The rapper put out his "P. S. A." on Instagram and held his breath for 10 seconds to prove that he is healthy. Unfortunately, holding one's breath is NOT A TEST for the Coronavirus but his message for everyone to "stay safe" came across. The artist then proceeded to hold his breath. "No coughing," Snoop triumphantly declared after his exhale. I mean... we already knew he had strong lungs because he smokes like a chimney.
The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. They are a sort of time capsule.
In the mid-twentieth century, Satie’s music mesmerized John Cage, who saw it as a challenge not merely to extant harmony but to the very idea of musical form. Cage took a special liking to a short, gnomic, harmonically directionless 1893 piece called “Vexations,” at the beginning of which Satie wrote, “To play this motif eight hundred forty times in a row, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, through serious immobilities.” In 1963, Cage took that instruction at face value, organizing an epic performance in which a rotating team of pianists repeated “Vexations” for nearly nineteen hours. Because “Vexations” belongs to Satie’s Rosicrucian period, the Guggenheim will stage its own daylong marathon, in September. Having attended a “Vexations” event some years back, I can advise prospective listeners that they may experience hallucinations of the Sphinx before the performance is done. (via)
Chief Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye MFR (born 1946), is a Nigerian jùjú singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is regarded as one of the first African pop musicians to gain international success, and has been called one of the most influential musicians of all time.
Haruna Ishola Bello M.O.N. (Member of the Order of the Niger) was a Nigerian musician, and one of the most popular artists in the apala genre. In the decades leading up to Nigerian independence in 1960, apala music developed when amateur musicians would play to arouse the faithful after the long fast of Ramadan.
Much like Cuban Santeria and Haitian vodoun, the music of Nigeria's Yoruba tribe is believed to have mythical powers, either to heal or to curse. Chief Haruna Ishola's brand of Apala music is treated with the same reverence typically reserved for the Orishas - the Yoruba pantheon of deities - and it was believed that his singing was so powerful it could kill its intended recipient if not properly restrained. (source)
"The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consistent and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese." — Frank Zappa
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony." - Thomas Merton
David M. Solomon, the current CEO of Goldman Sachs, produces electronic dance music (EDM) records under the stage name DJ D-Sol. He has performed at nightclubs and music festivals around New York, Miami, and The Bahamas. He released his debut single, "Don't Stop" with an extended version on Spotify in June 2018. (wikipedia)
Musica Universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon & planets—as a form of music. This "music" is not thought to be audible, but rather a harmonic, mathematical or religious concept.
"The Obstacle Is The Path..." - "Existence Is Not About Learning To Accept Reality, But Rather Remembering Your Power To Create It" - "Be Strong Enough To Stand Alone = Be Yourself Enough To Stand Apart. But Be Wise Enough To Stand Together When The Time Comes." - Chief Yagbe Awolowo Onilu
Shekere: In Nigeria, the very large beaded calabash is called an “Agbe,” medium size calabash “Shekere“, and small size “Akese.” Traditionally the ensemble is owned and played only by professional musicians.
In Cuba the chekeré is also known as Aggué (Abwe) or simply Guiro.
In Brazil, this African gourd rattle is called a Xequerê. It consists of the gourd (Cabaça) cut in the middle and then wrapped in a net in which beads or small plastic balls are threaded. The Afoxé is a similar, smaller instrument.
"In early China, conceptions of music became important culturally and politically. This fascinating book examines a wide range of texts and discourse on music during this period (ca. 500–100 BCE) in light of the rise of religious, protoscientific beliefs on the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. By tracking how music began to take on cosmic and religious significance, Erica Fox Brindley shows how music was used as a tool for such enterprises as state unification and cultural imperialism. She also outlines how musical discourse accompanied the growth of an explicit psychology of the emotions, served as a fundamental medium for spiritual attunement with the cosmos, and was thought to have utility and potency in medicine. While discussions of music in state ritual or as an aesthetic and cultural practice abound, this book is unique in linking music to religious belief and demonstrating its convergences with key religious, political, and intellectual transformations in early China."
"The Book of Rites, also known as the Liji, is a collection of texts describing the social forms, administration, and ceremonial rites of the Zhou dynasty as they were understood in the Warring States and the early Han periods. The Book of Rites is a diverse collection of texts of varied but uncertain origin & date.
During the reign of Qin Shihuang, many of the Confucian classics were destroyed during the 213 BC "Burning of the Books." However, the Qin dynasty collapsed within the decade: Confucian scholars who had memorized the classics or hid written copies recompiled them in the early Han dynasty. The Book of Rites was said to have been fully reconstructed, but the Classic of Music could not be recompiled and fragments principally survive in the "Record of Music" (Yueji) chapter of the Book of Rites."
Chinese Ancient Music
Ancient Music Of Tang Dynasty
Chinese Ancient Music: Wild Goose on the Peaceful Beach
“If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.” - Confucius
Conclusion: "Music is in fact universal: It exists in every society (both with and without words), varies more within than between societies, regularly supports certain types of behavior, and has acoustic features that are systematically related to the goals and responses of singers and listeners. But music is not a fixed biological response with a single prototypical adaptive function: It is produced worldwide in diverse behavioral contexts that vary in formality, arousal, and religiosity. Music does appear to be tied to specific perceptual, cognitive, and affective faculties, including language (all societies put words to their songs), motor control (people in all societies dance), auditory analysis (all musical systems have signatures of tonality), and aesthetics (their melodies and rhythms are balanced between monotony and chaos). These analyses show how applying the tools of computational social science to rich bodies of humanistic data can reveal both universal features and patterns of variability in culture, addressing long-standing debates about each."