On John Lennon and Glenn Gould - kindred souls that just did not know it!

John Winston Lennon

Glenn Herbert Gould

 Acerbic. Sharp. Cynical. Contradictory.Compassionate. Authentic. Mesmerising. Brilliant. Enigmatic. It might be a coincidence that Glenn Gould and John Lennon were both born under the zodiac sign of Libra but I've been thinking about both men and musicians for a while, and have found them to have far more in common than Gould would ever admit!

Pioneering women ethnomusicologists Part 2 - Frances Densmore



The now-famous photo capturing Frances Densmore and an Indian chief in a recording session of sorts!



'Music is intertwined with the life of every race. We understand the people better if we know their music and we appreciate the music better if we know the people.' - Frances Densmore

FRANCES DENSMORE (1867-1957)

Unlike Alice Cunningham Fletcher who came to the music of the Native Americans (and to anthropology/comparative musicology) relatively late in life, and mainly as an enthusiastic 'amateur', Minnesota-born Frances Densmore was an Oberlin trained pianist who was reportedly 'frightened by the Indian music' she heard at the World Fair Columbian Exposition in Chicago (Myers, 1993). However, it was Fletcher's monograph on the Omaha Indians that sparked Densmore's own interest in the subject and initiated a lifelong career as a pioneering, prolific ethnomusicologist. 

Pioneering women ethnomusicologists Part 1 - Alice Cunningham Fletcher

Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923)

 This blog post has been a long time coming - well, at least a few weeks! As some of you have noticed, I've been quite slack with updating the blog, and my radio program 'Offbeat' is also going through something of a revamp, partly because of work/study commitments and partly because of ill-health (which is quite normal for most of us this time of year). One of the main changes to 'Offbeat' will reflect my existing research interests and new 'direction' in life, but more about that soon.