Thursday, July 27, 2023

What am I doing here? New music that is old. Thoughts on our National Game.

Once again, a long time has passed since my last entry. Yes, I have been busy....but I just don't know what I want this Blog to be...or do...anymore. It was so easy at first, in 2014, when I started. Classical music. Write about and share classical music. But nine years later, I feel like I have run out of things to say about classical music. And it has felt very formulaic too; tell you about a piece of music and share a link to a video on YouTube. So what am I going to do?

I am going to keep going. Music will still be the focus, but I will open up to other topics too. I love to write. Sadly, too many people no longer like or find time to read. But screw it....I am still here.

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I love discovery and learning. Today, a video popped up on YouTube that caught my eye:


I have never heard of Cal Tjader...until today. But I recognized the album cover:

This is a CD from my collection. I am very familiar with Debussy...but Cal is new, so I took a listen and really enjoyed it. I then went to Amazon Music and searched for more music from Cal Tjader and found a ton of it. He was a jazz musician, primarily a vibraphonist. So today has been a day of musical exploration thanks to some algorithm at YouTube. I also learned about another new (well old but new to me) artist that I will talk about in my next post. Stay tuned!

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I did watch the MLB All-Star Game a couple of weeks ago. What stood out to me was how uninteresting it was...to me at least. And I figured out why. When I was a kid, there was no interleague play. The only time the AL and NL met was in the All-Star Game and the World Series. These were the only times the great players and teams from each league faced off against each other, and it was exciting to see. Now, they play each other every week. I think interleague play has been a good thing overall by creating natural rivalries and such, but it has diminished both the All-Star Game and the World Series, in my opinion.