Klezmer music
Music and Mental Health
"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast," wrote William Congreve in his 1697 play, "The Mourning Bride." It has been long known that music can have the power of soothing us when we are sad, anxious, angry, or otherwise upset. We seem to be instinctively drawn to particular music depending on our moods. The…
What’s That Sound? It’s a Theremin!
You're watching an old scary movie late at night and your hear a strange sound in the movie's soundtrack. How to describe it? Eerie, ethereal, down right spooky. It has almost a vocal quality. You think you may have heard it before, because it reminds you of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations". What in the…
Illustrated Songbooks, Part IV
This post is part of the Illustrated Songbooks series. Songbook Illustrated by Kate Greenaway A Day in A Child's Life, music by Myles Birket Foster and illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Kate Greenaway was an English illustrator who was born in 1846. She’s best known for her illustrations of children’s books, especially the depictions of children…
Illustrated Songbooks, Part III
This post is part of the Illustrated Songbooks series. Songbook Illustrated by Jessie Shaw Fisher Child Songs From Hawaii, music compiled by Elsa Cross and Ermine Cross Jessie Shaw Fisher was born in 1887 in Hawaii. She was an artist that taught art courses at the University of Hawaii and illustrated a few books. Elsa and…
The Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune)
This month we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. But did you know that nearly 150 years ago there was an earlier moon landing? In 1865, Jules Verne published his novel De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon) and ten years later it was used as the basis…
Can You Do the Cancan?
“All the girls in Paris France Love to do the Can Can Dance.”¹ The dance and music is strongly associated with the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He portrayed the dancers and their dance halls in many of his posters. As a result, people today may associate the cancan with Paris of the 1890s. The cancan…
Illustrated Songbooks, Part II
This post is part of the Illustrated Songbooks series. Songbooks Illustrated by Henriette Willebeek le Mair Little Songs of Long Ago, music by Alfred Moffat Our Old Nursery Rhymes, music by Alfred Moffat Old Dutch Nursery Rhymes, music by Julius Rontgen Henriette Willebeek le Mair was a Dutch illustrator born in 1889. As a teenager, she…
Illustrated Songbooks, Part 1
This post is part of the Illustrated Songbooks series. The second half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century have been called the “golden age of children’s books." That extends to children’s songbooks, too. These songbooks may have music composed especially for that book, or may be already well-known nursery rhymes or…
Ukuleles Are Hot!
Ukuleles were the “it” instrument in the 1910s and 1920s, and they got another bump of popularity in the late 1940s and 1950s. Ukuleles are hot once again.
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