Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Listening Homework for Feb 15

Miles Davis - So What
This is a piece that sounds like it's initially coming out of a mystery film, but then starts to sound like more by-the-book jazz. The music blends easily into the background easily because there's not an overwhelming amount of stuff going on. If I weren't listening to this for a class, I'd be listening to it as study music.

Parliament Funkadelic - Mothership Connection
This song has more spoken words than others, which really doesn't appeal to me personally. As I'm usually listening to music that isn't in English, I consider the vocals as an instrument, and the flow of the vocals is very important as a result. The song otherwise has a funky sound in the musical backing, which is something I think would be most commonly heard in the EDM subgenre of Future Bass.

Charles Mingus - The Chill of Death
The opening of this song sounds like something from a film noir or Twilight Zone episode. The song invokes the image of a cold winter night, and the clarinet (?) especially has a very raw sound to it. This song also had something of a spoken word aspect, but that's because the vocals were very clearly poetry rather than just lyrics.

James Brown - The Big Payback
This song's vocals sounded interesting enough (especially compared to Mothership Connection), but ultimately the actual meaning of them didn't feel like anything special. It was a jazzy song with guitar and bass keeping the background busy and consistent.

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
I was first exposed to this song back before elementary school with The Sound of Music. That prior exposure may have influenced how I enjoyed this rendition, as I had prior context. However, this instrumental version truly had its own charm and perks. It was very relaxing, the tenor saxophone had lots of flair and flavor that it added to the song, and the piano and percussion added a very strong backing to the song to tie it all together.

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