Opus 80|A Musical Opus from the 1980s

Given the holistic approach to life, art and music in particular, it’s easy to understand how music can help with therapy.  I think a lot of people use music as a way to alter their moods and alleviate everyday stress.  I know I do.  It also works well in combination with other therapies as well.  For instance, I was at my massage therapist the other day, and she had some soothing but light music playing in the background.  It was quite nice.  I think the online massage schools probably teach this in their classes.  I suspect that the  top massage schools online make use of this technique as well.

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I love watching movies that have plenty of music in them.  They don’t have to be musicals per say, although I don’t mind musicals, but I like it when music is a strong component of the movie.  Movies like Fame would fit into that criteria.  It’s definitely not a musical, but because of the story line, there is plenty of great music in there.  I’m talking about the original movie Fame of course.  I’m not sure how they went wrong with the remake that just came out, as they had some incredibly great footage shot, it just never jelled as a move.  It was like a bunch of really cool musical performances taped together with a bit of dialog in between.  A good musical movie, still needs to incorporate the building blocks of being a good move.

One of my favorite music movies, had to be Moulin Rouge.  Even though, it wasn’t entirely music from the eighties, there was enough to keep me interested.  And, how they incorporated all the lines and phrases from different songs was nothing short of genius.  Let’s also not forget how incredible the movie looked.  There’s were some pretty impressive sets here (elephant), and some even more impressive production numbers.  I was quite surprised to discover just how talented a singer and dancer both Nichole Kidman, and Ewan McGregor were.  Nichole was never one of my favorite actresses, but in this role, she did win me over.

If you’ve never seen either of these movies, and like to watch movies online, your in for a bit of a treat.   Another move that has some great music in it, would be the movie Dirty Dancing.  Here’s one I enjoy watching over and over.  While the movie is great, the story and characters are what really hold everything together.  From the starting roles, down to the smallest bit roles, this is a move that obviously enjoyed some great direction and production.  The fact that the music soundtrack went on to being on of the biggest movie soundtrack sellers of all time says something for how good the music is as well.  While it’s not a musical type movie, the Tooth Fairy (2010) movie just stuck in my head.  It’s kind of random I know, maybe because I was thinking of one of Julie Andrews famous musicals that it just jumped out.

And, here’s one more oldie but goldie movie to check out.  All That Jazz by Bob Fossee from back in 1979.  I know, just prior to the eighties, but I must confess to it being one of the movies that got me going with the musical movie genre.

A few months ago, we were having a nice dinner with a few friends at a nice Mexican restaurant, celebrating Brians birthday.  It was a fun family dinner with the other family.  Everyone was there, except our oldest 15 year old daughter, who had a prior commitment.  We were taken quite by surprise, when they mentioned how much they had enjoyed our daughters piano performance they had viewed on YouTube.  At least they were pretty sure it was our daughter, as how you could see where the hands and the piano keys in the video.  She was playing a song that was rumored to be used in the upcoming Twilight movie by some Japanese performer.  I forget the actual title right now, but that’s kind of irrelevant.

Needless to say, both my wife and I were pretty surprised, as we didn’t know that my daughter even had a YouTube account, let alone was posting videos of herself.  Now this was kind of good and bad.  First of all, my wife was pretty apprehensive as she’s a bit paranoid when it comes to the internet, especially concerning her children.  Me not as much.  But the good thing seemed to be that she was taking an interest in playing piano again, which in my mind is always a good thing.  Anyway, we went home and checked it out.  Found it on YouTube, and gave it a listen.  It was really quite good.  We were both impressed, and so did many of the commenters who had listened to the video.  It had already been viewed like 30,00+ times.  Makes a dad proud doesn’t it?

Anyway, we talked to her about it, and she was even more surprised that we found out about it, then we were when told about it by friends.  Apparently, she had found some free sheet music online, and taught it to herself.  Then she proceeded to record it, and post it online.  It was pretty cool I thought.  Nice to see her playing piano again as well.  I even tried to get her to learn some Radio Head sheet music I also found online.  That didn’t seem to interest her as much, so I left her to find her own stuff she liked playing.  I think eventually she took the video down, as I kept showing it to so many friends and family, she was getting embarrassed by all the attention.  In the end though, I thought it was nice to see how the internet can be a valuable resource for kids.

I think, I was in my thirties, when I started listening to music that wasn’t part of the North American pop music scene.  I believe they call it world music.  At least that’s the commonly used genre title used by most music writers and critics.  I don’t know, if it took me that look to get bored with Western music, or I just discovered it through some other path.  It could have been reggae, that pulled me away from the mainstream stuff most of my peers were listening to.  I know I go some strange looks and comments, when I started listening to this stuff. But, only you know what kind of music you really like.

This was of course, long before the internet, so it wasn’t as easy to just find good world music anywhere.  Now with the internet, you can get samples of all sorts of music to try before you buy.  Maybe a little ancient greek music ( αρχαία ελληνική μουσική ) would be something you enjoyed.  I think, what I liked most about world music, was the variety of different rhythms they employed.  I was brought up as a drummer, in a family of drummers (four boys and dad).  Most music you hear on radio stations these days is pretty cookie cutter stuff.  My the time I got to a certain age, I was ready from something new.

Not only rhythm, but acoustical and flamenco guitar was something that seem more prevalent  in world music like traditional greek music ( παραδοσιακή ελληνική μουσική ) for example.  I think what’s important to take away from here, is to take time to explore things a little.  Like your mom always said when you were a kid, “How do you know you don’t like it, if you never tried it?”.  Sorry Mom, I still don’t like steamed carrots.  But seriously, it never hurts to listen to music from all over the world.  African, Jamaican, Russian, Greek, French, Spanish, or whatever other country may tickle your fancy.

Sure, I know I write a lot about the great bands from the eighties here, but that doesn’t mean I’m a Luddite when it comes to other worldly stuff.  I like variety as much as the next guy.  And you probably do to, even if you’d never admit.  The beauty of getting hooked on Greek or other world music, is that no one else ever needs to know.  You can just squirrel it all away on your iPod under lock and key.  When your plugged into the headphones with the music cranked it’ll be our little secret.

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Much of the music from the 80s was characterized by the synthesizer, a device, usually in the form of a

I’m definitely a big fan of music from the eighties, as I’m sure you can tell, if you’ve spent any time reading this blog at all.  That’s totally understandable, when you consider, that those were my formative years growing up.  While I do believe, that the eighties provided some of the best music and musicians of theirs and others generations, I do listen to plenty of other music.  You know how the saying goes.  The more you love music, the more music you love.  Depending on the mood I’m in, I’ll listen to just about any kind of music.  At one time I wouldn’t listen to country, but that genre has changed so much, I do enjoy it as well.  About the only thing I won’t listen to, is opera.  I just haven’t managed to get my head wrapped around that one.

Lately, I’ve been kind of hooked into trance music.  It’s one I’d heard of in the past, but never really paid much attention to it.  Again, I think it really comes down to what your in the mood for.  I’m playing some right now, while I write this post, and I find it pretty motivating while I write.  It sort of just  gets you in the mood to move.  This is not the kind of music for lazy casual surfing.  You can listen to trance music yourself if you want to give it a try.  I’m a drummer, and played a lot from the time I was ten till about twenty one.  It’s still in my blood, and I can’t help but play along while listening to it.

If your looking to learn a little bit more about this interesting genre, then like anything else on the web, it’s always a great idea to talk to others.  A trance forum, is a good place to start.  I used to think trance was all just pounding bass with some  synthesizer thrown in to keep it interesting for the dance floor club.  But, the stuff I like also has some interesting vocal stuff going on.  Not really words so much, but more like Enya or Tangerine Dream kind of mystical floating stuff.  That’s my favorite.  Some of the vocals are actual words, and that’s cool too, but I really like the other stuff.

Or perhaps, I should say the lack of fashion.  Ha!  I am of the age, where musicians that at one time seemed ultra cool, look incredibly dorky twenty years later.  Or at least, my kids would have be believe so.  MTV seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it just means those musicians and all that spandex are now preserved for all posterity.  And for my kids instant disapproval at the fact that I actually listened to these guys.  Big hair and spandex were a kind of cool combination at one time.  I think?  Now a days, your more likely to see Hedley wearing a Bentley timepiece copy then getting my kids to watch some of my favorite old rock videos.

I guess, it is really a generational thing.  I know, that when I was rocking out to Van Halen, Rush, and Triumph, there was a certain amount of disdain for the generation of hit makers that came before them from my generation.  Now most of those stars made so much money, they didn’t need to wear fake chronographs, not that I would have noticed much anyway.  I was really more into the music, then what my favorite musican was wearing.  I suppose that’s why I liked Phil Collins a lot more than Duran Duran.  I know it sounds a little pretentious, but who cares what a musician wears, or who they sleep with, so long as their music is great.

Although I suppose I shouldn’t get myself all to high and mighty.  As looks did matter somewhat to me.  The look of the album covers anyway.  I would be found guilty of buying more than one record album, because the artwork looked pretty amazing.  Sometimes, even without hearing a single song.  But hey, I also bought my first sailboat without ever having sailed before, so I suppose there was some precedence there.  Anyway, it’s not like I was the first to buy carbon copies when they came onto the market.

I still believe, that it’s the music that should come first and foremost.  Even though I loved MTV from the first day it hit the air, it wasn’t really about what the artists were wearing, as much as it was about visualizing the music that I loved so much.  The little movies accompanying the song were pretty cool.  Don’t even get me going on the whole Micheal Jackson thriller video.  That’s an entire post (or blog) in and of itself.