chantblog: Early Music Resource

I recently came across a great resource for early music in the blogosphere:

chantblog

It includes links to recordings (YouTube, mp3, etc.), song transcripts, quotes from experts, as well as general information about chant and polyphony. Take a gander (but not under my frock).

Ga-ga for Google Books

One of the most important events of the Information Age will be taking shape in the coming months. In October 2004, Google premiered its latest search engine at a book fair in Frankfurt, Germany. Then called Google print, the service allowed users to browse books that had been scanned into an electronic library using optical character recognition. The service is now called Google Books and has scanned over 7 million books into their library; certainly an impressive feat considering that only ~32 million books have been published in human history. Furthermore, after reaching a settlement with the Author's Guild and the publishing industry over copyright issues, Google is poised to greatly expand the fraction of their library that is available for preview and purchase.

Although some folks are still concerned about the terms of the settlement (privacy and antitrust issues, see the ASJA link below), it looks likely that the online availability of published material is going to increase in the coming months and years. In addition to being a major milestone for humanity, this service has been a tremendous help in researching my Hopeless Journey. When I search their database on a particular composer or composition, the volume of useful information that I can obtain from Google Books far exceeds that I can get from an ordinary Google search. Even for those books with limited previews, I need only browse a couple of paragraphs of the section that matched my search terms in order to obtain the information I'm looking for.

There is no doubt that Google Books will contribute a great deal to this blog. I'm old enough to remember what life was like before the internet... I have to say, this is a truly exciting time to be alive.

Related Links: Google Books, NYTimes article, Opposition from ASJA

Just YouTube It

Up till now, I hadn't been bothering with YouTube as a resource for medieval and Renaissance music, assuming that most of it was too obscure to be posted on that service. However, when I actually went and checked today, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only are many of the Hopeless Journey songs available, but also many of the specific recordings I've been listening to.

Since a link to YouTube allows casual web browsers to hear the songs I'm describing at the click of a mouse, I've decided to incorporate these links into the post headers. Whenever there is a link over a song title in one of my post headers, it goes to a YouTube recording of that composition. It won't always be the recording that I'm recommending in the header, but it will be to one that I think is similar enough to get my point across. If you want the specific recording referenced in the post header, it will usually be available on iTunes.

If a YouTube link goes dead, let me know and I'll try to find a replacement for it. I don't know what the typical lifetime of a YouTube link is, so I may abandon the practice if I find that they go dead too quickly.

All I Can Expect

I recently discovered that Allmusic.com has compiled a virtual treasure trove of information on classical composers and even individual classical pieces, far beyond that found on wikipedia. The reviews are remarkably erudite considering the open nature of the source. Since I download most of my music from iTunes, I don't get any booklets with the music I buy, but the list of reviews on Answers.com is often a more than satisfactory substitute, as it usually contains historical context, musical analysis, and biographical information on the composer. Of course, I can't be sure that the information is accurate, but I expect it's close enough for those of us that aren't planning to write a thesis on the material. In the future, when I write about a particular composition, I'll try to include links to the reviews along with my blog entries (see "Related Links," below).

Related Links: Allmusic.com

The Harmonia Mundi Century Series: A Parallel History

I recently discovered a collection of recordings that attempts to provide a representative sample of the entire history of Western music, much as my blog is attempting to do. Unfortunately, the recordings I found, The Harmonia Mundi Century Series, are difficult to come by. A subset of them can be purchased here:

Presto Classical

I was pleased to see that my journey was covering most of the music included in these collections, although they put considerably more emphasis on chant and other early monophonic music (including music from Ancient Greece, see catalog listing below). As my journey progresses, I expect that my blog will cover the musical landscape more densely than this collection does, but for the era I'm currently covering (late 14th century), their selected recordings correspond very closely to my blog.

Related Links: Catalog listing

Correction

Léonin & Pérotin: Sacred Music From Notre Dame Cathedral can no longer be found on iTunes for some reason. You can get it from here:

http://www.amazon.com/Leonin-Perotin-Sacred-Notre-Dame-Cathedral/dp/B000QQOWUW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1240193799&sr=8-1

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