Talk About Tennis 2.0

Cuckoo4Coco wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 12:57 am...
and we all listen to our different stuff...

That would have been unthinkable for us. We had one stereo (later two because I got my own for my room) so we had to share it and, therefore, we had to take turns. So, when my older sister got into Earth, Wind and Fire, we had to discover it and enjoy it. I tortured my family with The Wall on a routine basis. My older brother kept us informed of the 60's stuff, and my grandmother would come to visit and it was classical music.
How much things have changed. But again, it is my antediluvian ways; I simply cannot envision paying for music on demand. I want MY cd's. MY Lp's. I like to see them there.
(I had my LP's lined up so I could find the one I wanted even in the dark. No need to turn on the lights when I was in my teenage-broody moods).

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:13 am

Cuckoo4Coco wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 12:57 am...
and we all listen to our different stuff...

That would have been unthinkable for us. We had one stereo (later two because I got my own for my room) so we had to share it and, therefore, we had to take turns. So, when my older sister got into Earth, Wind and Fire, we had to discover it and enjoy it. I tortured my family with The Wall on a routine basis. My older brother kept us informed of the 60's stuff, and my grandmother would come to visit and it was classical music.
How much things have changed. But again, it is my antediluvian ways; I simply cannot envision paying for music on demand. I want MY cd's. MY Lp's. I like to see them there.
(I had my LP's lined up so I could find the one I wanted even in the dark. No need to turn on the lights when I was in my teenage-broody moods).

All of this stuff is on our phones as is just about everything. Teens and young people as you probably know pretty much have their phones attached to their hands at all times. I am really one of those teens except when I am on the tennis court.

Ponchi,

I remember the record stores well!! I used to go to the record stores on Tuesday's, that was the day when new releases came out. The first album I ever bought was Donna Summer's On The Radio, Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2 back in 1979. Still love her 'til this day.

Yes, it was a gathering place. You actually met people there. It was fun. And it was a great ice breaker. "Hey, I see you are buying that album by Tonino and The Peppercorns. How is it?"

I always become a little more sad whenever I hear of a teenager being attached to their phone...
sigh...

On the subject of how music gets to people...
Many musical artists from the '60s, '70s, and '80s hate what the music industry has become - and the 'music' that it produces now. It's all about popularity and style - not substance. And it's all so incredibly calculated, and is much more related to business and financial profit than it is to musical artistry and expression.

One of the artists who doesn't like the direction things have gone in is Shawn Phillips. He's a thinking person's musician who has always been very well respected by his peers. He wrote this song about the direction of the music industry.
(Warning - there are two 'swear words' in the song - but they pass by quickly!)

I've included the lyrics below the video...



Radio
(Shawn Phillips)

Why should I write the melody
That’ll bring you joy and make you free
Talking about the way you love,
The ups and downs and all thereof
Using my voice to tell you tales,
Or try to describe the ocean’s gales
Making a plea for sanity in a f***ed up world of vanity?

What is the point of something new, apart from the fact it’s just for you
You can be sure you’ll never know, or hear it on the radio
Out of your mind to let them say
What you want to hear be played today...
Why don’t you let them know that you’re dismayed?

Why should I make myself a jerk,
And keep on doing this arduous work...
Writing the songs that no one will hear,
Unless they are in the room so near
I never did what I thought was soap,
A graph on a chart with an upward slope
To make some attorney think he’s real,
Gotta go through him to make the deal...

What is the point of something new, apart from the fact it’s just for you
You can be sure you’ll never know, or hear it on the radio
Out of your mind to let them say
What you want to hear be played today...
Why don’t you let them know that you’re dismayed?

A song is a work that’ll last for time,
It’s more than a chant, or just a rhyme
You have to be able to learn to sing,
And that takes years of practicing
I don’t give a sh*t, and I’ll be blunt -
A turntable’s not an instrument
Controllable idiots all in a row,
Faking you out with their playback show...

What is the point of something new, apart from the fact it’s just for you
You can be sure you’ll never know, or hear it on the radio,
Out of your mind to let them say
What you want to hear be played today...
Why don’t you let them know that you’re dismayed?

Corporate greed has made your cage -
You gotta break out and act your age
Listen to music that’s only true,
Or you’ll never know what it does for you
Giving your money for nothing of worth
To shallower people of dubious mirth...

What is the point of something new, apart from the fact it’s just for you
You can be sure you’ll never know, or hear it on the radio,
Out of your mind to let them say
What you want to hear be played today...
Why don’t you let them know that you’re dismayed!

Deuce wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 3:26 am I always become a little more sad whenever I hear of a teenager being attached to their phone...
sigh...

I totally get that as I hear it from my mom all the time and she gets on me and my two brothers about having the phones attached to our hands all the time. Of course my brothers don't drive while using their phones or anything like that and actually they don't seem to have them as much as I do.My mom also has rules with me about the phone, especially when school is going on. Also there is no phone use while eating dinner for all of us. I just love texting with my friends which is what I do the most with my phone.

Cuckoo4Coco wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 3:38 am

Deuce wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 3:26 am I always become a little more sad whenever I hear of a teenager being attached to their phone...
sigh...

I totally get that as I hear it from my mom all the time and she gets on me and my two brothers about having the phones attached to our hands all the time. Of course my brothers don't drive while using their phones or anything like that and actually they don't seem to have them as much as I do.My mom also has rules with me about the phone, especially when school is going on. Also there is no phone use while eating dinner for all of us. I just love texting with my friends which is what I do the most with my phone.

Cell phones and the internet have had a devastating effect on interactive human communication. What passes for communication today is not real communication - it's simply a few typed sentences (usually with incorrect spelling) just skimming the surface of things. Very superficial stuff - because you can't get into profound matters via bloody text messages...
When E mails replaced telephone conversations, communication between people suffered. Then text messages replaced E mails, and communications became even worse.
People think they communicate more now with cell phones than they did before - but that's an illusion - people actually communicate much less of substance.

“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate…. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” - Henry Thoreau, ‘Walden’.

I totally agree with you. When I text though with my friends it is to make really small silly messages to each other. We don't really talk about important stuff over texts. If we have to talk about something important like homework or something like that we will make a phone call.

Cuckoo4Coco wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 4:41 am I totally agree with you. When I text though with my friends it is to make really small silly messages to each other. We don't really talk about important stuff over texts. If we have to talk about something important like homework or something like that we will make a phone call.

The problem is that many, many people (I'd say most) use text messaging (or whatsapp, instagram, twitter, facebook, etc.) as their absolute primary mode of communication.
But it's not communication - it's just gossip.
With all due respect to homework, when I say profound, meaningful, and/or serious communication, I mean talking about LIFE - hopes and fears, experiences, relationships, etc. People used to actually communicate and share deep feelings. Now, it's pretty much all superficial fluff and nonsense.

A lot of people are even afraid to talk on the phone today - because talking directly with someone requires immediate response - and, because of E mail and text messages and 'social media', people are so accustomed today to rehearse their responses before 'sending' them that they're like a deer in the headlights when they have to actually speak with someone directly in real time.

And don't get me started about the importance that people (of all ages!) put on the number of 'likes', 'views', 'followers', etc. they have, as they try to improve their 'social status'. It's all about quantity over quality. And it's all so incredibly hollow and superficial.

Deuce wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:38 am

Cuckoo4Coco wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 4:41 am I totally agree with you. When I text though with my friends it is to make really small silly messages to each other. We don't really talk about important stuff over texts. If we have to talk about something important like homework or something like that we will make a phone call.

The problem is that many, many people (I'd say most) use text messaging (or whatsapp, instagram, twitter, facebook, etc.) as their absolute primary mode of communication.
But it's not communication - it's just gossip.
With all due respect to homework, when I say profound, meaningful, and/or serious communication, I mean talking about LIFE - hopes and fears, experiences, relationships, etc. People used to actually communicate and share deep feelings. Now, it's pretty much all superficial fluff and nonsense.

A lot of people are even afraid to talk on the phone today - because talking directly with someone requires immediate response - and, because of E mail and text messages and 'social media', people are so accustomed today to rehearse their responses before 'sending' them that they're like a deer in the headlights when they have to actually speak with someone directly in real time.

And don't get me started about the importance that people (of all ages!) put on the number of 'likes', 'views', 'followers', etc. they have, as they try to improve their 'social status'. It's all about quantity over quality. And it's all so incredibly hollow and superficial.

Once again I agree with you and I think I learned the value of phones and Social Media and even though I still have it in my hand a lot and am checking tennis scores all the time, listen to music on it and texting my friends stupid things. I know when enough is enough or I know when mom says to put it down.

As a teen I don't know what I would really consider as meaningful conversation with my friends. Would that be talking about boys and relationships and stuff like that because for adults that wouldn't be very meaningful. As a teen I don't spend a lot of my time chatting on the phone about world issues. Yes I have talked about school shootings and stuff like that before with them and that stuff is important and I am also really big on the environment so sometimes that stuff comes up , but most of the time even when we talk we talk about movies, tv shows, or music, boys, school stuff and other stuff like that.

Social Media though is something that I do not follow much and if I do my mom filters a lot of it for me even with me being 16 years old. I had a friend who was bullied badly on FB and that really turned me off to Social Media.

The last thing you spoke of is so true and something that just adds to the whole aspect of I am better than you mentality. It comes down to a popularity contest really. When I had FB what really was weird to me is there were kids at my school who I really didn't know would send me friend requests. I was like why are they sending me a friend request when we are not friends in person at school? It was basically just to get as many friends as they could even though they were not really friends. It is pretty stupid. I am no longer on FB after my friend was bullied and I can really live without it. The likes I really don't mind as much because most people are liking the content of what someone is writing. I guess some people just like a post because it is the person who writes it , but most people and I think like with the system that is on here from what I have seen like what is posted and it doesn't matter who posts it. That to me is perfectly okay.

I miss record stores. You could get an hour or two out of the house by going there. The album covers were great too.

Some album covers were simply art.
A recording label, CTI, which was greatly involved with Jazz musicians, produced some of the greatest photographs for albums. Bob James' records were priceless in that aspect. Eumir Deodato's PRELUDE was a visual masterpiece. I can also remember Santana's CARAVANSERAI. An incredible shot of a camel and his rider atop a sand dune, at sunset.
Alan Parsons' TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION was an outstanding art design. A folding cover, it came with the entire lyrics in a booklet inside. The photographs were superb.
Others: THE WALL's artwork, by Gerard Scarfe. The artwork for WISH YOU WERE HERE. Those were the people from HIPGNOSIS, masters at album designs. Yes' CLOSE TO THE EDGE, and Rick Wakeman's NO EARTLY CONNECTION, which was a distorted photo; for you to see it, you needed to make a cylinder and place it on top of the center hole of the record, and then you could see the actual photo.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, with all the shots of famous people, and the hidden messages.
Wonder were all the artists involved in those productions went.

Just a few of the album covers from back in the day.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:02 pm










Just a few of the album covers from back in the day.

Those are really cool and that is something that is missed with these digital releases on the music apps.

Take a look at this cover: The photo was taken by Hideki Fujii, who took this striking shot of model/actress Sayoko Yamaguchi. Anybody with the most remote sense of photography marvels at this one. How was this man able to get the sharp contrast of the dark background (and model's hair), and then the vivid, sharp reds and white. Mind you, this album came out in 1977, so there is no photoshop or digital manipulation. Sure, it got worked in the lab, but the work was analog, not digital.
It is one thing that I would say really was unfortunate when we moved to CD's (the format, for obvious reasons, did not suit such investments in covers). And, most albums came with liner notes, elaborate pieces of literature describing the album. If you don't mind, I here copy the liner notes for Miles Davis' KIND OF BLUE, usually acknowledged to be one of the top five jazz albums of all times (and jazz aficionados get into some heavy, heavy discussions when talking about that list). The notes were written by Bill Evans, another immortal of jazz:

Improvisation In Jazz
By Bill Evans

There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment.

Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see will find something captured that escapes explanation. This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflection, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with a sure reference to the primary conception.

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

Although it is not uncommon for a jazz musician to be expected to improvise on new material at a recording session, the character of these pieces represents a particular challenge.

Briefly, the formal character of the five settings are: "So What" is a simple figure based on 16 measures of one scale, 8 of another and 8 more of the first, following a piano and bass introduction in free rhythmic style. "Freddie Freeloader" is a 12-measure blues form given new personality by effective melodic and rhythmic simplicity. "Blue In Green" is a l0-measure circular form following a 4-measure introduction, and played by soloists in various augmentation and diminution of time values. "All Blues" is a 6/8 12-measure blues form that produces its mood through only a few modal changes and Miles Davis' free melodic conception. "Flamenco Sketches" is a series of five scales, each to be played as long as the soloist wishes until he has completed the series.