and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
Got talking with a guitar player today. Lovely guy, named Wayne Monger.
Back in the 70’s one Emmett Chapman developed an instrument that is essentially a guitar and a bass mounted side by side on a near vertical plank. The strings are tapped rather than plucked. The result gives the soloist a harmonic freedom and range that would give the piano a run for its money, the Chapman Stick. Wayne is a convert …
or try this from Robert Culbertson
The outstanding Mordialloc Jazz Orchestra will be performing the first of the Big Band Sunset concerts this Saturday night.
You will find them on the banks of the Mordialloc Creek by the roundabout on Nepean Highway. The main feature starts at 7 pm although there will be free music all afternoon.
This week the band are backing The King, well-known Elvis tribute artist Mark Andrew.
It will be fabulous, hope to see you there.
that’s why …
… I may have trouble picking up my saxophone this evening.
Southern Stars playing at Dizzy’s Tuesday 28th August. Great band, see you all there …
Allan’s Music has gone bust taking Billy Hydes with it.
The first Allan’s Music opened in Collins St in the 1850s.
A sad day.
Did humans invent music?
Music is extremely important to me, Chimps don’t care much for it and Charlie Parker’s experiments with cows were equivocal …
I have just read an interesting article on the evolution of music here’s a snippet. To read the whole piece just click on the link below it …
Darwin argued that music evolved mainly by sexual selection through mate choice—and that we’re uncomfortable acknowledging that fact. He wrote back in 1871 that, “The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when with his varied tones and cadences he excites the strongest emotions in his hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which his half-human ancestors long ago aroused each other’s ardent passions, during their courtship and rivalry.” He knew that music didn’t need to have a “survival value” for the individual or the group; it could spread through purely reproductive benefits. He suggested that the more musically talented proto-humans attracted more sexual partners, or higher-quality sexual partners, than their less-musical rivals. We see sexual selection for music in many other species—insect song, frog song, bird song, whale song, and gibbon song—so I think that’s a reasonable default theory for how humans evolved music. It’s the theory to beat.
Click this line to read the article by Marcus & Miller.
Let me know what you think.
bobmcgee 