Recently in Music Category

Another busy week has flown past, with the spring racing carnival finished and last French class of the year. When I think about my progress in learning a foreign language, I know I have more incentive than most to learn, and it has been a passion for quite some time, now. Progress is measured in small improvements, increasing understanding of the spoken language, enhanced by listening to French music most days on my way to and from work, and the recent gift of a collection of French Music totalling 773 separate tracks.

To my delight, I can understand many of the lyrics in the new collection, as I take a musical "Tour de France", and the music soothes the soul when traffic is heavy on the Monash.

Of course, getting this extra music has made my previous technology for portable music completely unable to cope, so I bought an iPod Touch to house the new collection, and to provide a way of putting my whole music collection in the one place, for easy listening.

Now, G has discovered the game playing capabilities of this new machine, and I am having a hard time getting it back as he tries to beat my record score in Bejewelled.

I have been thinging what it is about some pieces of music, that in the hearing of them, is capable of changing my mood (for the better) or others that pick up a touch of melancholy, but somehow in the end also lighten it, by the sheer joy invoked in simple harmonies, key changes or resolution of incompleteness .

This particularly applies to music in a minor key, because even some French music has this effect on me, as my understanding of some of it is limited, unless I spend some time studying the lyrics, so it must be the overall sound that does it.

The half hour trip home from work in the car, with a CD playing (at my preferred volume level) is often enough to take me, metaphorically at least, to another place. To relax, and let my thoughts fly where they will, and all inspired by music.

Today’s attire

AM

Slinky long line black v neck top
Black boots
Brown cord pants with zipper in back to give good line to the pants
Black and gold silk scarf tastefully arranged across shoulders.

PM

Thanks to helpful advice from female colleague, realise that outfit needs to be rearranged:

Slinky long line black v neck top check
Black boots check
Brown cord pants oops, zipper failure
Black and gold silk scarf tastefully arranged across hips...

The post that Aussie Lass made yesterday about singing in the loo, brought to mind my early experiences at my current workplace, when my workstation was either next to, or within eyesight of another blogger, Desi. During a conversation, if some of the words of a song came to mind, we would find ourselves singing the phrase, and at least the next line in the song, if we could remember it...

Eg

No milk today
My love has gone away (with apologies to Herman’s Hermits)

Take me home, country road
To the place, I belong (apologies to John Denver for ruining the sound of this great song)
Etc etc

This would be followed by much giggling and laughter, but at least it provided a respite from the humdrum routine. And if the noise levels became elevated, as they often did, maybe: “Quiet, please! ”, from our supervisor/s, and I was usually lucky enough not to be noted as the culprit in all of this...

My shift to the other end of the building, this time last year, meant that these episodes almost ceased altogether, unless I happened to be down the other end when inspiration struck! (Luckily there were other compensations!)

***Edit***
In a postscript, looking for the correct words of Country Road, came across this website: Misheard Lyrics.
I particularly like "mountain llamas" instead of mountain mama!

I have enjoyed listening to some music which I obtained when we were in France last year, recommended as representative of modern French contemporary music, in particular, the music of Michel Berger, Daniel Balavoine, JS Lavoie, but also the soundtracks of Notre Dame de Paris musical and Les Choristes. This serves two purposes, the first to try to immerse my brain in French language as much as possible, so I can reach a higher level of comprehension, and secondly, pure enjoyment of the quality of some of the music. To be learning a second language in this day and age offers the opportunity to locate lyrics on the internet, hear the music on radio stations which are streamed, or on special sites. And if I am lucky enough, to have the CD. I have particularly enjoyed the music of Daniel Balavoine. Last weekend, I found his web site, as I was looking for the lyrics of a particular song which I had enjoyed. I had been thinking that I like his music so much, that I was contemplating seeing if we could organise tickets when we are next in France, so imagine the shock of reading his biography to find that he was killed in a helicopter crash in Africa in 1986, during the Paris Dakkar rally. I had known nothing of his history, only that I enjoyed listening to his music. Some of the lyrics which are particularly evocative are “Mon Fils, mon bataille”, which is the story of his battle for access to his son, and “Partir avant les miens” which is a prophetic song about dying before his family. Sounds a bit morbid, but I could understand the sentiments. If you want to listen to these songs I will put the links up.

The postscript to these comments is that, after finding out that DB had fallen off the twig, so to speak, I succumbed to my usual emotional reaction to sad news, and sobbed my heart out. G arrived home from the market that Saturday morning shocked to find me red eyed and teary, and thought that something terrible must have happened. He was somewhat relieved to discover it was some unknown (in Australia, anyway) pop star who died 20 years ago! And, touchingly, he did not laugh at me, at least, not then…

Even funnier, though, was the reaction of K and S in France, when they heard about it a week later, it set them off in gales of laughter. Of course, they knew he was dead, so it made it even more ridiculous for them that I had contemplated buying tickets. Pity it’s twenty years too late to do so.