokes.)

Via the Musica Sacra forum.

Also, stuff opera singers say (including stuff we also do and take in choirs). Includes even more vocal exercises.

Let’s face it — vocal exercises are pretty hilarious to watch, and often pretty hilarious to do! (Hey, Foxfier — do ’em with your kids! They’ll love it! And then they’ll be vocal prodigies and do this stuff all the time! Oh, wait, that’s not a selling point, is it?)

The beta blockers joke is a little obscure… It’s for extreme anxiety and stage fright, if I recall correctly. The thing is, more and more opera performers get their doctors to prescribe this stuff, because everybody has a little stage fright or fears having it. Shrug. But yeah, singers are always paranoid about their health, because they can’t strip down and clean their instrument without major surgery. Opera singers practice six hours a day, so they have more time to focus on the paranoia and control freak side of things. 🙂

“Cheerful Little Earful”

Here’s Ella Fitzgerald singing a cover of an old 1920’s song, “Cheerful Little Earful.”

Moretsu Pirates reference to Stellvia?

One of the main characters of Uchu no Stellvia was Alisa Grennorth (or Grennos, depending on transliteration style).

One of the main character’s schoolmates in Moretsu Pirates is named Natalia Grennorth. A descendant or relative?

See-o

I just misread the name of an Orson Scott Card novel.

I swear, until I saw the author name, it looked like Sneakers for the Dead.

Electronic Rights in 1971????

Harper Collins is claiming that they own the ebook rights to Julie of the Wolves, and that said rights were signed over in 1971. Apparently the actual language of the contract was that they had exclusive rights to Julie of the Wolves “in book form.”

Harper Collins’ lawyer apparently isn’t producing the actual contract in question, but just quoting from it. This seems rather strange and shifty. As if they have something to hide.

I call BS.

Harper Collins’ lawyer goes on to claim that, even though Jean Craighead George owns the copyrights, it is the “beneficial owner.” Well. Isn’t that a lovely thing to claim? And apparently there is some federal law that, if you sign an exclusive contract for anything, those people _do_ own your copyrights, in a certain way. Lovely.

In the comments, the blog owner opines that this lawsuit argument falls into the genre of epic fantasy.

But the fix may be in. Counsel for both sides is from the same law firm.

Via the blog of Callan Primer, who has an sf romance ebook out.

(And yes, I want to read some straight-up sf, but I’m not finding much that I like.)