“Sing to the Mountains” is really not all that bad, if you imagine it being sung by the Muppets.

From the comments here.

Here are Dylan’s improved lyrics to “Gather Us In.”

Here’s a little something for Yes fans.

An old interview with the late Martin Gardner. (Via .clue.)

Dr. Hoo. (Via Pixy.)

Public Library Ninja.

Miku does Mozart.¹

“She was warming to him, he could tell, but …”

1. Background on Hatsune Miku here.↩

Passion and sincerity are cheap. If you want to hold my attention, show me craftmanship. Write lyrics that scan, fit them to actual melodies, and sing on key. Learn how to play your guitar, not just strum chords. Maybe then I won’t passionately and sincerely loathe hearing you.

*****

Memo to everyone who enjoys old-time fiddle music: If you ever have a chance to hear Chirps Smith, drop everything and go.

… the more you know about music, the less income you are guaranteed to generate.

I recently discovered that John Stump, the composer of “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz,” wrote other pieces of music, including the “String Quartet in A Minor (Motoring Accident).” A tribute to Stump, with scans of his scores, can be found here.

More remarkable scores can be seen here, here and here. Some of them have been performed.

John Reed, the very model of a G&S patter song singer, died earlier this month. Here are a few examples of his craft:

If you have work to do, don’t click here. Or here.

(Via Frëd.)

… Gryphon reunited for a concert last summer.

The quality of the sound suggests that a CD or DVD is in the works, though it may just be that the hall’s acoustics were exceptionally good.

(more…)

St. Louis Strings Violin Shop

(more…)

Some Roman Catholic churchmen, meanwhile, have said that the words “hokey pokey” derive from “hocus pocus” — the Oxford English Dictionary concurs — and that the song was written by 18th-century Puritans to mock the language of the Latin Mass. Last year the Catholic Church in Scotland, concerned that some soccer fans were using the song as a taunt, raised the possibility that singing it should be prosecuted as a hate crime.

I suppose I should take umbrage at Focus, too.

(Via Wonderduck.)

Update: the original file is 1920 x 1080, though you need to download it to your computer to see it at that size.

Frëd Himebaugh of the Fredösphere has composed a fifteen-minute opera using Terry Bisson’s short story “They’re Made Out of Meat” as the libretto. You can purchase it here. See also Frëd’s earlier posts here and here.

*****

Here’s one of the more impressive videos I’ve seen recently. The characters and tune are from the vast Touhou project, but you don’t need to know anything about that to appreciate the phantasmagorical transformations.

In America:

(Via Darwin Catholic)

In Japan:

I finished going through the hundreds of snapshots I took at Winfield and posted a selection in my gallery here.

Fiddlers at Carp Camp, budget- and economy-sized.