Expand Your Horizons

What comes to mind when someone brings up classical music? Surely for many, this is an outdated genre of music, it's boring, and it's what your grandparents listen to. In reality, it is some of the most complex and ingenious music ever created. That being said, I do not listen to much classical music. At times though, there is nothing more beautiful for the senses and emotions than some Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart. One theme that I'm trying to promote on this blog is the idea of listening to a variety of music. In the beginning of the 20th century, jazz music came about, which led to the blues, which led to rock and roll, which led to numerous other types of music, all the way up to what is being played on the radio today. One of the reasons that Phish is my favorite band is that they fuse jazz, rock, reggae, and even composed classical music type sections into their music. What I'm leading up to is a great example of the mixture of different musical genres. I recently found a video of DJ Tiesto, one of the most famous DJs in the world. Classical music would certainly be the farthest thing from describing his techno/house beats. This video, however, is of him incorporating Samuel Barber's, a famous American composer, "Adagio For Strings" into one of his mixes:



I highly recommend checking out classical music, if nothing more than to just expand your musical horizons. Especially if you're feeling stressed out, classical music can be some of the most relaxing genres out there. I'll change gears a little bit. I left you yesterday with a Shinichi Osawa megamix. I understand that it might be a little long for some of you who are not huge fans of his. So I'll make a concession and provide you with some of his shorter songs.

Main Street Electrical Parade - Shinichi Osawa:
http://www.mediafire.com
/?zd3mtwmi4i0
An instrumental song whose title perfectly describes it.

The Perfect Vision (Shinichi Osawa Remix) - Minmi
http://www.mediafire.com/file/tylygl3zemm/14%20The%20Perfect%20Vision%20(Shinichi%20Osaw.mp3
This is probably one of the best songs I've heard in a long time.

These two songs should keep you occupied for a little while. Finally, I just have to give a shout out to one of my good friends, Shehzad. He started up a music blog, one with a much different feel to this one, which focuses on Hip Hop and Techno, early last fall. I have to say, I probably never would have had the idea to start this blog up if it wasn't for him. Here's a link to his site, which you should definitely check out:
http://www.djshizzybaby.blogspot.com/