the best website ever
Synthetron? Speed garage? Nu Style Gabber?! What are these strange strings of letters, you may wonder; and to find out, all you need to do is take a look at Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. We had another chance to experience this wonderful resource this evening, when Leah wanted to show the site to her brother and asked me to dredge it once again out of the murkey depths of the internet. We'd first been made aware of it, you see, some time ago, when we were in California, and I'd forgotten all about it since then. First place I looked for a trace of it this time was here in this very blog, since I was sure I'd have written about it; but apparently that is not the case. So here you go: go check the site out, and learn more than you ever wanted to know about the strange and wonderful world of the dance music of the last 30 years. And listen to about 300 samples while you're at it, too.
Continuing in the music vein, today was the Winter Concert at Mason-Rice Elementary, and I enjoyed it very much. The chorus was the best, even if I do disagree with the pedagogical methods and, um, personality of the music teacher (only sometimes on the latter). I sure wish I had that many singers at my beck and call. It's interesting, though, that at this age the singers are so much better than the instrumental musicians; by the time they get to high school the chorus will be perhaps three or four times better than we heard this morning, while the folks blowing or scraping on those odd objects will have improved, oh, fifty-fold. Or a hundred even, or, like, infinity. I think it has something to do with practicing. Which makes you wonder, what would happen if all those singers kept working at singing? The world would be alot like a Broadway musical, I have to imagine.