Time for another rant. On a scale of one to ten on seriousness and importance, this is not even on the chart, it is just something that gets my panties in a wad...big time!

Something that has bothered my for a long time, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it. What is it? Well it is people that are assembling short radio spots and "edit" background music to fit the time slot.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all ingrained with many principals of music that we have just acquired by listening all our lives. Music is made of of phrase s which are of given lengths and put together with a number of inferred rules. You can not just take a familiar piece of music and go after it with the cutting knife and then reassembled selected pieces to fit a specified duration.

It seems like now that anyone with an audio editor and a computer can butcher any recognizable piece of music into utter oblivion.

I don't mind you editing something, just do it with a bit of knowledge, class and decorum! Case in point: For the past few days I've been hearing a either thirty or sixty second spot for the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in Claremore , Oklaklahoma in which the background music is Rogers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma", from the musical of the same name.

They start at the beginning and you are playing along in your mind until they start the whacking and the mental effect is that you are tripping on your own shoe strings.

Has anyone else noticed this lately, or is it just me? I really hate to say this but I think anyone should have to be licensed and pass a musical competency test before they are allowed anywhere close to an audio editor.

End of rant.

Was having discussion with my wife this morning regarding background music. She can’t stand having classical music play in the background; I was used to it when studying.
She found out some famous conductor and a music critic were the same as she.
As a result of my wife’s dislike for classical background music I have pretty much stopped listening, because I rarely have time just to sit and listen.

I love B’way musicals (our chorale just did a concert of that music with the SD Symphony); and I would react the same way to someone butchering Rodgers and Hammerstein.

No, I don’t notice it. I take it you had music training or into music like some people are into wine?

I stumbled on a YouTube video from a guy teaching how to sing. I was surprised that singing is all about the vowels and one or two specific vowels are never sung but a different vowel is used as a substitute. And one practice exercise was singing a complete song without consonants.

I never knew that.

Advertising has used cuts of popular songs for many years. It bothers me when they use a snippet of a song, often changing some of the lyrics to fit their product and/or repeat it over and over.

The earliest example I can think of is this one:


Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=7s2_mA_N6iI

This practice seems especially common in car/truck commercials today.
Write your own catchy jingle (à la early Levi Strauss commercials) instead of butchering someone else's creation.

Sometimes a specific passage is put on a loop and repeated. The famous “transition” passage from Rhapsody in Blue is a favorite of the music butchers. Haven’t heard it lately.

What makes that part so great to me is the gradual lead up to that passage. It’s piece that needs to be listened to in its entirety to fully appreciate.

“Parting it out” like an old salvage automobile is irritating and just ain’t right!

According to net, after 96 years a work enters the public domain. Rhapsody is from 1924. Guess it may get real popular again soon.