theoddsock.comhome of the internaut

If you haven’t yet read the book� you may or may not wish to visit this parody as forwarded to me by Jon. (if you don’t know what the book is then you may not be interested anyway)

I was in stitches, yes I have read the book (that was my saturday, I spent most of the day in my jim-jams – no time to get up properly – was reading from 9:30am until about 4pm) and it wasn’t until page 107 or so that I sneaked a look at the back…

Have also taken some nice cloud photos with Jon’s new Nikon – ’tis luverly Digital SLR. Will post later.

I’ve never been a big fan of Pachelbel’s Canon. I was amused to see it likened to ‘Stairway’, and this strikes me as apt, it seems to be the piece of music that people who want to show that they listen to / appreciate classical music cite when, in reality, their exposure to classical music hasn’t been much beyond Classic FM or Radio 3, and those free CDs of the ‘Classical Moods’ ilk that come with Sunday papers. There isn’t much variation either in composer or piece choice in any of them – unless CFM and Radio 3 have updated their auto-magic music selection-bot.
My reaction up until now to this piece has been summed up by a New Yorker cartoon entitled ‘Prisoner of Pachelbel’… now at least I know I am not alone.

So what do I recommend in place of PC (and ‘PC’ sums up its homogenized qualities perfectly for me). Well if you know YMCA, and who doesn’t and want a laugh listen to the overture from Prince Kholmsy by Glinka. The rest of the Entr’act music for Prince Kholmsy is very good, and the entr’act for Act 5 bears a striking resemblance to a track from John William’s score for The Revenge of the Sith.

And beyond those two? Well, Antonin Dvorak’s Symphonic poems are well worth a listen, The Water Goblin and The Golden Spinningwheel are two of my particular favourites.

Next time, I’ll reveal which single piece of music John Williams nicked two major themes from