Various Musical Chairs

Alright, while I recharge my personal anecdote powers you can linger on some musical links.

Daily Composer is a blog written by my dear friend Anthony, who endeavors to post a snippet of original composing each day, complete with midi sample. For non-musicians it can be a fun 30-second diversion in your day, and for the musical among us it’s a good exercise in spotting and understanding themes and – if you’re as rhythmically remedial as I am – also a trial in sight-reading.

Cover Lay Down is an MP3 blog that focuses on folk-tinged covers of songs you might know. They have a way of not only digging up incredible obscurities, but distilling the stories of the artists who cover them … like a recent post on the Kathryn Williams cover of “All Apologies.”

Also, Rate Your Music is one of my top ten websites of all time – a home to a vast database of ratings and reviews predominately cultivated by real live music lovers. They are currently engaged in a fundraiser to make up for some technical snafus with their ad serving in the last few months. Honestly, snafus aside, supporting a great privately run site like RYM is worth the money anytime.

More along the lines of Daily Composer is the blog of Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary. BSG has featured an incredibly compelling soundtrack since its inception, and lately Bear has been sharing detailed insight into the compositions in each episode. However, if you aren’t caught up on your episodes tread lightly – Bear spares no plot points, as often they motivate his compositions.

I have a whole BSG mega-essay rattling around inside my head, but it has to wait until my Hedwig master thesis finally finds its way out before I can pay it my full attention.