The eclectic ipod

[Neil Gladd]

I haven't actually invested in an iPod yet, but I do have iTunes on my computer. I've bought a few tracks, a few others were free, and I've starting loading in my CDs. When you list the tracks by artist, sometimes you get a strange mixture of people in a row. Here is a good one:

Roy Orbison
Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel Siegel
Sebastiaan de Grebber
Sebastian Cabot
Seiji Ozawa

So if you keep going do you get to Spice Girls and Stravinsky?

[Neil Gladd]

So if you keep going do you get to Spice Girls and Stravinsky?

Actually, Seiji Ozawa is conducting Stravinsky, but no Spice Girls. (I do have SOME standards!) You will get to Spike Jones & his City Slickers before too long, though.

[Jim Garber]

I have a large, eclectic LP collection most of which I arranged by performer. I love that juxtaposition of genres.

I don't get that on my iPod because I have everything arranged by playlist.

Jim

Hey Neil, I browsed your Myspace and came across the toccata movement in your first sonata. What a ride! I love this piece! It's perfect in it's form and expression, and in the variety of techniques you use on the instrument.

Bravo.

Speaking of playlists, the toccata now officialy part of mine. I'm going to have to get your CDs. I love the snippet on the web of Handel on the Banjo! Marvellous!!

I'd like to share a piece of mine with you. I'm not a mandolinist - I just play for fun, but I am a professional keyboardist/arranger. I was commissioned to write a suite of pieces based on hymn tunes, and this is one of them.

It's an arrangement of the old children's hymn "What a Friend We Have In Jesus," set in a style akin to the folk song settings of Britten, Copland, Bartok, etc.

New World Chorale is the group I co-direct. Just click on the MP3 file in the middle of the page.

Cheers, John.

http://www.newworldchorale.org/listen.htm

[Neil Gladd]

Hey Neil, I browsed your Myspace and came across the toccata movement in your first sonata. What a ride! I love this piece! It's perfect in it's form and expression, and in the variety of techniques you use on the instrument.

Bravo.

Thanks! My only recording of it is on vinyl, but there is an excellent CD of it by Florentino Calvo. (Go to my recordings page and scroll down.)

I'd like to share a piece of mine with you. I'm not a mandolinist - I just play for fun, but I am a professional keyboardist/arranger. I was commissioned to write a suite of pieces based on hymn tunes, and this is one of them.

It's an arrangement of the old children's hymn "What a Friend We Have In Jesus," set in a style akin to the folk song settings of Britten, Copland, Bartok, etc.

I love it! But it reminds me more of the Charles Ives setting of "Shall We Gather at the River." Now, if you want to write a poly-tonal piece for mandolin and organ, let me know!

Yes, Ives of course. You are right.

I've been a student of Ives since the first day I heard the "Concord Sonata." It spills over into everything I do.

"Now, if you want to write a poly-tonal piece for mandolin and organ, let me know!

It's never occurred to me, but now that you mention it, I think the combination of classical pipe organ and mandolin might sound absolutely fantastic if it were done well, if only because the two intruments are so diametrically opposed in so many ways.

Hmmmmmmm......

[Neil Gladd]

"Now, if you want to write a poly-tonal piece for mandolin and organ, let me know!

It's never occurred to me, but now that you mention it, I think the combination of classical pipe organ and mandolin might sound absolutely fantastic if it were done well, if only because the two intruments are so diametrically opposed in so many ways.

There are a few such pieces already, and I have done baroque mandolin sonatas with organ continuo. It's like listening to a negative of a violin and harpsichord: a plucked solo instrument with a sustained accompaniment.

NB - My November recital will be in a church with a nice tracker pipe organ...

But now I've hijacked my own thread! I meant to encourage other people to confess to their wacky play lists.

[Graham McDonald]

I just use mine in the car for longish trips and set to random play. It does come up with some interesting juxtapositions of tracks sometimes. What does perplex me is that I have one Hank Williams CD of 24 tracks out of 550 or so loaded on, and it will almost always play a much higher proportion of Hank than anyhting else

cheers

I just use mine in the car for longish trips and set to random play. It does come up with some interesting juxtapositions of tracks sometimes. What does perplex me is that I have one Hank Williams CD of 24 tracks out of 550 or so loaded on, and it will almost always play a much higher proportion of Hank than anyhting else

cheers

Are you sure that's Hank and not Chuck Norris?

[Graham McDonald]

I could understand it then, with the threat of pysical violence upon the rest of the tracks 8-)

[RSW]

Also looking for any original music for mandolin and organ... can we encourage composers to explore this?

[JimD]

Also looking for any original music for mandolin and organ... can we encourage composers to explore this?

Funny you should ask.

I have written quite a bit of organ music and recently had a world premier of my Sestina (for G.F.H.) in London by Paul Ayres.

I've been thinking of writing something for mandolin and organ because I have a number of fine organist colleagues with whom I would love to collaborate.

It just has to wait until I finish the song cycle with mandolin accomp. (yes, Victor, I'm writing one, too) and my string quartet.

[Neil Gladd]

I've been thinking of writing something for mandolin and organ because I have a number of fine organist colleagues with whom I would love to collaborate.

It just has to wait until I finish the song cycle with mandolin accomp.

I'm interested in both! Get to it! (I work with several organists at my day job.) Weren't you going to write a mandolin and euphonium duet, too?

[JimD]

Weren't you going to write a mandolin and euphonium duet, too?

only if you do, too.