This blogger, Richard Gehr, is not an employee of AARP. The opinions expressed in the blog are not necessarily the opinions of AARP and AARP assumes no liability for the content posted by Mr. Gehr or any other participant
Richard Gehr | June 12, 2007
The Guarneri Quartet— Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley (violins), Michael Tree (viola) and Peter Wiley (cello)—announced yesterday that they'll call it quits in 2009 after forty-five years together.
How happy were the members of Journey that their cheesy power ballad "Don't Stop Believing" brought "The Sopranos" to a weird and surprising conclusion Sunday night? This happy.
"Anything Goes" indeed. A former methamphetamine laboratory, Cole Porter's childhood home in Peru, Indiana, has been restored and transformed into a museum and bed and breakfast.
The bad news is that your hearing is deteriorating. The good news is that recorded music is getting louder. According to the London Times:
Britain's leading studio engineers are starting a campaign against a widespread technique that removes the dynamic range of a recording, making everything sound "loud".
'Peak limiting' squeezes the sound range to one level, removing the peaks and troughs that would normally separate a quieter verse from a pumping chorus....
Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road studios, said: 'Record companies are competing in an arms race to make their album sound the 'loudest'. The quieter parts are becoming louder and the loudest parts are just becoming a buzz.'
I'm looking forward to "The Rhythm of My Soul: Kentucky Roots Music," which airs tonight (and probably a couple of times more) on your local PBS affiliate. Come for Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, and Ricky Skaggs (who you'll see picking a mandolin at seven), the stars of this country gospel, bluegrass, and mountain music overview, but stick around for seventy-seven-year-old banjo picker Lee Sexton, eighty-year-old fiddle maker Buddy Ratcliff, and the Tri-City Messengers, a gospel group consisting of retired black coal miners.
