• If you haven't done so already, please add a location to your profile. This helps when people are trying to assist you, suggest resources, etc. Thanks

What else do you listen to?

Status
Not open for further replies.

knobby

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Apr 30, 2013
Messages
722
Reaction score
342
Location
Derbyshire, UK
So I assume that as we all play (or, certainly in my case, are trying to learn to play) the accordion that at least a little of the music we listen to is accordion or accordion based.
But what other type of music do you regularly listen to and enjoy? If you were putting some music on at home to listen to / dance around to / do the housework to, what would it be?
For me it would be EDM, or more specifically Deep House. As an example:

 
Listening to Derrick Hodge “Color of Noize” on Blue Note. Jefferson Starship’s new single “It’s About Time.”
 
My favourite for the last year or two has been Cigarettes After Sex

I would love to be able to play a some version of K or Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby, but it probably requires a V-Accordion and way more skill than I've got.


There is however quite a good piano version
 
Last edited:
So I assume that as we all play (or, certainly in my case, are trying to learn to play) the accordion that at least a little of the music we listen to is accordion or accordion based.
But what other type of music do you regularly listen to and enjoy? If you were putting some music on at home to listen to / dance around to / do the housework to, what would it be?

You mean that there are other musical instruments besides the accordion? ;);)
Who could have guessed?
Oh, but of course, there is the accordina... and sometimes I do like drums (mostly triangle and timpani).

Actually, I do listen to other instruments, mostly ensembles and orchestras, to decide which music to arrange for accordion and accordion ensembles!
 
Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert....
 
I will listen to and be entertained by all performances of contemporary, Jazz, classical. and nationality music if played correctly.
You see with some listening "Good Music Isn't As Bad As It Sounds" !!
 
I will listen to and be entertained by all performances of contemporary, Jazz, classical. and nationality music if played correctly.
You see with some listening "Good Music Isn't As Bad As It Sounds" !!
Duke Ellington supposedly said, "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad."
 
I like a fairly broad range. Contemporary favourites are Pink Martini, Marc Almond and Tom Waits, but I also like standard vocal jazz from the 30s and 40s along with Bach, Schubert, Liszt, and my favourite opera composer is Verdi...
 
Chet Baker..... Unless i wanna imagine something for accordion then my ears turn to the great hammond players like Jimmy Smith, Richard Groves Holmes, Jimmy McDuff etc... Then when I'm exhausted more Chet Baker....
 
Hmmmmmm ....... This is a generational thing; or at least I think it is. I love many genres of music, though my roots are firmly in English Folk Music.

Cigarettes after sex has a certain appeal, and I can confirm that I have had cigarettes both before and after sex, but never during. Ahh, happy memories.

Thinking about it a little more, I love popular music from the beginning of the last century up to the 1970's, after which time I lost interest. I am also very fond of forgotten songs, especially funny ones. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band wrote and performed many hilarious songs, most of which can still be heard on youtube.

Kind Regards,

Stephen.
 
Thinking about this, I really don't listen to a lot of music because I am generally working, playing music or reading. When I do play music it's almost always my favorite band which plays Italian dance music. I listen to books generally when I work, drive, etc. If I do put on other music, it's generally when I am doing something with my wife and it's usually jazz, classic rock, motown, like that.
 
Like the other Tom above I generally spend more time playing music than I do listening to it. That has got more noticeable as I shifted to doing most of my work at home, which was changing before the Virus. Most of my listening tended to be while driving.

My wife and I both like BBC Radio 3 so that's mainly classical plus other "non-commercial." Apart from that, a particular interest at the moment is 1930s-40s swing/Dance Band music and trad jazz. That's partly connected with learning clarinet.

To name one favourite band at the moment - Tuba Skinny - for example
(Inc the couple dancing down the street from about 35 seconds.)
 
I listen to all kinds of music. I photograph live performances of symphony orchestras, chamber music, jazz, ballet, and modern dance (and the occasional poet, clown, daredevil, juggler), so I hear a wide variety there. At home I am currently listening to a lot of accordion, bandoneon, and accordina. My favorites on those those are Julien Labro, Richard Galliano, Daniel Mille, and Olivier Manuory. I can still play a little bit of classical guitar and lute, so I listen to those, too. Guitarist Jason Vieaux and Julien Labro play together often, so I get a two for one when listening to them.
 
Mostly "traditional" or folky stuff. Heavy on the French and Breton The Corries, some Irish, Bluegrass old timey mountain music kind of thing. Some classical. No jazz, pop or rock, though. I started listening Mike Oldfield again quite recently, is that sort of music prog-rock or something that transcends genres. His latest piece Return to Ommadawn is exquisite.
 
Partly it depends where I am. In my studio (making art), I like instrumental, off-centre music. I go through phases - it'll be piano jazz for a week (a favourite is the album 'Jazz pa Svenska' by Jan Johansson (that's the English title, the original nameis different), jazz piano interpretations of traditional Swedish tunes), or I'll binge on Philip Glass and nothing but (that went on for three weeks during the lockdown, accompanying some very dystopian artwork). Today I listened to my latest purchase twice: 'Minne' by Milla Villjämaa, a Finnish piano & harmonium player who has also duetted with accordionist Johanna Juhola.

When I drive, I prefer slightly easier listening, e.g. shorter tunes stuff on the edge of folk music, perhaps influenced by minimalism or rock or jazz... A lot of my favourites feature bagpipes, of course - English, German, French or Swedish pipes, never Great Highland.

Mike Oldfield was one of my earliest favourites by the way, and started my love of minimalism!
 
As a teenager I listened to Oldfield over and over again. There was something in his music that just hit the spot for me, and then in my mid twenties I stopped. Other tastes, other interests and so on. But just after lockdown started I bought the remixed versions of Tubular Bells and Ommadawn, in a flash I was 16 again...Return to Ommadawn does not disappoint at all. The remix of Hergest Ridge and Inncantation are on my to get list.
Somewhere on Tubular Bells is a Chinese 32 bass accordion.
I've never really thought of Oldfield as a minimalist.
 
Hmmmmmm ....... This is a generational thing; or at least I think it is. I love many genres of music, though my roots are firmly in English Folk Music.

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band wrote and performed many hilarious songs, most of which can still be heard on youtube.

Kind Regards,

Stephen.

I confess to having been an aspiring folk singer back in the sixties. I even got to sing from the floor in the Jug O’ Punch club in Birmingham and Bunjies in London. Then life took over. Took up various free reed instruments in retirement. Now struggling to play the c-system CBA reasonably competently before my number’s up.

I tend to divide music into those pieces I have some prospect of learning to play for my own amusement, and those which I listen to with awestruck wonder and the mordant realisation that I shall never approach in this life. I’d love to be able to play Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven. But I won’t see 70 again, and time, and my talents, are growing limited.

Oh! And I have the collected works of the Bonzos on a 3 cd collection. “Adolf Hitler on vibes.... Mmmmmm, nice!”
 
Hi Chris,

I am also North of 70, so fully understand the selection process you employ for learning new tunes. My cousin had a folk group in the early sixties, and I would put in the occasional guest performance with them. There was a folk revival going on at the time, so we were often to be found in local folk clubs.

My instrument back then was the Clarinet which, though not a traditional folk instrument, performed very nicely in that role. I joined the Army in '65, and was kept very busy sorting out the problems that the politicians were unable to solve diplomatically. Marriage, children and mortgages followed a little later, so folk music took a back seat.

Glad that you like the "Bonzos"

Kind Regards,

Stephen.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top