After spending the past two days researching the Christmas carol "Gaudete," two things are clear: 1) This is a really popular carol, and 2) Everyone thinks it's medieval. Well, I Kathryn of Jersey, First of My Name, Mother of Hound Dogs, Burster of Bubbles, am here to disappoint you. "Gaudete" is solidly Early Modern. Many... Continue Reading →
Recently I started reading Into the Mystic, by Christopher Hill, which is fairly new (2017). I'm only a few chapters in, but so far it's fantastic. It's a look at how the '60s became a "detonator" to "explode visionary music into the mainstream" (from the back cover). It's a nice counterpart to Rob Young's comprehensive... Continue Reading →
I want to take a slight detour to talk about socialism and folk music. If you've ever Googled "industrial music," or especially if you've done an academic database search for the term, you find a lot of material on folk music. The artists who came up were familiar—Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax—but I had... Continue Reading →
We left off before the holidays with some background on how medieval fantasy suddenly became mainstream in the '60s. There were also some other semi unintentional mirrorings of the values of the Victorian medieval revivals, where a previously fringe elements advocating for pre-industrial communal lifestyles also became more mainstream. With these cultural threads established, let's... Continue Reading →
If you lived through the '90s, you probably remember that strange-upon-reflection moment where everyone was into Gregorian Chant. It's pretty strange that a religious tradition that is more than 1000 years old, and not even that common in actual Roman catholic practice these days, was suddenly a hot topic. The album Chant, recorded by Benedictine monks,... Continue Reading →
Maybe I just continually gloss over it, but it seems like drumming styles are frequently neglected in discussions of genres in rock music. I've realized more and more over the years how much I rely on drum style as a genre marker, just for my own ear and tastes. It's something I still have a... Continue Reading →
Since successfully defending my dissertation prospectus, life has been such that I've had little interest in blogging. I can hardly believe that the last post was in December. Time moves entirely too quickly. However, I find that working through ideas informally here is beneficial, and I'd like to maintain this here blog as a way... Continue Reading →
While I wait to have a good idea for a new Music 101 post—and remember, ask me your questions about music and I'll answer them!—it seems a good time to start getting into some of the preliminary research I'm doing for my dissertation. I'm in the proposal stage, so what I'm doing now is reviewing... Continue Reading →
Katarina von Sporken
Violent Brain Fever 