Muzak for the brain and the soul..

So what else can I champion at the moment?
The Wild are not successful thus far, other teams I do not follow religiously,
the 'Texas Threestepppers' - really haven't started yet...

so...let me warble about music, all sorts of GOOD (that qualification too may be up to the ear of the listener :-).MUSIC.

Piping classical music into shopping malls, parking lots, and other places where crowds will hang about noisily, IS a problem. Classical music was introduced 2005 into London’s Underground as I've read sometime ago,  interestingly a decrease in robberies, assaults and vandalism was noted, and not only in the UK but from Finland to New Zealand.  It appears that 1985, a Canadian store in Vancouver (?) used it first and classical Muzak was born and adopted pretty much everywhere. Loving classical music, opera and other forms I feel that it CAN have a wondrous effect on people, from Babies  Nonagenarians– that it soothes the savage breast in all of us! That it can force into the mind of a soi-disant villain the notion of doing good, for all ;-)!

So you say classical music is BORING and blah, blah, blah.. Listen and watch: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
or Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture perfomed by the Halle Orchestra
and THEN dare to tell me classical music is not exciting.
It is as exciting as many other kinds of music: classic Jazz, classic Blues, classic Rock'n Roll and so on!
And many musicians move between the genres...
Winton Marsalis -jazz and classical musician and composer to name one!

Most music offer riches, emotions, rhythms, melodies, stirring sounds.
As we listen we learn and begin to hear the huge variety and beauty.
We learn to recognize certain composers by their unique sounds, by their inventive musical placements.
Mozart from Hayden, Bach from Ravel, Beethoven from Brahms, 
Monteverdi links us to Donizetti, to Leoncavallo, Puccini and - yes,  Adams and Golijov.
Verdi links us to Wagner and even to Berg and Tan Dun...in parts.
And  it all happens because this music is more interesting than the simple monotony and -yes, yes, admit it- boring 'noise' of rap.
As I read somewhere, those scientists, who map the human genome, seem to confirm that the capacity to enjoy music and the ability to distinguish one musician from another is programmed into us, and is the last of the 'senses' to be lost as we fall prey to Alzheimer's and other mentally debilitating illnesses.
Some of us have a deep ability to enjoy, not only the classics, but all kinds of demanding music. Others don't and  it is really useless to blame or make fun of them . People who like it are not superior to those who don't. 

Photo artandhockey MFAH sculpture garden

And should we let this fall fallow we need to think that we shall just have to re-invent this appreciation, and succor those that do compose, write, play, sing and above all ENJOY music!