Music and Spirituality | Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.

The Ignatius Insight just published an article from Fr. Basil Cole Music and Spirituality | Fr. Basil Cole, O.P. | Ignatius Insight | Ignatius Insight that is very insightful and very much needed in this Society Gone Madd!  I've read his book Music and Morals which really helped me, he is just awesome.  Now he connects Music and Spirituality to the tune of St Thomas Aquinas - my favorite saint.  Part of spirituality is using your mind, but people today seem to believe whatever they feel is ok.  When music (or any of the arts, I believe) causes feeling a certain way for a prolonged period of time it is bound to have it's effects.  Please consider reading the article (which I think can be applied to all forms of the arts), it may change your life, like his book Music and Morals did mine. 

An American in Paris - A Refreshing Feeling

I was flipping channels this evening and came across the movie "An American In Paris" and thought I'd seen it before but I never had and right from the beginning of the movie,  from the first notes of music, it just gave me a good feeling.  It made me really realize how much entertainment has devolved.  It is amazing the drastic difference in the past fifty years.  The mid sixties is when the de-evolution started.

The biggest change I felt watching the movie is the quality of music.  I normally am not a big Gershwin fan, but most of the music in the movie was very uplifting to the soul, unlike the music of this day and age.  There has to be something that can be done to re-beautify the music and movies of this day and age.

KUSC is making classical music relevant

This is a good article on the state of Classical music in LA and in the USA.  I like Rich Capparela and Dennis Bartel.  Long Live Classical Music.

KUSC is making classical music relevant - Los Angeles Times

Bo Diddley, Who Gave Rock His Beat, Dies at 79

The guy known for his square guitar is gone.  I always thought that was pretty cool. 

Bo Diddley, Who Gave Rock His Beat, Dies at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Music and Morals

I am a musician and this book Music and Morals by Basil Cole, OP really changed my perspective on the effect that music has on our lives. It answers or at least may prompt you ask the following questions: Does music have a subtle but definite influence over our attitudes and behavior? Is there a way of judging between “good” and “bad” music? It was a major factor in changing my life. With the state of entertainment today this book is highly recommended reading.

Sound of Music

Believe it or not I finally saw the movie Sound of Music this past weekend. I have HD TV on my computer now and decided to watch things I normally don't watch just because it looks so good. I started to watch the Sound of Music and right at the beginning I could tell iti actually had a very good story to it. Over the years I have caught about ten or fifteen minutes in the middle and about the same amount three quarters into the movie. Now I have seen the whoole thing and was very pleasantly surprised at what a great movie it is. I 've always liked Andy Williams version of the song "My Favorite Things" and never knew it came from that movie.

It really makes me wonder how in such a short amount of time television and movies has gotten so bad. Although I do see some signs of improvement, it is going to take a while to get back to Hollywood doing mainly good movies, if they ever do.

Hulu

Yesterday I got approved for the Hulu public beta and I got my first look at the site last night. Hulu is a site that offers free viewing of films and TV shows produced by NBC and Fox television. I was pretty happy and surprised by the content. I liked the fact that there was a lot of old shows available, WKRP, Emergency!, Bob Newhart, the original Battestar Galactica, and many more including a lot of new shows, Monk, Are you smarter than a 5th Grader etc.

I watched the first episode of WRKP and the second episode of Emergency! and was surprised at the difference in the quality of the writing of the shows from that time period. The writing for most shows currently on TV isn't very good.

That made me think about the writers strike and the Internet. I believe I heard recently that only about 60% of the writers are union anyway. I think the best option for them is to ditch the union and do your own contract.

The music industry has done that and still does. The musician/artist makes a contract with the record company and that's it, no union to tell you what to do. I know many an artist got screwed by the record company but that is there own fault, they messed up. The writers should cover themselves and forget about some mob union boss to do their bidding.

Deutsch Grammophon Web Store

Deutsch Grammophon just launched a new DRM-free download store that offers the majority of its catalog. The DG Webshop offers around 2,500 albums -- including over 600 out-of-print CDs -- as 320kbps downloads for between $10.99 and $11.99. Individual tracks under seven minutes will also sell for $1.09 and up.

This should be great for classical music. But yet I am a little skepticle because the music industry in general and especially the classical labels are pretty darn clueless. They wonder why sales of classical music are down and I guess they just can't use their heads. I mean how many versions of Eine Kleine Nacht Music do I need? There's so many orchestras playing the same limited amout of music. When I find a good version of a piece that I like I am not going to buy it just because some other orchestra did it. There's not alot of good classical music being composed now so when someone has a collection of all the classical music they like, they probably won't be buying much more music. And if they already have the CD they aren't going to download it again since it is so easily ripped. It's not like before, when they got your money from reel to reel and/or vinyl, then cassette, then CD.

That's part of the problem with the music industry also. I think the continual advances in technology have left them lazy. With each advance every 10 to 20 years they can sell they same music over again so they don't really need to look for quality music. I think the record labels aren't able to get greedy like when the CD came out. Before CD's, a Vinyl record was selling for about $6.99 to $8.99. When CD's came out they were selling for $16.99 and greed is the only reason I can think of. I had my own small record label and we paid the same amount when we pressed vinyl and CD, so the final cost for a bigger label should have been even less given that they would press more copies. CD's are still way too expensive. It doesn't make sense to me that the movie companies can make a movie and release it on DVD and after a few months sell it for $9.99. Making a movie takes alot more work and involves so many more people, it should be the one to cost more.