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If Philip Glass was a Film (2019) [video]
- whiskeytuesday 4y agoReminds me of the play by David Ives[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass_Buys_a_Loaf_of_Bread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass_Buys_a_Loaf_of_Br...
- ChancyChance 4y agoThat's kinda spot on (maybe a little more early Steve Reich than Glass), and the disappearance switching to another actor was clever (at least it looped!), but they could have dragged it out another 8 hours. Also, King Missile took a funny jab at Glass, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5hjsm4tZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5hjsm4tZY
- virgulino 4y agoKnock knock. - Who's there? Knock knock. - Who's there? Knock knock. - Who's there? Knock knock. - Who's there? - Philip Glass.
- labrador 4y agoI'm an old man now and a lonesome man in Kansas, but now I remember what it feels like to be a teenager and have people misunderstand your favorite artist that you feel you have a deep personal relationship with
- moralestapia 4y agoArt is whatever you want it to be. Cheers all the way to Kansas, I hope you have a rich life despite the loneliness.
- HopenHeyHi 4y agoIt is from a poem by some fella named Ginsberg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-arPnTm0ZFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-arPnTm0ZFI
- lambdasquirrel 4y agoAs a Philip Glass listener, I found the clip kind of funny. But also because they took one of his better pieces and just straight out missed it. I don’t know what to tell you about loneliness and solitude. The most lonely years of my life were the ones I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The year during the pandemic that I lived in the Lost Coast was pretty good by comparison. So I will say that I hear you, wherever you are in Kansas.
- labrador 4y agoI hate to spoil it, but it's from a spoken word piece by the late Alan Ginsberg ("Howl") and Glass - Wichita Vortex Sutra #3 I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas but not afraid to speak my lonesomeness in a car, because not only my lonesomeness it’s Ours, all over America,O tender fellows— & spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy in the moon 100 years ago or in the middle of Kansas now. "spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy." What a great line, because that's pretty much what old age is
- khazhoux 4y agoI hope you don't mean this YouTube video misunderstands Philip Glass, because I think it actually speaks to a truth that most people miss. There is a monologue that runs through Glass's music, it's full of questions and exclamations and regrets and... These guys captured that nicely -- and made it funny.
- Zigurd 4y agoWhen I was young and foolish and ironed my own shirts, Philip Glass was the perfect soundtrack.
- iwanttocomment 4y agoThe pinnacle of Philip Glass parodies, and an honest, nuanced one, was (the now forgotten?) P.D.Q. Bach's Einstein on the Fritz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uumLxMLBv-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uumLxMLBv-Y Glass's work in his earlier years was more iterative than repetitive, and often performed with the ferocity of a tornado. People mock his work, especially his later, softer work, but those early pieces as originally performed really rip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRerJeYmUgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRerJeYmUgY
- ChancyChance 4y agoThat second link is a perfect example. I was introduced to Javanese Gamelan before I ever heard Glass, and when I finally did it felt like someone had pushed it to the limits of speed and precision.
- frereubu 4y agoI love the earlier, even more minimal pieces like Music With Changing Parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uy_Ag7ETA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uy_Ag7ETA4 And I love the parallels to things like I Am Sitting In A Room by Alving Lucier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk (If you're not familiar with this piece, it might be worth reading about it first - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room) I hesitate to say this because it depends on your tastes, but I'd recommend setting aside the time to listen to these beginning to end if you can. You'll probably feel a bit fidgety for the first 10 / 15 minutes, but in my view it's really worth persevering because I find the payoffs are worth it.
- amboo7 4y agohttps://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Philip_Glass https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Philip_Glass
- stingraycharles 4y agoI’m a huge fan of his works and this made me chuckle. Great parody.
- caublestone 4y agoCame here hoping for the Koyaanisqatsi link
- de_keyboard 4y agoBe sure to checkout Koyaanisqatsi if you like experimental films and Philip Glass
- virgulino 4y agoAlso be sure to checkout Candyman if you like horror films and Philip Glass.
- mherdeg 4y agoAlso be sure to check out "They Came in Through the Bathroom Mirror" if you like Candyman. ( https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/they-came-in-through-the-bathroom-mirror/ https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/they-came-in-through... )
- wkjagt 4y agoAlso be sure to check out The Hours.
- indigodaddy 4y agoAnd Truman Show! Epic soundtrack. Also Jane (documentary on Goodall), which is almost a reworking of the Mishima music.. extremely similar, but I still found it to be vibrant and fresh. Also if you listen to The Truman Show main theme, you may find that it sounds very similar to The Leftovers main theme. I’m quite certain that Richter must have borrowed elements from it.
- waltbosz 4y agoPhilip Glass did the score for one of my favorite films, "Koyaanisqatsi" Here is a YT cover of the opening song. I find the music has lots of feeling to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC0FroHjB94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC0FroHjB94
- HopenHeyHi 4y ago[flagged]
- adzm 4y agoAlso one of my favorite films. In a similar vein, Baraka and Samsara are also great, but the score for Koyaanisqatsi is simply beautiful. The ending sequence still gives me chills. Lots of scenes do, actually.
- dusted 4y agoThose are also fantastic. Also, if you're into electronic music, RMB sampled Baraka a lot in one of his earlier albums.
- dusted 4y agoYeah, I came here to write that.. If he was a movie, maybe was that. I found out about the movie because I loved the music by Rob Hubbard, to the C64 game Delta, which is basically the theme from Koyaanisqatsi, but sped up.
- amstan 4y agoOne of those songs was a big inspiration to Delta, if you're into chiptunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjPXW2yfE1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjPXW2yfE1I
- intrasight 4y agoCame to also mention - because IMHO Philip Glass is already a film. I walked in to a frat party in 1983 and the movie was playing on a TV - and my mind was blown! I've watched it several times since. I also got to see that it could still blow minds when I saw my 14 year old daughter's reaction.
- h1fra 4y agoRecently discovered Philip Glass through a BBC Essential Mix by Jamie XX (yes!) This music is now forever in my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SegECuY22Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SegECuY22Rs
- indigodaddy 4y agoDive right in that’s just the beginning! The scope of his work is kind of overwhelming, and I don’t love 100% of it (I’d say at least 90% though :) ), but there’s so much of it that you can just thrown in a glass search on any of your listening choices and look for something new, and it’s bound to be incredible, refreshing, and at the least, worth listening to.
- superposeur 4y agoI actually dig this film, it didn’t bore me until the very final stretch. (Much like a Philip Glass work.)
- danbmil99 4y agoThere are already several film versions of Philip glass, starting with koyaanisqatsi
- krmblg 4y agoReplying to %root% b/c all the Koyaanisqatsi references: I learned about the movie(s) and Glass' works when accidentally tuning in to a Koyaanisqatsi airing briefly before the Challenger scene some 20 years back. My definition of the perfect storm. Still remember set and setting and everything else.
- hammock 4y ago.
- khazhoux 4y agoI'm trying to parse what you mean here. Dave Matthews is an incredible musician, but what's the connection? Also, strong disagree on Collier. No doubt there are people that love both, but I struggle to see any similarity. They each have strong harmonic development but their approach is completely different. What similarity do you find?
- aestetix 4y agoWhat's interesting is that I absolutely love and adore Philip Glass's music, but I normally hate minimalism. I also dislike musicians who try to copycat Glass. It's like there is something deeper within Glass's music that they are unable to latch onto or something. And it goes without saying that I don't think the art of his music translates into the dialogue in the short film very well.
- randyrand 4y agoPhillip Glass is not original.
- efficax 4y ago? he’s one of the most original composers of the post war period
- indigodaddy 4y agoThere isn’t anything else quite like his music imo
- khazhoux 4y agoWho would you say he copied?
- Rimintil 4y agoPhilip Glass did incredible work in the film, Kundun[0][1]. This movie has unfortunately been buried by Disney in the US and is not on any streaming platforms. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqqUjQf43oo&list=PL50A4C9AF054A18BA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqqUjQf43oo&list=PL50A4C9AF0... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundun
- adzm 4y agoI never realized this was also the score used in the 07/27/1978 episode of Lasagna Cat [0] which is also a great watch. [0] https://youtube.com/watcv=NAh9oLs67Cw https://youtube.com/watcv=NAh9oLs67Cw
- throw0101c 4y agoGiven the cyclical/repetitive nature of time that Buddhism holds (AIUI), I always thought Glass was a good choice on a 'meta-level' (besides just being very talented). While I'm not really into the entire work, I do like the "Act I: Prelude" of the opera Akhnaten: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ql8TidvZto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ql8TidvZto Vox had a good video story on its production at the NY Met: * https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/12/4/20995158/philip-glass-opera https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/12/4/20995158/philip-glass-o...
- kjellsbells 4y agoThat Akhnaten production is currently on at English National Opera in London. It is the /hottest/ of hot tickets now, albeit for a sad reason: the UK government are deeply cutting funding to the Arts and ENO is on the chopping block. If you get the chance, go. For anyone else, look at YouTube or Met Opera on Demand. If you are in NYC right now the director of the production is doing a think at NYU Skirball discussing this production and Glass in general.
- leviathant 4y agoI thought this was going to be a link to the Sesame Street animation that he scored @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWwOzEDGss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWwOzEDGss If I had access to this sixteen years ago, I would have recreated the animations in Flash, but after Flash died out, I stopped playing in that field.
- dylan604 4y agoAs an adult watching clips of Seasme Street like this, or the pinball animation counting from 1 to 12, or any of the other 70s psychedelia influenced bits, I convinced that I was "groomed" into being such of fan of the use of psychedelics starting in my teenage years. A giant bird that had an "imaginary" friend (elephant/mammoth to continue the trope) that was always high as a kite "Hiiiii, Birrrrrd". And I thank them for it.
- leephillips 4y agoI don’t get all the Philip Glass mockery here. He was a remarkably creative composer. He wrote his piece hundreds of times.
- coolandsmartrr 4y agoPhilip Glass compositions may seem rather unvaried, but there are subtle geometric intricacies that may be more rewarding to listen and discover if listeners were aware of them. His works may not seem as eventful as Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, as it requires closer attention to observe such traits.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoSeems like even for the HN intelligencia it can be insightful to read YT comments ... -- Dembai 3 years ago To anybody who's wondering why they chose these specific words and the specific repeats: they're actually doing a musical analysis on the phrasing that he's using in the chords. I'm a bit Rusty with analysis, but basically glass is constantly shifting between what we call tonic, dominant and sub-dominant functions. A subdominant function is a chord that adds tension, demanding to be resolved. It is like a question. The next chord is the dominant function...pointing back to the tonic as an answer. So Glass starts on the tonic but moves to a subdominant (a question) which recieves a dominant moment (an answer) which turns back into the tonic for just a moment....before sliding back into a sub-dominant question. It never feels resolved because every resolution lasts only a moment before turning back into a question. The music was already doing this. They just added lyrics, so to speak.
- etrautmann 4y agoThank you! I lack background in music theory, and as such, I find that analysis to be so objective and conclusive that it raises questions for me about whether this is "true" in a broader sense. "A subdominant function is a chord that adds tension, demanding to be resolved" I find this a strong statement that's hard to question or refute, or know how one would show that it's somehow anything more than a general feeling that might be shared by lots of people?
- pygy_ 4y agoMusic is fundamentally abstract, and its interpretation is subjective, so there is no final word on anything. There are many musical traditions, and not all of them use those conventions, but classical European harmony is understood as explained in that comment. Edit: here's the canonical [ I IV V7 I ] progression, a.k.a. the [ tonic => sub-dominant => dominant => tonic ] progression in C major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFvm1cb80bc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFvm1cb80bc The progression in the video is more subtle (and it uses a minor mode).
- taco_philips 4y agoIt's a general feeling that might be shared by lots of people. In the Classical era (think Mozart and early Beethoven), moving to the subdominant was seen as reducing tension. The whole generation of tension in a Classical sonata form is by modulating to the dominant early on and gradually returning to tonic. Subdominant modulations would be used near the end to achieve a sense of resolution before a final, decisive dominant to tonic movement. Those are massive generalizations, but that is kind of the point: the meaning of certain gestures changes with time, place, and culture. There are no hard rules in music, except when there are, but even then they're mostly relative.
- motohagiography 4y agoThis was very funny, but what I thought the point of repetition in Glass' stuff was for was to create a microtonal harmonic drone as the effect of the performance. The analogy I think of is if sound could have an umami taste. You get this with Bach and Vivaldi in a much lighter way, where the emphasis on perfect rhythm by the performer creates the structure that makes that transcendent effect of the music possible. Comparing Bach to Glass is like comparing a sauturnes to truffle oil, but this effect that floats above the senses is what I think the point of all that repetition in Glass' earlier work was. Consider that when he was writing his minimalist pieces, the Velvet Underground were also a big deal, and their whole schtick was hypnotic microtonal effects, wall of sound production techniques were everywhere, and with WWII still in living memory, I think there may even have been an underlying urgency to meet and respond to the horrific awe that Wagner's use of giant droning techniques inspired. This sounds like a stretch, and I think Glass is still around to say I'm full of it, but while the jokes are still funny, I always thought there was some specific intent to how he wrote, and not that he was being tedious. His recent homage to Arvo Part in "The Teacher" is consistent with his other works, where I think he makes those beautiful effects accessible to entry level players, and that feeling of the instrument just resonating by itself as you hammer on it is what I think inspires beginner musicians to become great ones.
- kjellsbells 4y agoI wouldnt call it homage, but Glass studied Bach intensely under Nadia Boulanger and it shows through in places, in a very respectful way. I feel there are several places in Akhnaten that are essentially like a Bach Passion aria. Honestly, if you wanted to create an archetypal American composer, you would soak them in a wide variety of music from childhood, get them studying instruments early, dispatch them to Europe to study under Boulanger, and then dump them in an artistically febrile New York. Which is exactly Glass' story.
- motohagiography 4y agoSo interesting, I don't know Glass' operatic stuff. As I play and learn more about what various composers are writing about, it's like they are engaged in a conversation over the ages about these just f'ing massive existential and ontological themes, where the bar to entry to joining it is being able to perform some of the most complex human achievements in centuries. This guy who drives a cab in NYC to support his musical interests is writing an opera about the spiritual insights of a specific Egyptian pharoh, while contrasting them against the scientific discoveries of a physicist who reoriented our entire species place in the universe. It's not just handwavy either, as you need to have the competence to play the pieces to begin to understand what they are expressing. It's not science or theology either, it's something else. Is there a there there without getting into mystery cult stuff?
- WatchDog 4y agoSince others are just posting links to their favorite Phillip Glass performances. I really like this performance of Knee Play 5[0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afW7RGY-CQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afW7RGY-CQw
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoFor all the praise of Glass' score for Koyaanisqatsi and The Hours, he also composed one of my favorite contemporary ballets, Twyla Tharp's "In The Upper Room": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LiJDZOHVLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LiJDZOHVLk
- coolandsmartrr 4y agoI feel that this video inherits the spirit of Leonard Bernstein's lectures, particularly the Young People's Concert and the Norton Lectures at Harvard. Bernstein likened music to linguistics, calling each movement of a symphony "a musical sentence."[1] While Two Set Violin may have had facetious intentions, they have faithfully reenacted tensions within the music in their conversation. [1] Check out the Norton Lectures especially, where Bernstein analyzes musical structure with references to Chomsky. The maestro was really well learned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fHi36dvTdE&list=PLKiz0UZowP2V0mwtNv1lc1_zUSB2O65d7&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fHi36dvTdE&list=PLKiz0UZowP...
- bibanez 4y agoPhilip Glass is, musically, a fraud. Doesn't matter how much popular acclaim he gets, his music is as shallow as every bad pop song that hits the charts.