Many thanks to AOW for bringing
this lovely thing to our attention:
Something Very Fine, Noble
And Genuinely Beautiful for a Change.
Listen! This music has healing powers.
Truly a balm to soothe angry, confused,
distressed, squabbling souls.
 |
| Jenny Oaks Baker, born 1975 |
[NOTE: Violinist, Jenny Oaks Baker Baker, a graduate of Philadelphia’s famed Curtis Institute of Music, began playing the violin at age four. She made her solo orchestral debut in 1983 at the age of eight. She won several competitions in her youth. With Shadow Mountain Records she has released twelve albums. Her first, On Wings of Song (1998), was awarded two Pearl Awards from the FCMA. Her album, Wish Upn a Star - a tribute to the music of Walt Disney, earned a nomination at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Album.
Several of her albums have listed on Billboard Charts including her 2010 album Then Sings My Soul; her 2012 album, Noël: Carols of Christmas Past featuring vocalist Alex Sharpe; and her 2014 album Classic: The Rock Album.
She has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Strathmore Hall, TheLibrary of Congress, and as a guest soloist with the National Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, SanDiego Symphony, Utah Symphony, and the Mormin Tabernacle Choir. She has also been featured in television and radio broadcasts nationwide. Her BYUTV In Performance special, "Silver Screen Serenade" features Ms. Baker performing music from her 2008 album of the same name. She has collaborated with Gladys Knight, Marvin Hamlisch, Lisa Hopkins Seegmiller, Kurt Bestor, Alex Sharpe, and the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Jenny Oaks Baker's music has been featured on the soundtracks of many films as well.]
Just to squabble a bit more...
ReplyDeleteWhy have a video featuring a violin and piano... but then play a score that contains the instruments of an entire orchestra? I'm sure that the piano and violin's featured would have been MORE than enough.
Thersites,
DeleteApparently there was a demand for an "upgraded" bit of digital work.
Seem that "better" is always the enemy of "good enough".
Delete*shakes head*
It's almost as if the addition of these "commercial" touches are meant to shape the "tastes" of the listener and take the production of an equivalent "quality" of music out of the hands of the "common man".
It's probably cliché to say it, given our age, but it seems to lack a certain "authenticity". Something that is certainly not lacking in the virtuosity of the two featured performers.
DeleteObviously, the healing balm failed to work on you Thersites. I offer you my condolences.
DeleteA propensity to over analyze may blind us to the Beauty before our eyes.
Here's something a little more down-to-earth that may be more your speed, Thersites:
Deletettps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0fIBFml3e4
Is that "authentic" enough for you? };-)>
Very Dylan-esque.
DeleteIndeed, and ain't it a shame?
DeleteD is for Dismal.
D is for Dirty.
D is for Depressing.
D is for Degraded
D is for Demented
D is for Dysfunctional
D is for Disparagement
D is for Derogatory
D is for Deserted
D is for Depraved
D is for Deprived
D is for DYLAN –– as in BOB not THOMAS.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteI forgot to add
DeleteDiseased
Despicable
Degenerate
Deplorable
Debilitating
Disrespectful
Deranged
Damnable
No matter what you cll it, the foul odor of fecal matter is unmistakable.
You TURDOPHILES can have it. i don't want it.
But not desultory?
DeleteNever that. Leftists are damnably purposeful, ruthless and determined.
DeleteDistracting
DeleteDetracting
DeleteDeprecatory
DeleteDissonance
DeleteDissident
DeleteDULL
DeleteSure is purty.
ReplyDeleteEgg-ZACK-Lee!!! Thank you.
DeleteIsn't this glorious, FT?
ReplyDeleteI hope that everyone opened the video to big screen? Those images!
It is a lovely piece of work no matter how you slice it. Thank you so very much, AOW, for bringing it my attention.
DeleteShe's a wonderful Lady
ReplyDeleteThey BOTH are, Sassy, and so are the remarkably sensitive Sound Engineers who produced the subtle "enhancements" that truly help fulfill the expressive potential of this extraordinarily beautiful arrangement.
DeleteI'm glad you stopped by and enjoyed the video. We really have AOW to thank, since she found it first, then brought it to my attention.
FT,
DeleteI found this video at one of the conservative blog sites -- a small blog out there and one which usually posts political material excoriating the Democratic Party of the 21st Century.
But on Sunday? A respite.
Rage addicts dont appreciate being given the opportunity for a respite.
DeleteThey CRAVE endless turmoil, disharmony, acrimony and vituperation.
Surely you've noticed? };-)>
https://youtu.be/D-7RzS8_dys
ReplyDeleteThis is better.
JMJ
Ya think? Well, that sure explains a lot. •<);-D
DeleteI'll bet this is more your speed than Jenny and Condi's exalted attempt to soothe the savage breast:
Deletettps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0fIBFml3e4
What a sick, twisted, demented video, offered to us by an obviously drug-addled wastrel. I will pray for your soul, Jersey MacJones.
DeleteDid you ever consider why Marx negatively compared religion to a drug? What does that say about drugs?
Godless communists went on an unprecedented killing spree in the 20th century, and national socialists chipped in another 12 million or so.
You may want to pause and reflect before proffering such stupidities to this forum.
I second your comment, Fred Beard's Ghost! And, yes, I watched the video -- as much as I could stand of it, anyway.
DeleteHey Jersey, the rebuttal to your rather foolish contribution to this post.
DeleteMarx famously compared religion to an opium, which at that time was commonly used as a medicine -- he was saying something nice about religion.
DeleteThis lengthy quotation from Marx's writings is supposed to provide context for Marx's infamous remark:
Delete"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
"Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
"It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."
He wrote very beautifully, didn't he? What a pity he used his considerable talent in service to Sophistry and Guile!
LOL! I love Motorhead, and I think Orgasmatron is their best song. The video here is new to me. I don't think an official video was ever made. Lemmy does like religion, or communism or fascism. Just be careful who's around when you bash him - bikers adore Motorhead. I used to see them at a club in Brooklyn when I was young. There were Hells Angels everywhere.
DeleteJMJ
Oops! Lemmy does NOT like religion, or communism or fascism.
DeleteJMJ
I haven't read him much, but I assume Marx was sincere. I haven't read any Trotsky either, but I know Hitchens deeply admired his writing.
DeleteOf COURSE Marx and Trotsky were sincere. So was Adolf Hitler.
DeleteSincerity is rarely synonymous with virtue.
Far better to be a hypocrite doing good works for all the wrong reasons, than a sincere, maniacal fanatic gifted with "charisma" who is capable of seducing hundreds of millions into throwing their lives away for a set of demented, false ideals.
I'm not talking about virtue, I'm responding to your "sophistry and guile."
DeleteYou surprise me. Do you think the insincere Christian will be saved?
Ahoy, jez! I'll leave it to you and Jersey to explain how "religion will (mess) you up" worse than drugs.
ReplyDeletearrrr...
A jihadist isn't messed up worse than a smackhead? Who knew?
DeleteI'm sure Ol' Fred up there had CHRISTIANITY in mind when he said "religion," Jez. Most of us Westerners of the Old School do, since we were born and raised in what-used-to-be-called CHRISTENDOM.
DeleteIslam is not a Religion, it is an Incursion.
Substitute the extreme Christian sect of your choice.
DeleteThere is no "extreme Christian sect" extant that could even BEGIN to compare in vileness and savagery to modern-day Islamic-Fascism.
DeleteIf you were thinking of The Westboro Baptists, please don't. They are a very tiny, fatuous group of imbeciles, and totally impotent. They serve as an echo chamber for ignorant hate rhetoric and as a launching pad for tasteless jokes.
Islam, on the other hand is grave danger to life, limb, sanity and our territorial integrity.
Arrr mateys. The FreeThinker has said it better than I ever could.
DeleteGoing to church on Sunday is far more salubrious than shooting smack, I think our chum jez would agree?
The big sectarian disputes are comparably damaging to drug abuse.
DeleteI'm not prepared to say what's going on among the various branches of Christianity in the British Isles, but the conflicts you cite are certainly no signifiant part of American religious life today, and have not been at any time in living memory. From where I sit I would have to say they may be either ancient and now moot, or agenda-driven and entirely mythological.
DeleteThe USA was founded as a predominantly PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN nation, despite the much vaunted "Deism" attributed to our Founding Fathers.The Great Migration of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a large influx of Roman Catholics. A culture clash resulted, and for a long time a powerful anti-Catholic sentiment prevailed among many of the Protestants whose families got here first.
Fortunately, that's pretty well dissipated now, although Evangelicals and Fundamentalists still take a hard line against Mormons, which I, personally, think ridiculous. But virtually no one gets VIOLENT over these differences.
That went out with the advent of The Enlightenment.
It's harder to dismiss it when they're planting bombs in your town, as they were when I was growing up.
DeleteI didn't know you were confining me to America, but anti-catholicism in your country was popular in the 1920s, which is not quite out of living memory but near enough. Certainly not "ancient," but I understand that you Americans perceive history on a shorter scale than we old-worlders.
Would you allow that the divisive forms of "Christianity" (you must be tempted to pull a No True Scotsman fallacy, but Resist!) as practiced in cities like Belfast and Glasgow can be as dangerous as drugs?
Anyway this is Mr. Ghost's claim, not mine. But I do think that "religion" can be both dangerous as well as beneficial, it depends how it hits you. Like Weinberg said, religion is what is needed to induce a good person to do evil.
Ah, but it was only MYSELF I "confined" to the United States while frankly admitting I knew very little of the situation in modern Great Britain.
DeleteThe anti-Catholicism of which you speak was never violent or disruptive of the social order in my country. As I've outlined numerous times when discussing my own family's immigrant past, a century ago virtually ALL immigrant groups disliked, distrusted and were overly competitive with, openly hostile to, and blatantly abusive of one another. It was never a mere matter of a quasi-Blue-Blood Establishment unfairly pitting itself against immigrants.
Conflicts of this sort –– and far worse –– seem to make up the essence of human history. Attempts to affix blame and hold perpetrators responsible and subject to punishment don't appear to have helped very much.
Perhaps they haven't, and anyway it is not my interest to affix blame to either party. That doesn't stop me from considering such conflicts to be undesirable, and noticing the role of Religion in inflaming them. Mr Ghost seems to the idea that religion might be more malign than narcotics is ridiculous. If I consider only the damage caused by each -- keeping the benefits on a separate ledger for a moment -- I cannot dismiss it as easily as he does.
DeleteOh I agree with you. Really I do. NOTHING yet devised by the Mind of Man has had a more widespread pernicious effect than the secular religion of COLLECTIVIST-MATERIALISM spawned by the Hegel-inspired Karl Marx. Marxism in its purest form and the many vile derivatives it spawned have been responsible for more death, destruction, deprivation and sheer misery than any prior influence.
DeleteAt least the communists rejected rock and roll. ;)
DeleteObservation has informed that spiritual belief and religion doesn't appear to "mess up" the individual so much as organized religion (all) has throughout time really "messed up society".
ReplyDelete"Religion" is like fire. It's value is completely dependent in the uses to which it may be put.
DeleteDevotees of Negativity and Clamor are very possibly the most septic and corrosive of all the harmful elements that create and promote misery in a given society.
ReplyDeleteFT,
DeleteApparently, they can't allow a a blog like this to go by without saying something or posting something attempting to degrade and to deconstruct it.
That certainly seems to be the case, AOW, These people have become eternally FRACTIOUS ELEMENTS ADDICTED to RAGE, CLAMOR, CONTENTIOUSNESS, and permanent DISCONTENT. They have completely forgotten how to ENJOY life.
DeleteThis is what's bound to happen, of course, when a Civilization has been under relentless assault by ardent practitioners of CRITICAL THEORY for over a century.
EVERYONE goes STARK, RAVING MAD, and they don't even REALIZE it.
FT,
DeleteI agree.
When people realize that they are under attack from all sides, they fire willy nilly.
PS: There may also be a chemical addiction to adrenaline surge.
DeleteIn psychology it is often said that disturbed individuals become "addicted to excitement," and don't seem to care if it results in acts of wanton self-destruction.
DeleteShe make me hungry
ReplyDeleteNow precisely who might "she" be?
DeleteAnd what do you hunger for?
From Brainwashing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics, republished several times since 1930:
ReplyDelete... We have battled in America since the turn of the century to bring to nothing any and all Christian influences and we are succeeding. While today we seem to be kind to the Christian remember that we have yet to influence the “Christian world” to our ends. When that is done, we shall have an end of them everywhere....
You must work until “religion” is synonymous with “insanity.” You must work until the officials of city, county, and state governments will not think twice before they pounce upon religious groups as public enemies.
[...]
You must work until “religion” is synonymous with “insanity.” You must work until the officials of city, county, and state governments will not think twice before they pounce upon religious groups as public enemies....
It may sound simplistic –– even naive –– but the way to counteract this is not by cursing at it and trying to destroy it, but simply by following Jesus's advice to make every effort to "overcome evil with good."
DeleteWhenever we permit ourselves to succumb to anger or consternation we are actually working against God and trying to separate ourselves from Him. In other words we play right into the hands of the Marxists who are hell bent on destroying our Civilization.
“Personally, I believe that prayer is a sending out of vibrations from one person to another and to God. All of the universe is in vibration. There are vibrations in the molecules of a table. The air is filled with vibrations. The reaction between human beings is also in vibration. When you send out a prayer for another person, you employ the force inherent in a spiritual universe. You transport from yourself to the other person a sense of love, helpfulness, support—a sympathetic, powerful understanding—and in this process you awaken vibrations in the universe through which others are helpfully affected.”
ReplyDelete― Norman Vincent Peale
FROM THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS (C.S. LEWIS)
ReplyDeleteSCREWTAPE (a Senior Demon) DERIDING GOD: “He’s a hedonist at heart... He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures forevermore’... There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least – sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’ s any use to us.”
This is a recurrent theme for Screwtape – that the Enemy (God) is the inventor of pleasure. He then goes onto browbeat Wormwood (Screwtape's nephew, a young demon in training) for allowing the patient to fall in love. He then goes on to describe where the patient’s girl friend lives and her family. About it, he comments:
“The whole place reeks of that deadly odor... and the house is full of that impenetrable mystery.”
To what, is Screwtape referring? What is the odor? To what, does Screwtape liken this woman’s home?
When referring to heaven, Screwtape quotes George MacDonald:
“Nor shall we ever know that repose in the Father’ s hands which the Lord knew when the agony of death was over and He entered the regions where there is only life, and therefore all that is not music is silence (for all noise comes of the conflict of Life and Death) – we shall never be able, I say, to rest in the bosom of the Father, till the fatherhood is fully revealed to us in the love of the brothers.”
Why does Screwtape detest “music” and “silence”?
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him. Psalm 37:7 What does this verse say about the importance of silence?
“We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth.”
~ Screwtape