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Violin
The sad beauty of slow air in Archibald MacDonald of Keppoch

'Slow air' refers to the type of the Irish traditional music, first brought to a wider audience by the publishings of…

April 25, 2018
Songwriter
The three acts of Lonnie Johnson' blues

Lonnie Johnson (1889—1970) was a prolific American musician, singer, and songwriter, and one of the first major blues…

October 18, 2018
Songwriter
Sūrsāgar: ocean of poetry that expanded for five centuries

Sūrdās was a North Indian devotional poet, musician, and saint who lived in the 16th century. His lyrics, addressed…

October 27, 2018
Contemporary Composer
The meaningless song lyrics of Adiemus

Adiemus is a cross-genre project conceived by Welsh composer and multi-instrumentalist Karl Jenkins to refresh…

April 4, 2021
Santour
Azam Ali's magnificent vocal journeys through languages

In recent decades, the mixing of styles and cultures in popular and classical music has grown into quite a common trend…

December 28, 2018
Classical Guitar
The native heart of Peruvian folk as explored by ethnomusicologist Alomía Robles

It has been a little more over a century since the Peruvian composer Alomía Robles crossed the Andes in search of…

January 1, 2019
Orchestra
Capriol Suite: early dances arranged for modern orchestra by Peter Warlock

The Capriol Suite is one of the most popular works by the 20th century English composer Philip Arnold Heseltine who…

October 15, 2020
Big band
Great Depression cut short the extraordinary dance life of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers

Since the very start of the prohibition during the Roaring Twenties, many Americans sought refuge in entertainment…

January 4, 2019
Songwriter
Knights of Cydonia: Dorian-mode refrain boosting best Muse song

Knights of Cydonia by English alternative rock band Muse has been repeatedly placed at the top of many fan-voted charts…

April 3, 2021
Guitar
Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt: the unlikely fusion of two guitar greats

A Meeting by the River—is one of the most striking cross-cultural works of the 1990s which brought Grammy Awards for…

October 16, 2019
Choir
Mass in B minor: how to separate original scores of J.S. Bach from his son's later edits?

The Mass in B minor is one of the latest works of J.S. Bach in which he set a liturgical Latin text to music. Clocking…

August 13, 2019
Orchestra
Defining Gershwin rhapsody was conceived on a train trip

Rhapsody in Blue is one of the most performed of all American concert pieces, and its opening clarinet glissando is the…

April 12, 2018
Oboe
Marcello's Oboe Concerto arranged by Bach and mistakenly attributed to Vivaldi

Concerto in D minor for oboe, strings, and continuo, also known as Marcello's Oboe Concerto, can rightfully be called a…

May 21, 2021
Classical Guitar
Lute fell into obscurity after the death of its greatest maestro

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750) was one of the most important composers in lute music history. Born into a lute…

August 20, 2018
Songwriter
Hypnotized: Fleetwood Mac's song about aliens

Hypnotized is the best-known track from Fleetwood Mac's 1973 album Mystery To Me, written by guitarist Bob Welch who…

June 24, 2021
Songwriter
Incense and Peppermints: a tangled story of song production

Incense and Peppermints is an essential psychedelic rock song released in 1967 by the LA-based band Strawberry Alarm…

December 20, 2020
Songwriter
Wildwood Weed: the cheeky ganja farmers song that got banned

Wildwood Weed is a parody song written by country music artist Don Bowman and first recorded by singer and multi…

August 17, 2021
Sarod
Sakhawat Hussain's sarod cast a magical spell rooted in the Afghan rubab traditions

Sakhawat Hussain Khan was an Indian musician whose outstanding performing technique on sarod could serve as a starting…

February 12, 2020
Collaboration
Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass find a colorful meeting point for European and Indian classics

Almost three decades have passed since Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar collaborated and released the work Passages - a…

April 17, 2018
Songwriter
Rhiannon: The Fleetwood Mac song that made the list of popular girls' names

Rhiannon is one of the best-known Fleetwood Mac tracks originally recorded for their 1975 eponymous album and released…

February 3, 2022
Songwriter
Big Bill Broonzy's guitar made ripples on both sides of the Atlantic

Big Bill Broonzy was one of the most important Chicago blues singers whose songs would inspire, among many others,…

December 14, 20181 comment
Trombone
Moonlight Serenade got its name to contrast the sun

Glenn Miller, American big band leader, composer, and trombonist, is considered the primary musical symbol of the World…

August 8, 2018
Piano
Abdullah Ibrahim created his African music of peace in exile

The works of South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, born Adolph Johannes Brand, fuse the melodic sounds of his…

August 3, 2018
Songwriter
I Shot the Sheriff: Burnin' spliff nearly destroyed Bob Marley's original recording

I Shot The Sheriff is one of Bob Marley's best-known songs first released on the 1973 album Burnin' and popularized a…

April 26, 20211 comment
Songwriter
Terraplane Blues: first song to compare car problems with intimate relationship

Terraplane Blues is the first single released by Robert Johnson—a traveling blues performer deeply revered by many rock…

May 18, 2021
Songwriter
Ladytron: Roxy Music's lunar landing with mellotron, oboe, and synth

Ladytron is one of Roxy Music's most noteworthy tracks released on their 1972 debut album. One of the song's strongest…

February 19, 2021
Music Theory
50 Beatles songs using Ionian mode

It is widely known that the Ionian mode—often referred to as major mode—dominates other compositional methods in both…

April 22, 2023
Violin
A spice of Italy, delivered to London by Nicola Matteis, edged out the French dance fashion from violin music

One of the first pieces of evidence of Italian invasion during the Baroque period in England is Ayrs for the Violin—the…

July 14, 2019
Film
The Blues Brothers' greatest gamble becoming one of their most enduring hits

The Blues Brothers were once the stars of their era, listed among the most popular groups of the late '70s. Vocalist…

May 17, 2018
Trumpet
Forgotten German composer behind the shift from Baroque to Classical

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) was the leader of the transitional period from late Baroque to early Classical in…

July 28, 2018