music

It’s very common that I’ve heard people tell me “you can’t just play the music on the page, you have to feel it.” At the surface level, it sounds a bit silly or like a lesson from a cheesy 1990s movie where a child learns about “the heart of music.” But when you play music, you know exactly what these people are saying.

Playing the sheet music exactly how it reads may produce an accurate presentation of the music, but it might feel emotionless.  So much of music is affected by the personality of the musician.

As I was driving the other day listening to the radio, a song came up on the radio that I was unfamiliar with. It sounded like a familiar ballad, but I was sure that I’d never heard it. It was very simple with lots of strings.

It wasn’t something I would normally like, but it somehow grabbed me. The singer sang with ease and age. The track ended and the DJ came on to say it was a new song from Glen Campbell called “Ghost on the Canvas.”

Nick Ashford, half of the songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson, died yesterday at 70 years old due to complications with throat cancer.

Though Ashford is gone, he has left a beautiful legacy behind with some of the greatest Motown hits ever recorded. Ashford & Simpson, while performers themselves, typically worked in the background while orchestrating some of the biggest hits for R&B/Soul’s superstars. To name a few:

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

I love working with music!  You just never know what connections you are going to run into.
 
Case in point, I was sitting in a coffee shop in Boulder CO yesterday and the guy at the table next to me had an inordinate amount of technology on his table.  Now coming from me, with my Macbook Air, my iPad 2 and my Android phone, it takes a bit to have an inordinate amount of tech, but Dotan Negrin qualified.  He had a complete portable video editing suite sitting on the coffee shop table so I asked him what he was up to.