Ear-worms, Redux

I often wake up in the morning with music in my head. I don't always notice it right away.  I can go for hours with music on replay in my head before I realize what I'm doing.  Sometimes I also realize I can't identify what I've been hearing and let me tell you, that drives me nuts.

You would think that if it's a Led Zeppelin song - which it generally is - that I would immediately recognize it. But sometimes it's just a short musical phrase that's become an ear-worm through repetition. Sometimes there are no lyrics involved and I just cannot for the life of me pinpoint which song it's from. Not that lyrics would help.

I've said it before: I'm not into lyrics (I'm not into poetry either and I don't apologize for it). Not only do I not pay attention to the words of a song, I usually don't even understand them when I do pay attention. When it comes to music, words are simply musical sounds, like the notes of a guitar. This means that even if what I'm hearing in my head over and over and over has got a vocal line, I still don't always know what the words are.

I know, craziness. But truly, I hear the words as musical sounds, and I just can't put meaning to the words unless I really work to reconstruct them.

It would be so much easier if I could carry a tune. I've tried singing the melodic streams out loud. The dogs howl. The horses flee. Heck, I don't want to listen to that noise. 

I don't really care, anyway. There just doesn't seem to be a cross-over for me between music and words. Music communicates in a different way than words do. These ear-worms really bring home to me how the two come from different places in the brain - and the soul.

Meanwhile, when I stopped fretting over it the name of the song popped right into my head.

Ten Years Gone
Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes, Live at the Greek

Physical Graffiti remaster - disc 2

I shall play me the songs of my people.  Geez, those boys were fun, weren't they?

These are my random thoughts upon first listening to the second disc of the Physical Graffiti remaster. 

♪  There is nothing to be said about the songs themselves, really. They aren't new:  I've been hearing them since 1975. Other people love them or don’t, but for me they are still the songs that fed my soul as a young adult. Now they are here again, freshened, more immediate and intense than ever. As relevant as ever. And maybe tastier than ever before.

♪  The question is how did these incredible musicians create so many songs that are so completely unique – not just different from other bands’ music, but each one unique in the body of Led Zeppelin’s own work?

♪  It is a tribute to Jimmy Page that I am hearing nuances to the instruments I haven’t heard, or at least noticed, before. Clarity. Immediacy. Darts to the heart. The remasters are worth every penny just for this.

♪  JPJ comes in with a bass line that punches through my gut and shakes me to the core. It’s not a new thing, but it’s just devastating.

♪  I swear some of these songs sound like different versions than the original versions. They aren't. It just seems that so much more is revealed that they sound new to me. Some songs I have fallen out of listening to now spring back to the forefront of desirability.

♪  Wish there had been more Stu over Led Zeppelin’s career.

♪  Love the giggle and the segue to the plane, the whole whimsy of leaving it in. It's like sitting on a stool with them right there.

♪  No wonder I don’t like to listen to this music in public. I can’t control myself - gotta move, gotta wiggle, gotta shake and rock and roll. I'm a pod person taken over by Led Zeppelin!

♪  Geez, I’ve got this goofy grin stretched across my face and tears in my eyes. Madness, this music! Blissful madness.

♪  This disc #2 of Physical Graffiti is less air and more earth. Fairy dust is earth, right? Music as play. Music as a way to express the sheer joy and electric energy of fully-experienced life.

♪  Oh, oh, oh – that guitar slices right through, doesn’t it?

♫

Rats, dumped right back into the real world again.

Lif Strand: The Land That Enchants Me

Lif Strand: The Land That Enchants Me: New Mexico is the Land of Enchantment. There is Magick to be found everywhere in the world, but it's easier to connect when you're in the right place at the right time.

Physical Graffiti remaster - disc 1

These are a few of my reactions upon listening to just disc 1 of the Physical Graffiti remaster.

The clarity of sound is the greatest gift of these remasters, from Jimmy Page to the world.

As a guitarist, Jimmy Page at this point is beautifully balanced between technical brilliance and creative inspiration.

Such vast musical concepts, reaching into realms beyond what mere physical ears can perceive.

This remaster gives more and more, if one wishes to hear it.

Mr. Jones holding unbending in the winds of Magick. Bonzo driving hard, relentlessly shoving us to the other side.

Can anyone ever fully grasp the excellence of this music? No, for it keeps revealing more and more over time.

This was back in the day when Robert could still lose himself in the music, unabashedly giving his all. Heeding the master’s call.

Trampling right over us on the way to primal connection, leviathans calling to each other in the deep. If there is anything NOT being talked about here, it’s love, the thing of romance. We’re talking about sex magick.

The camels patiently plod through the hot sand as the music weaves time and space to set us on the road to god. Having done all possible to get us there, it is up to us to take the next step.

♫

One disc, that's all I can handle at a time.  This is not merely music, you know.  It’s Magick distilled through sound.

Jimmy Page: Sound Tracks links

Tracks and links to music clips

LUCIFER RISING

1 Lucifer Rising - Main Title 20:32
2 Incubus 01:45
3 Damask 02:03
4 Unharmonics 02:06
5 Damask - Ambient 02:05
6 Lucifer Rising - Percussive Return 03:21

LUCIFER RISING - THE SECOND COMING

1 Lucifer Rising Early Mix 18:59
2 Sonic Textures 1 - Earth 04:33
3 Sonic Textures 2 - Air 03:02
4 Sonic Textures 3 - Fire 01:45
5 Sonic Textures 4 - Water 01:05
6 Sonic Textures 5 - Ether 01:04


DEATH WISH II

1 Who's To Blame 02:41
2 The Chase 05:50
3 City Sirens 02:01
4 Jam Sandwich 02:35
5 Carole's Theme 02:50
6 The Release 02:36
7 Hotel Rats and Photostats 02:46
8 A Shadow In The City 04:02
9 Jill's Theme 04:00
10 Prelude 02:20
11 Hypnotizing Ways 02:48
12 Main Title 02:44


DEATH WISH II - EXPANSION

1 Jill's Orchestral Theme 04:04
2 Alternate Jill's Theme 01:26
3 9M1 02:07
4 City Sirens 02:00
5 Baby I Miss You So 03:12
6 Hey Mama / Swinging Sax 03:13
7 Carole's Theme - Strings 01:25
8 Prelude 02:13
9 Country Sandwich 02:37
10 A Minor Sketch 05:24

Info on ordering from Jimmy Page's website

JIMMY PAGE: SOUND TRACKS

JIMMY PAGE: SOUND TRACKS

Text from the Jimmy Page website

Introducing Sound Tracks by Jimmy Page: a special edition box set bringing together JP’s extraordinary compositions for the films Lucifer Rising and Death Wish II along with additional archive material for the first time.

The quadruple box set is available to pre-order now and new discs Lucifer Rising: The Second Coming and Death Wish II: Expansion include rare, never-before-heard tracks.

Recorded at Jimmy's home studio in Plumpton and The Sol studio in Cookham in the late seventies and early eighties, Sound Tracks features an all-new booklet containing a written track-by-track insight by Jimmy Page for the archive material amidst a stunning collection of original artwork across 36 pages.

Available to pre-order now, Sound Tracks will be released on Friday, March 06 2015.

There are three versions of Sound Tracks available to pre-order now:

4 x CD Edition
4 x Vinyl Edition
Signed Deluxe Edition [Mage Music note:  Limited to 109 copies, selected by ballot]

http://www.jimmypage.com/news/jimmy-page-sound-tracks

Good vibrations

There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres.
~ Pythagoras

Cymatics is the study of visible sound vibration.  The word derives from the Greek 'kyma' meaning 'billow' or 'wave,' to describe the periodic effects that sound and vibration have on matter.

Here's some food for thought from collective-evolution.com on why you might want to convert your music to a different frequency. The post isn't the only place with info about the notion that maybe you could be getting even more out of your music, but it's a good place to start.

From the website:

"... musical frequencies can alter our own vibrational state. Every expression through sound, emotion or thought holds a specific frequency which influences everything around it—much like a single drop of water can create a larger ripple effect in a large body of water.

"With this concept in mind, let us bring our attention to the frequency of the music we listen to. Most music worldwide has been tuned to A=440 Hz since the International Standards Organization (ISO) promoted it in 1953. However, when looking at the vibratory nature of the universe, it’s possible that this pitch is disharmonious with the natural resonance of nature and may generate negative effects on human behaviour and consciousness."

No wonder so many of us are fascinated by electronic music visualizers.  They aren't the same thing as cymatic visual patterns but we intuitively know that it's the right direction.

Here's a tutorial on how to go about changing the frequency of the music you listen to. It gives instructions for using Audacity (free) and Adobe Audition (paid).  Note that if you're using Audacity, you will want to look at a second video to learn how to create lossless audio files.  Note also that you can try Adobe Audition with a free trial.