Dean Christakos« Great Music, Irritating Web Page | Main | The Summer Spike In Gas Prices »
November 12, 2004
Expanding my music horizons
Wednesday night, I had the privilege of seeing Mulatu Astatke, the famous Ethiopian jazz artist perform with the Either/Orchestra at the Regent Theater in Arlington.
His music is not jazz-influenced Ethiopian music, but rather Ethiopian-influenced jazz. Those with a deep familiarity with Ethiopian music (not me) will recognize references buried within Astatke's compositions. Pretty interesting, considering that I don't normally see performances of Ethiopian music or jazz very often.
Another interesting tidbit of information I learned is that the Ethiopian calendar runs 7 years behind the western calendar, which means it's 1997, according to Ethiopia's ecclesiastical calendar.
Posted by Dean at November 12, 2004 9:53 PM
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Comments
music
n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers
(compare science-fiction fandom, oriental food; see also
filk). Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and
programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at
least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.
Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical
appreciation in unusual and interesting directions. Folk music is
very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of
elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called
`progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. The hacker's
musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal
appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Pat Metheny,
Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, Dream Theater, King Sunny Ade, The
Pretenders, Screaming Trees, or the Brandenburg Concerti. It is
also apparently true that hackerdom includes a much higher
concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would expect
from a similar-sized control group of mundane types.
Posted by: red_hakz at November 18, 2004 6:42 PM