Music to my ears...

For a first post, I've decided to talk about one of the most important positive influences in human life....music.  Appropriately called the universal language, it imparts feelings and evokes emotions through melodies, harmonies, tempo, cadence, timbre, the crescendo and decrescendo, dissonance, major, minor, augmented, demented, blah, blah....  So many words trying to explain the structure of a language that needs no explanation.  

Whether the tune is catchy, or the melody is memorable we all have experienced the "song in my head" that we just can't shake.  It plays in the background and we wonder how to turn it off but don't really want to.

One of the most impressive examples - from true masters of this language - evoking emotions of, well - love and romance - among other things - have come from the great Russian composers. No, really!  Big huge sound but mushy emotions overcome us...   Consider the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff, and in particular his Symphony No. 2.  The sound is so full bodied it rivals a glass of big Cabernet.  It's the "big" strings that do it.  Listen and you will feel it.  It evokes feelings of romance so bold that emotions melt and you don't even realize why.  Another example - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.  For many years a Russian military officer and check out his picture...wow.  But, he translated from his brain through his hand the most amazingly exciting melodies, harmonies and rhythms.  If you haven't heard them then you have to crank the volume, close your eyes and get ready to be filled with delicious sounds that are timeless.  

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Dude needs to trim the nest.

While the classics contain many more examples, the sacred account of Jesus' life in Handel's Messiah will forever stand the test of time as the most divinely inspired work in the history of our race.  The point is, you can name work after work and composer after composer among the classics that support the argument that music can transcend time and generations.  

Thinking of more modern times, I have to mention the great music of Burt Bacharach with his lyricist Hal David.  So many great songs, especially when he was collaborating with Dionne Warwick and later Carole Bayer Sager.  Again, creating timeless pop music with so many great melodies that we all recognize today.  

Sometimes when I listen to the latest hits, I can't believe the bland melodies and shallow lyrics that somehow find their way to the the top of popular music charts.  My early 20s son has decided there is no music since the 80s, (other than DMB), that is worthy of a byte on his iPod. I tend to agree.  In fact, I think into the future and wonder what a blogger generations from now will consider the influential classics of the past?  Has the greatest era in musical creativity passed?