The Whole Music Experience

Wikipedia image (Here is another excerpt from my book Whole Music (Soul Food for the Mind Body Spirit ), the chapter on classical music). Date with Immortals: Western Classical Music European classical composers represent the stuff of legends.  These immortal musicians traipsed through the centuries landing in the digital age.  Would classical composers capture our imagination if movie makers had not recreated their lives?  Would we have fallen in love with the classics if Mozart had not landed on the big screen played by quirky Tom Hulse or if Gary Oldman had not rendered our beloved Beethoven and unraveled the German composer’s mysterious romantic life? We knew that the biographical pictures gazed mainly at the personalities behind the music, while tossing sound bites of the composers’ music at viewers.  Lush eye-candy grabbed our attention while we learned little about the actual music.  What is classical music? Why have we add...

Excerpt from Whole Music The Practice: Musical Treasure Hunt Similar to treasure hunts from our childhood, I’m going to send you on a music treasure hunt in which the pleasures are many.  Pretend that you are a song catcher visiting other cultures where you collect new sounds. While I mentioned sound healers earlier, another important player with music preservation are ethnomusicologists who combine cultural anthropology with music preservation.  Two famous song catchers are the late Alan Lomax, and the world beat drummer Mickey Hart.  I recommend learning more about these song catchers through books, and documentaries. 1) Step One-- Head over to YouTube, and look up the following music traditions: ·          Aboriginal Didgeridoo ·          Finnish Runo-Songs (Traditional singer) ·          Gregorian chants · ...