Music! Music! Music!

In a very good blog called About Last Night I was  reading a reminiscence of childhood and found this line:

I miss waiting impatiently to hear a good song on the radio for the second time."

Oh boy, I thought, do I know what he means.  He writes of that time when music didn't obliterate the barriers of time and space as it does now.  Today we can hear a song over and over and over again.  On demand.  Any hour of the day or night.  We are our own disc jockey.

The enjoyment is not the same.  The magic of a 'new' song is stillborn.  Disappointment comes way too soon.  Boredom is the result of limitless choices.

Irish author James Joyce wrote a famous short story titled The Dead in which a song reveals a devastating secret in the life of Gretta, wife to Gabriel.  The song is "The Lass Of Aughrim" and it is sung at a gathering that includes this husband and wife.  Gretta is greatly affected by the music and this effect is not lost upon her husband.  When they are alone, he questions her and she responds by giving way to her emotions, revealing that the song was sung by a young man in her past whom she loved.  The young man died and Gabriel learns that he has never been and will never be loved like that by this woman.
Today, I fear, "The Lass of Aughrim" could and would be played so many times that Gretta would grow sick of it.
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Wake The Dead

A little more than 125 years ago, there was no recorded music.     The only way to hear music was for some living person or group to sing and play.   Music was real, raw, not digitally mastered, not enhanced, or echoed out, or mooged.  It was not only the actual sound of music, it was the only sound of music.   Music was not that common,  not performed that often.  Music must have been, for the most part, a delightful experience.
Then Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877.  A decade later Berliner invented the record disc.  The rest is music forever, eternally, and always.  Non-stop.  Around the clock.  24/7.  Everywhere.  All the time.
One hears it in elevators, in stores, on the beach, in the hall, upstairs, downstairs, on TV and on the radio, in the background, in the foreground, driving, walking, jogging, camping, hiking. 
During the news, during the movies, in greeting cards.  During war, parades and funerals.  Heavy metal bands blare out their anthem for the shiny faced killers in helicopters pursuing their tasks on the streets of Araby.
For those who have a favorite song, or a favorite artist, or a favorite band,  one can have access to it anytime and for as long as one desires.  How familiarity doesn't breed contempt after the three thousandth hearing escapes my poor mind but apparently it doesn't.  Still, it must weaken the impact a little.
Could Jimmy Joyce wake The Dead in today's sound surfeited world?  Poor Gretta!  How painful would her memories of her  lover's death be  after hearing The Lass of Aughrim sung a hundred times?
During a recent interview the Dalai Lama revealed he never listens to music.  But that doesn't mean he can't hear it.
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Music of Birds

I am grateful for bird song.  For many reasons.

1.  It doesn't change.  The Baltimore oriole, the wren, the white-throated sparrow, their warbling of 70 years ago is the same beautiful song today.  And I never tire of it.
2.  Bird song has no genres, no categories or sub-categories.
3.  No video.  Always live in concert.
4.  No batteries are required.
5.  It's free.
6.  No singing at night.
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The Great American Songbook

Dick Robinson, originator of American Standards By The Sea, has announced the founding of The  Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook (GAS).
The official worldwide launch  of this Internet radio station will take place at midnight January 1, 2011.  A beta version is available now at the website http://www.theoriginalgasstation.com/ 

The mission of the Society is to preserve and perpetuate the music, character and history of the Great American Songbook featuring artists like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Frank Sinatra, Vic Damone, Jack Jones, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Hoagy Carmichael.
In three days listeners will enjoy non-stop hit songs around-the-clock and around-the-world ontheoriginalgasstation.com. 
From the few hours I have spent listening on line, I can report that famous singers do not sing all of the songs;  some are performed by lesser known talents (to me, at least) who deserve a wider audience.
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