Same Song, Three Stations, Same Time. Outrage.

Just minutes ago as I listened to the radio I became quite upset. All I wanted to do is listen to the radio because it gives me a variety of songs and genres and I don’t have to bother with making a playlist for myself. This usually works, until today. I used to like the song “Addicted” by Saving Able, but I can’t stand it anymore. All my preferred stations play the song and over the last couple of months they have thoroughly abused it. Tonight, I was listening to 94.5 when the song came on. Annoyed I changed the station to 96.5, my backup station, to find they were playing the same song! Very annoyed and slightly frustrated I changed the station to 95.7 the last of my usual stations. Through some freak of nature, it was THE SAME SONG! I am still, as I write this, moderately outraged. Each one of the stations, as I flipped back through the three of them not believing what I had just experienced, varied by no more than 30 seconds delay in the song. I proceeded, at this point, to turn off the radio and listen to my own music. How this happened, I don’t know. Some fluke in the radio broadcasting industry caused this and for that reason I am not listening to them anymore. They’ve temporarily lost a consumer. Tell you the truth, I don’t know if I can every forgive them…

“Some Rights Reserved”

Amidst all our class discussion over the legality of free music file sharing there are two extremes.  Those who are in favor of free music file sharing through such applications as Lime Wire, and those who feel that full copyright laws should be put in place to ensure that the artist, record company, and all involved in the making of a track or CD are payed. There is in fact a company fighting for a balance, Creative Commons. Feel free to visit their website.

This five year old Massachusetts based corporation allows copyright holders to decide which rights they want to share with the public in an attempt to reward both the creators of the media and the listeners. When an company or individual wants to publish their work, they may sign up for one of six Creative Commons Licenses. The most basic license, the “Attribution License,” allows individuals to “remix, distribute, and build upon” a companies media as long as credit is given to the company or individual for the original work. The strictest license, or the “Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives” license, allows redistribution of a work, but requires the user to mention the creator, link back to the creator, and leave the work in its original state.

The applicant for a Creative Commons license is free to decide if he or she wants credit for the work, would allow others to make money off the work with or without permission, and make changes to the work, as long as they are shared publicly. Therefore, a modest balance is created between the artist and the user; the artist receives credit, and the user can listen to their work for free, aka. “some rights reserved.”

Soundtrack of My Life!

1. Loves Me Like a Rock – Paul Simon

 

I love this song and I used to listen to it daily.  It reminds me that through it all – the blood, sweat, tears, the struggle, the triumph, the fighting, and the peace – my mom always loves me, will always love me, and has always loved me.

 

Oh , my mama loves, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
Like she loves me like a rock

 

2. New Shoes – Paolo Nutini

 

I’m still not sure where I picked up this song from but I love it.  It reminds me that everyday all you need to do is find one thing, one event, or one object that pleases you because then everything else, everything negative, can be forgotten about.

 

3. Wild World – Cat Stevens

 

I was recently looking back at all of the music I used to listen to all the time and came across this song.  I found a new meaning to the song that hit home.  My life has been relatively sheltered, I have known the same people since I was a toddler and been enclosed in our community.  As I prepare for college, I am realizing how big of a change moving out will be and how WILD the world that we live in is.  Cat Stevens says:

 

But just remember there’s a lot of bad
and beware, beware
Oh baby baby it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh baby baby it’s a wild world

 

I know that I want and I need to get away from my family and friends and experience life but I am completely 100% uncertain of where I am going in life, where I am going to college, and how this WILD WORLD will affect me/how I will affect it.

 

4. We Are the Champions – Queen

 

Before I got my license to drive, when my mom had to drive me around everywhere, my brothers would constantly ask in the car for “Queen, Queen, Play Queen!!!”  Having two little brothers, I was used to the fact that they would want to watch the same movie or listen to the same music for weeks at a time; however, Queen became an exception to the rule… not that they only listened to the CD for a few days but they ended up listening to the songs for a couple months to a year.  Having listened to the Queen songs every day over and over again for about a year, many of them have been ingrained in my head.

 

My favorite by far is We Are the Champions because it is such an uplifting and inspirational song.  No matter what the sacrifice we will push through and make it to the end.  And we will be triumphant.  Everyone knows the lyrics to the chorus:

 

We are the champions – my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting – till the end -
We are the champions -
We are the champions
No time for losers
‘Cause we are the champions – of the world -

 

5.  The Beatles

 

There has not really a specific Beatles song that I would include on the soundtrack to my life; I would probably include a few.  I have been listening to Beatles music longer than I can remember.  My parents loved the music and I used to listen to it on cassette tapes as a baby and later on CDs.  I love the simplicity and easy words the Beatles use and the catchy sounds.  My favorites include: Help!, Hello, Goodbye, Lady Madonna, and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.

 

 

Another random song that I enjoy but not sure if I would include in my life soundtrack is Stupid Girls by Pink.  I think her song is innovative and very creative.  It is not just another one of those catchy songs that have no meaning whatsoever and just get stuck in your head.  Pink has a specific meaning that she is trying to get across that I think is very important in the world today.  Girls (and I think men should be included) don’t act stupid; do something with your life.  Aspire, work, and triumph!

my playlist

1) Sweet child of mine- Guns N Roses- I love waking up to the sound of sweet child of mine. the guitar rhythm moves through my mind and wakes me up happily

2) Im Yours- Jason Mraz- whenever i need to calm down, i listen to Im Yours. this song has great lyrics and a peaceful sound.

3) Everytime we touch- Cascada- any time i feel the need to just go wild, I love listening to everytime we touch. I feel loose in my body when i hear this song and can just lose my mind.

4) Hotel California- The Eagles- I love focusing in on the guitar solo during this song. It is another great relaxing song to just sing along to.

5) RESPECT- Aretha Franklin- It’s always fun singing in my falsetto voice and imitating Aretha. Plus who doesn’t love R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Soundtrack to Ms. Nodler’s Life

OK folks, since I’m asking you to open up and share your personal music taste/history on the blog, a.k.a, the soundtrack to your life, I’ll share mine.

Here are the five tracks that would, at this point in time, best constitute the soundtrack of my life:

1. Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

I first heard this piece (in its six parts), as a freshman DJ at my college radio station. I’d always liked jazz, but in an informal, polite way. OK, I’ll confess—I thought it was good background music for a dinner party or an art gallery opening. “The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady” turned that assumption inside-out and upside-down. It got inside of my head and demanded I stop and listen. I would never hear jazz the same way again.

I will not attempt to beat the description of famed music critic Lester Bangs, who recalled listening to the piece as experiencing the divine cacophony of “babies being born, taxicabs honking, couples fighting, the cries of lonely anguish that no one else hears in solitary rooms, children laughing, insurgents and guerrillas clashing, people of all sorts crying, shouting and whooping for joy, stunned at the crossroads, and some of them dying.”

2. Cat Stevens: If You Want to Sing Out

We played this song at my wedding. The wedding ceremony itself was the culmination of a frenetic, 6-month planning process, where everyone was scrambling around, trying to get everything accomplished on schedule. Our families are both huge, and we had no idea how we were going to pull everyone together for the big day. The night before the wedding, my (now) husband and I quietly confessed to each that we wished we had eloped and saved everyone the headache of such a massive undertaking.

The wedding itself turned out to be a beautiful, jubilant occasion, and I was so glad that we had plowed on through and shared the day with our families. My brother-in-law later shared that, when the Cat Stevens song came on the sound system just a few minutes into the reception, he really felt compelled to “sing out.”

3. The Magnetic Fields: I Think I Need a New Heart

I was in my early 20s, working for a prestigious artist-in-residence program at a big museum, when my boss asked if I would like to curate an exhibition in the museum’s experimental project space. I put together a little show that focused on people’s mix tapes. If I recall correctly (it’s been awhile), the show was called “Magnetic Letters: The Lost Art of the Mix Tape.” A curator who happened to be in town asked me if I would be willing to install the show (as an artist) in a larger exhibition in Minneapolis. Oddly enough, I do remember that show’s title: “Your Heart is No Match for My Love.” It focused on the dizzying, gut-wrenching qualities of love. There were some pretty big artists in that show. For a mix CD that would accompany the exhibition, each artist was asked to pick a song that symbolized the show’s theme, and this was the one I chose, with “Oh Yoko” by John Lennon coming in a close 2nd. Toy Piano acoustic version here.

4. Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

It’s tough to explain why this song made the list, other than that I listened to the album of the same name on repeat for something akin to two years in college. It’s an amazing, noisy, complicated, epic album, and this song is its centerpiece.

5. Bob Marley: No Woman, No Cry

When faced with a seemingly impossible situation, I find solace in this song. Listening to it, I am reminded that even in the ugliest situations, the most desperate of times, there is beauty and hope to be found in life shared with our fellow humans.

I remember watching Reading Rainbow as a little kid.  There was one segment where there was a crocodile walking out of a river.  IN the background ominous Hitchcock music played.  I was so scared, I muted it.  The very next time that Kunta Kinte showed up he talked about music.  The crocodile was still walking but circus fanfare was in the background.  I for some reason thought this was the funniest thing ever. What brought me to this was watching Christian the Lion.  I would like to poll everyone to see whether the Aerosmith or IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU is better.  Does the tone change depending on the music.  Even in suicide jumper, the music sets the tone before the actors start talking.  The music in films is the best example.  The next time you watch a movie listen to the music and it will give new meaning to a scene.

You don’t need to play an instrument to be a musician

Stop motion. Ever heard of it? It is what cartoons are based off of and clay-mation as well. Clay-mation is what movies like Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run are made with. Stop motion is done by taking a picture of the subject and creating the frames yourself. The first stop motion was flip books. All of this has to do with pictures and visual forms of media. So what does this has to do with music? Enter Lasse Gjertsen, a man with basic film editing training. He filmed himself playing every note on the piano with film. He also filmed himself hitting drums. He then edited the footage and copied and pasted and actually created music without ever knowing how to play the piano or drums. The video included is him beat boxing. It is very funny and at the same time entertaining. It now has opened up a whole new form of musical entertainment for those that do not know anything about music.