Category: music

*Really* Getting Inside The Music: Brian Eno Creates Immersive 3-D Music Installations

“Little colored bubbles float ever higher, growing larger as they rise toward the sky. People drift into a circle of six towering screens, wearing high-tech 3-D holographic visors, like moon-walkers taking their first steps in an alien atmosphere. They reach out their arms and use their thumbs and forefingers to pinch the air in front of them. Each time they do, new bubbles appear, and each one emits a single, precise musical tone. The tones combine and dissipate; there is the sound of crickets chirping, and waves of white noise. This is Bloom: Open Space.”

Bomb Threat Cancels A Concert In Austin, At SXSW

Austin, which has been struck by a series of handmade bombs in the last few weeks, is on edge, so when the promotion company Live Nation said it had gotten an emailed bomb threat, the police took it seriously. They “scoured the area around the Fair Market venue, where a ‘Bud Light x The Roots & Friends Jam’ showcase was scheduled for that evening, and found no threat. But Bud Light opted to cancel the event.” A suspect for the threat (but not for the other bombs) was later arrested.

The Historical Information About Racism, Anti-Catholicism, And Much More Encoded In Old Folk Songs

Oh: “‘Southern folk music’s overwhelming dominance — for all its championing by non-Southern liberals — also subtly reinforces the ‘heritage not hate’ defenses of the Confederate flag and other antebellum and pre–civil rights nostalgia,’ Josh Garrett-Davis, the Gamble assistant curator at the Autry Museum of the American West, wrote recently. This cultural rebranding began after the North withdrew its troops, and the South, in destroying the apparatus of Northern occupation, played down slavery, and played up history and states’ rights.”

A New Opera Confronts The My Lai Massacre, And Its Long Shadow

It’s been 50 years since the massacre, and since Hugh Thompson and his helicopter crew stopped it from being far worse. Now, as the opera plays around the country, traditional Vietnamese instrument expert Van-Anh Vanessa Vo explains why it’s so important. “As a child in Hanoi, Vietnam, Vo learned about the My Lai Massacre in school and uses instruments made out of old artillery shells in the opera, which she described as a memorial to the murdered civilians as well as Thompson and his crew.”

Where Is Pop Music’s MeToo Movement?

They tried to have a panel about it during SXSW. But even the panel showed the problem: “Issues surrounding sexual harassment and misconduct are one of the greatest challenges facing not only the entertainment business but the culture at large. Yet the single most topical panel at SXSW, an event that attracts more than 70,000 registered attendees over its 10-day run, was relegated to one of the Austin Convention Center’s smaller meeting rooms.” And most attendees of SXSW were at booze-fueled parties at the same time. What’s next?

Technology Is Ruining Music

Not in the way you might expect, though. “Everyone seems so excited by the fact that music is more accessible, people can find new artists more easily and it’s cheaper, without focusing on the potential negatives, not least of which is that idiots can more easily listen to your favourite music.”

Opera Singers Need Gowns, But Opera Students Don’t Have Money. Here’s One Solution

Basically, women with money donate gowns, and the students at Juilliard get to go “shopping” when the racks of designer wear come in. The students “are expected to be outfitted in fancy attire at their many auditions and performances, as well as at galas and parties. These singers try to avoid being photographed in the same ensemble twice.”