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Thread: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

  1. #26
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    The band that finally made me take that leap into trad was and still is Lau. They really opened my eyes to the fact that trad music could be energetic, exciting and progressive. Which to a guy who spent his formative years listening to and playing heavy metal, was pretty enlightening.






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  3. #27

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    When I heard Coltrane play "My Favorite Things" I learned that music can be on a continuum from written melody thru complete mind, and anywhere in between.

    How that led through multiple instruments to what I try to play now (Ameri-blue-gospel-mountain-CapeBreton-mando-fiddle-footstomp-ballads, with a hint of jazzclub) was a long strange trip.

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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by jshane View Post
    When I heard Coltrane play "My Favorite Things" I learned that music can be on a continuum from written melody thru complete mind, and anywhere in between.

    How that led through multiple instruments to what I try to play now (Ameri-blue-gospel-mountain-CapeBreton-mando-fiddle-footstomp-ballads, with a hint of jazzclub) was a long strange trip.
    Actually, I have got the feeling from MC over the years that a few of us have made similar 'long strange trips'.
    Coltrane, and modern jazz in general, has surely left a mark on a lot of people, me included.
    David A. Gordon

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  7. #29
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    (Ameri-blue-gospel-mountain-CapeBreton-mando-fiddle-footstomp-ballads, with a hint of jazzclub)
    Didn't a jamgrass guy dub his thing 'poly-ethnic Cajun Norwegian slamgrass'?

  8. #30

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    John Hartford's Hamilton Ironworks
    and The Pizza Tapes

    Can you tell I don't think much of slick production? If you have solid playing and/or a solid song, I don't care if it's on a cylinder.

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  10. #31
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Well, Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas likely laid the foundation but Coltrane's A Love Supreme I just fell deep into. For Trad Music I would say Hot Rize Untold Stories and the Chieftains Celtic Wedding were the leap off points.

    Jamie
    There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. Logan Pearsall Smith, 1865 - 1946

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  11. #32
    Registered User mandolin breeze's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Great thread Cosmic Graffiti -

    Early: The Beatles. Was 9 in '63. Remember putting together a "band" with my buddies on the block. I was on guitar (mom's broom).

    Mid: The Allman Brothers. Duane's slide was sent down from Heaven. He took it back way too early for me.

    Current: The Dawg, aka David Grisman. What can you say, where do you start? When I heard Mondo Mando for the first time I was blown away. The tightness that the group played together was astonishing. Aside from David's incredible playing abilities, his range of styles, his unbelievable tone, his unparalleled tremolo, maybe the most remarkable is his vast and varied beautiful compositions. This world has been given a true gift - that Mr. Grisman followed the path that the Good Lord put him here for. Long Live The Dawg!

  12. #33
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Tom Rush: "Tom Rush" (1st Columbia release)
    John Prine: "Diamonds in the Rough"
    Yes! But it was John's first album for me--the hay bale album.

    Ten Years After - Undead.
    It was "A Space in Time" that hooked me, then I went back and listened to "Cricklewood Green" and "Shhhh..."
    Living’ in the Mitten

  13. #34
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Well .... I grew up in SoCal listening to the Beach Boys. I was playing finger picked guitar ala my musical favorite Paul Simon when he was still working with Art Garfunkel when Crosby Stills and Nash came out. Vocal harmonies really do it for me musically. But electric instruments , though I have a few, just don't call me the way acoustic instruments do. Then the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who I had seen in concert, came out with their first Will the Circle be Unbroken dual LP and I was hooked into old country and 'grass. Soon after I was listening to OAITW and the Rounder recordings of that period and have been picking and grinning ever since. R/
    I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...

  14. #35
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    This is a great thread.

    My answer is different. The event that changed my whole perspective on music was not a song or an album or a musician - it was when I first picked up a musical instrument and re-conceived of music as something people do, not just something people listen to.
    I am like JeffD, I have listened to all kinds of music from a young child to now an old man. It was when I first met Bruce Weber, I was doing a story for the newspaper I worked for (they made me do it, I was a photographer). I tried to play guitar in high school, but it didn't work. After meeting with Bruce I saved up and bought a MK, sold it and a bought a Gallatin F and now I am the proud owner of a Yellowstone F (Isabella). I still enjoy listening to different types of music, but I am most happy making my own.

    Merry Christmas to all of you,

  15. #36

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosmic Graffiti View Post
    What song, album, musician or other thing changed/inspired/enlightened your musical perception/awareness style the most? What was that moment you heard something or realized something and said "thats it, thats what I have been searching for"
    ...
    I heard a 9-year-old kid playing in a music store, he was trying out different keyboards & making the most beautiful wonderful ethereal sounds.

    I had no idea those instruments could do that! I thought they were just for rock or something.

    Totally changed my outlook.

    For decades before that, I was strictly acoustic, that was the way I was brought up (oldtime fiddle & banjo dance music).

    But, after hearing that little kid in the store... before that day was over, I had actually *bought* one of those keyboards (although it wasn't cheap).

    Kept me happily occupied discovering new sounds for quite a while.

    That was a turning point for me because I'd never envisioned myself playing anything but acoustic stuff. Didn't realize what I was missing out on.

    That opened up so many more ways of expressiveness, that I'd only dreamed of or rarely attained on acoustic instruments.

    Not talking about the stereotypical angry electric music, quite the opposite. More like peaceful "happy music" stuff.

    That anonymous kid had more effect on my musical awareness than any of my musical mentors, heroes, teachers, famous people, etc.

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  17. #37
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Swiss Movement- Les McCann and Eddie Harris
    The FM rock station would play "Compared to What" on a regular rotation and I always turned it up.
    Many more but that was one of the earliest.

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  19. #38

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Yes, it's too bad I can't remember what song I was playing when it "clicked."
    But it wasn't a melody. It was a chord change. I was singing and I changed the chord at the right time and viola!
    Along those line, I don't think I really ever sang on pitch until I figured out how to play for myself.
    All this was shortly after I gave riffs, licks and melody a break, and just let go. Compared to picking out melody, chords, to me, were letting go. This was on guitar and banjer, way before mandolin. But a mandolin & fiddle scale is so straight forward, playing melody was an easy matter of training fingers. Then I had to stop the melody side of the brain and work on the chord side. But eventually the partition dissolved. Looking back, it did take time, but it's been fun. Merry Christmas

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  21. #39
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    I grew up in the inland pacific northwest and in the 1960's we had one, count them one AM station available on the daylight dial. Mostly played Buck Owens and it took me years to understand that the Buckaroos were not a bad band. The answer is when I first heard Taj Mahal and the double album Giant Step. I finally understood why I had been trying to 'swing' j.p. souza in high school marching band....

  23. #41
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    "The Natural Bridge Suite" off of the album Bela Fleck - Natural Bridge

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  25. #42
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    This little number opened my eyes and ears in a big way...
    Craig Mandola
    Mann SEM-5

  26. #43

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Discovering the sheer breadth of Thile's work just amazed me - I first found him through the Nickel Creek reunion, then Thile/Daves, then I heard his Bach album and was floored that one musician could cover such a wide swath of musical situations. I know he can get a lot of flack around these parts, but listening to the aggregate of these albums made me completely shift my perspective on what it really means to be a true musician, as well as how to look at music and not be boxed in by genre or circumstance, but rather to understand it well enough to move fluidly between many situations.

  27. #44
    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Two albums by the Buckhannon Brothers that were only ever released on cassette tape and I don't even remember the names of them. I think I have them converted to Sony Mini-Disc somewhere, but I'd have to find them. They were lent to me by a mandolin instructor I had at the time. I took one listen and my whole mando-world opened up. I thought: I want to play like THAT! I went on to find out that Curtis Buckhannon lived within driving distance of me and convinced him to take me on as his first student. I studied with him for about five years. I never did learn to play quite like him, but I got about 2/3 of the way there at one point and that was still pretty satisfying.

  28. #45
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by cbrophy3 View Post
    I know he can get a lot of flack around these parts...
    Really? I've never heard anything but respect, albeit heavily tinged with envy.
    And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

    C.S. Lewis

  29. #46

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by farmerjones View Post
    John Hartford's Hamilton Ironworks
    and The Pizza Tapes

    Can you tell I don't think much of slick production? If you have solid playing and/or a solid song, I don't care if it's on a cylinder.
    Pizza Tapes got me started on Mandolin.

  30. #47

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by John Flynn View Post
    Two albums by the Buckhannon Brothers that were only ever released on cassette tape and I don't even remember the names of them. I think I have them converted to Sony Mini-Disc somewhere, but I'd have to find them. They were lent to me by a mandolin instructor I had at the time. I took one listen and my whole mando-world opened up. I thought: I want to play like THAT! I went on to find out that Curtis Buckhannon lived within driving distance of me and convinced him to take me on as his first student. I studied with him for about five years. I never did learn to play quite like him, but I got about 2/3 of the way there at one point and that was still pretty satisfying.
    Amazing musical journey story. Thanks for sharing.

  31. #48

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by chrisoff View Post
    The band that finally made me take that leap into trad was and still is Lau. They really opened my eyes to the fact that trad music could be energetic, exciting and progressive. Which to a guy who spent his formative years listening to and playing heavy metal, was pretty enlightening.





    Wow.....I checked out the links. Great! I am going add them into my listening mix for a bit.

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  33. #49
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    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ky Slim View Post
    "The Natural Bridge Suite" off of the album Bela Fleck - Natural Bridge
    A fave LP, for sure. I pick Dawg's Due, to this day. The one odd thing is David Parmley (who I dig, just found his inclusion a bit strange).

  34. #50

    Default Re: What song, Album, Musician changed your perspective on music?

    Quote Originally Posted by farmerjones View Post
    ... Can you tell I don't think much of slick production? If you have solid playing and/or a solid song, I don't care if it's on a cylinder.
    Agree totally.

    I've spent enough time listening to early scratchy Library of Congress recordings that I just automatically 'hear beyond' the limitations and technical deficiencies in the recording itself.

    At least you know it's real, they haven't went in and selectively edited individual notes to phony-up the music like modern studio music is. I hate the idea that while listening to a slick modern (my definition of "modern" being like since the 1960s lol) studio recording, we never know for sure if that's the way the player *really* played it, or if they 'fixed' all their mistakes later in the studio.

    Seems much more honorable to just sit down and keep on playing until they get it right in real time. But I guess modern economics/time don't allow for that, or something.

    Edited to add:
    Maybe someday I will get used to the idea of altering individual notes in recordings, but so far, for my own music (or what passes for music), no way, I don't care *how* common it is. ::stubborn::

    Although... around 1970 when I first learned that many recordings were multi-tracked (and had been for years) instead of having all the musicians in the studio at the same time, I was horrified by that too, it just seemed so 'wrong' and surreal, and yet a few years later I was busy trying out my *own* little attempts at multi-tracking such as this dubious drunken mandolin + mandola example. Nevertheless, for the foreseeable future, I have no intention of altering individual notes or passages. If I can't get a contiguous chunk of music that's even marginally acceptable, then I have to keep practicing until I can.

    (Guess that's one advantage to being an amatuer/hobbyist, is the luxury of time and low expectations lol, no $$$ pressure to get a recording done super-quick.)
    Last edited by Jess L.; Dec-24-2016 at 8:48pm. Reason: Additional thoughts, or attempts at thoughts anyway. :)

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