Re: [Finale] music literacy

[Lon Price]

On Mar 31, 2006, at 5:11 AM, John Bell wrote: Was your father impressed with your taste in popular music in the 60s? John It's funny, I was discussing this with my dad last week.  I've been working on a book and play-along CD of Beatles songs for my private students. (Don't worry--I've applied for permission to publish at Hal Leonard, who handles copyrights for all Lennon/McCartney songs.)  I was telling my dad that I wasn't a Beatles fan until "Rubber Soul," and we were discussing the tremendous influence that they had on popular music.  When the Beatles first came out my parents didn't like their music, but now they do, and I'm sure that they find the Beatles far more accessible than most of the pop music today.  I doubt that my parents will ever feel that way about the Rolling Stones, though, and I agree.  I was pretty disgusted with the Stones' performance at the last Super Bowl.  They've always sounded to me like a bad garage band.  I do like some of the Stones' older records--just not their live performances.  But that's just my personal taste. One of my 12-year-old students wants me to do a play-along project of songs that he and his contemporaries listen to.  I told him that if he could find ten current songs that I like, I'd do it (I refuse to work on music that I don't like personally).  It remains to be seen whether or not he can come up with the songs--I doubt that he can.  For instance, I asked him if he'd heard of Nora Jones (The daughter of Ravi Shankar, who taught George Harrison the sitar, which he played on "Norwegian Wood," one of the songs in my book).  Well, my student never heard of her.  It turns out that 12-year-olds (at least this 12-year-old) don't listen to Nora Jones.  Not that I particularly like her music, but at least I don't find it offensive.  Again, personal taste.  My former composition instructor at USC likes the Black Crows, which I can't stand.  But I'm 20 years older than her, so I guess that explains it. All of this said, I do believe that in general the popular music of the 60s was far superior musically than today's music, but is that a true statement, or just my own personal taste? I dunno. ******************************************** Lon Price, Los Angeles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.txstnr.com>

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