The Library

[bellamarie]

Never cared for Dylan's songs, and never did do drugs.  I like Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

[rosemarykaye]

Mkaren - what a fabulous memory! Makes me think of my beloved Tales of the City, and Mary Ann's arrival at Barbary Lane. In fact I think I'll watch it again tonight

Rosemary

[nlhome]

Yes, Mkaren, great memory, what a picture it creates. I remember many of the songs - listened to a lot of music while in college in the 1960's and while my husband was in Vietnam, and Bob Dylan and his music were an important part.

[Dana]

MKaren,
 I think I had the same feeling first time I heard Janis Joplin....come on....come on...take a little piece of my heart...or whatever it was...just going now to look for it.......oh...Janis.....!   (Liked Dylan too, but loved Janis)

Found it...watched it....what a voice....what a singer....

[Frybabe]

Well, it all seems a bit odd, but I have thought for a number of years now that many of the lyrics are, well, lyrical and that songwriters are poets but with their lyrics set to music. That certainly doesn't count for all, but some, especially the folk music and perhaps blues and some of the old country and westerns. It might be fun to go back and find some songs that fit the poetry set to music theme.

[bellamarie]

I have always seen songs as poems put to music.  The baby boomers have the best music ever, and have lasted throughout the Disco, Rap, Alternative, etc., etc.  My five year old granddaughter sings, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Love Potion #9. 

[ginny]

What wonderful memories written here, I love it.

For music I would have said Paul Simon.

For themes in music I would have said  the late Ralph Stanley's Man of Constant Sorrow and O Death.

Goodness we all have different taste, don't we?

I came in to this interesting conversation to say I am reading a book called It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time by an author I had never heard of, Moira Hodgson. She was the food critic for the New York Observer for 20 years.

What a life that woman has had!  Her father was in the British Diplomatic Corps or something and they had to move every 2 years. She has literally lived everywhere,  I never read anything like it, it's wonderful.  It  reads like some kind of child's adventure story of travel to foreign lands back in the day, but it's laden with a child's sharp assessing eye. I am so struck by the one thing she remembers most about her mother, who had to fit in to the class conscious world of the Diplomat and worried constantly that she was "not right, somehow."

Cruising was not what we know it as now.  Accounts of travel by sea and land, that part reads like Agatha  Christie's Come,  Tell Me How You Live.

I am to the part where they have gone back to England at her grandparents house and she's putting in some of the old recipes her grandmother used.  The cake made in honor of Queen Elizabeth's investiture in 1953.  She's put in several recipes which are a revelation...you'd have to see them... to understand.  Old recipes, pre and post WWII recipes, extremely simple ingredients, you'd not think that they would turn out well, you possibly would not think you'd ever care to eat them, either,  in our chemical boxed mixes 2016 world,  but I have a feeling they do, or she wouldn't have put them in the book.

I honestly have never read anything like it.

[PatH]

Two questions:

1.  Do songs fit within the definition of what the prize is for?  I think they do, since poetry is there, and songs are poetry with an added dimension.

2.  Are Dylan's songs of high enough quality to merit the prize?  I'm not very familiar with them--I was born about 10 years too soon to be his audience, and classical music is my thing--but some of you are making a good case for them.

[ginny]

Here's something just sent to me by a Latin student which shows the Classical Influences on Dylan, it's interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/arts/music/bob-dylan-101-a-harvard-professor-has-the-coolest-class-on-campus.html

Those are two really good questions to which I don't know the answer. I don't know the parameters.  You could really get INTO the message aspect, tho. How about Peter Paul and Mary? (I don't know who wrote their lyrics). How about Springsteen? Some of his lyrics are definitely poetical, metaphors of society.

[Frybabe]

It seems to me that the ancients also set their poetry to music, so I decided to check it out. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Lyric Poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyric_poetry

You might like this study lesson (for 9th graders?)
http://study.com/academy/lesson/lyric-poetry-definition-types-examples.html

If lyric poetry has been around for so long, why did the Nobel people take so long to include in their prizes for literature? Maybe they thought the music prize would cover it.

[PatH]

There isn't a Nobel music prize.  They are: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics.  That leaves out a whole lot of human endeavor, but there's no rule forcing them to be all-inclusive.  It's a list of what one man thought was important enough to leave his money to, and he was influenced in part by a bad conscience for having invented so many ways for people to kill each other.

Those were interesting links about ancient lyric poetry.  That sound you just heard was me slapping my forehead.  Why did it never occur to me that lyric poetry was poetry sung to a lyre?  Duh.

You recall that the ancient Greek dramas, which we certainly regard as literature, were more like opera, with the actors also being singers.

[rosemarykaye]

PatH - you are not alone, I had never even thought about the lyre/lyrical thing - and I did A-level Latin.

Other baby boomer singers whom I would definitely also see as poets are Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison.  I love them all three, and probably know the words to most of their songs by heart. Cohen has of course published volumes of poetry.

Rosemary

[Frybabe]

Ah, I wasn't sure PatH. I saw someone else mention it yesterday, but was too lazy to fact check it. Isn't it interesting that they left out music and art or the all encompassing humanities.

[ginny]

Mea culpa, I'm at fault, I'm the one who  said "music."  I guess I was surprised to see Bob  Dylan's name, period, and was thinking of the social commentary in his lyrics.   So it's "physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics."

  Then I nominate Pete Seeger for his  Where Have All The Flowers Gone sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary, and his other lyrics, like If I Had a Hammer,  Turn, Turn, Turn, and We Shall Overcome.  I realize he's deceased and I guess it has to be a living artist?

[Frybabe]

Examples of Lyric poetry through the ages:
http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_21_song_examples.html Keep on scrolling down to see contemporary examples including one by Dylan.

[PatH]

That's an interesting link, Frybabe.  I didn't realize Henry VIII had his soft side.

Those two little songs of Goethe have been beautifully set to music by Schubert.  Here's the second, my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc4R6npzeHI

And here's the pair:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYK1JjZjyh4

[PatH]

Do you know the significance of the drinking gourd?  It's supposed to be a slave escaping song.  Most slaves weren't allowed to learn to read, or to have maps, to make it harder to escape.  The song is directions, and the drinking gourd is the big dipper, pointing north.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw6N_eTZP2U

[mabel1015j]

Very interesting conversation. I thought immediately of Paul Simon's lyrics/poetry when I heard about Dylan's prize, but all those "poets" you've mentioned would get my vote also.

I'm watching the Southern Festival of Books on CSPAN's Booktv and thinking MaryZ might be there? The books they are discussing at the moment are very interesting - desegregation of Vanderbilt and desegregation of Nashville's schools. I always told my students that I thought all those families of the civil rights movement and the desegregation of facilities, especially sending their children thru crowds of whites screaming at them, are as important heroes of American history as all those generals we have built statues to. As a parent, I don't know that I could have had the nerve to put my children thru that.

Jean

[rosemarykaye]

Yes - that film of the little girl who had to have a police escort when she became the first black child in a white school was so moving. I'm afraid her name currently escapes me.

Rosemary

[BarbStAubrey]

Remember ancient music used exclusively the modes - not the scales as we know them today or during the time of Schubert, born 1797, Handle who died in 1759 or even Bach who died in 1750.

Each of the modes have a rather mournful sound and had a meaning so that some were used for a time of day and some were reserved for a certain occasion -

Unfortunately on youtube there is a plethora of young musicians who learned the modes AFTER they learned the modern scales - they learn the modes because jazz often is tuned to a mode - they youtube teach thinking the mode comes off the modern scale and the only way they give any credit to its ancient background is to describe modes as church music from the middle ages - so now on youtube there is a description that has become popular called church modes. grrrr

The modes are heard in the old mountain music brought here by the very early settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland. Their music goes back before the late fifteenth century and was the stuff of the old tunes sung during the folk music era of the 60s - not Peter Paul and Mary who sang harmonies as Polyphony but rather folks who sang Monophony as Joan Baez.

It would be as if playing the piano with no black notes and going up the scale, each starting note has a name - there are no sharps and flats - the scale is do, ray, me, fa, so, la, ti, and then repeat an octave higher is another do.  However, we are so used to hearing the major and minor scales we no longer readily hear the sound of a mode.

A youtube with the modes, the best examples are among the mountain singers  - the younger generation is doing more with the instrument so it is more difficult to find music as it was originally played and sung within the modes.

If you watch this and see how one hand plays the tune and the other is a drone sound - that is how ancient folks sang - there was one voice - often beautiful in its high notes but a single voice with a chorus that created a background drone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWZ7KpB5Zg

Hearing the monophony - one voice or more than one voice but singing the same tune - maybe another singing an octave higher but no harmony - the best way to hear it is to attend a Catholic High Mass where the priest is singing from tunes that some are from the years 400 - any accompaniment would be a drone sound from an organ or a repeat by a choral group usually in a lower register - today we hear the word plainchant used to describe this kind of music.

Here is the Angelus sung in one voice even thou there are multiple voices as a background they are still singing as one - they are providing a drone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7BbncHyw9E

Once we have harmony - two or more voices singing tunes different from each other or music played with harmony accompanying the main singer or instrument, we move into the late middle ages - A poem from before Shakespeare that may have been put to music would have been with a single voice or a single note on an instrument following a melody that was played or sung in one of the modes, that all have a mournful sound.

Even the troubadours and minstrels of the 11th century only had the modes as today we have scales - research lets you go back to the history of music in Jerusalem before the destruction of the second temple when both men and women had an obligation to sing at a certain number of services - afraid the street music would enter the temple after the destruction of the first temple women were bared from singing in temple - The music used the modes with a single voice chanting the words.   

Nothing happens all at once in music and where in isolated locations polyphony was played there is only a few musicians in the British Isles who composed polyphony for the church in the 13th and 14th century - villagers did not travel far and wide so the music of the people continued in the old monophony using modes till the early seventeenth century when their music was influenced by hearing in church the music of Bach, the rock star of the day.

The young today learn their scales and in order to learn the modes they are using their knowledge of how scales are built suggesting the modes came from a scale - it is the other way round.

The Aeolian mode is as close as you can get to a minor key scale today and the Ionian mode which is the same as our major C today and therefore, makes it easy to play on an old instrument music from today.

An example of a Dorian mode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk29p3JBHEA

An example Wayfaring Stranger in the Aeolian mode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J_5A622wT4

Lydian mode on the Celtic Harp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwW5lBd48B8

Mixolydian mode sung typical of ancient music or plainchant however, she is playing a harmony rather than a drone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvbFFk6qM70

The Phrygian mode tuning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXSkZtmf-Q

The Ionian mode - Joan Baez sings and plays the old old Four Mary's that is also called Mary Hamilton - the Ionian mode is our C scale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMHOJcdn3eQ

[maryz]

Jean, I live in Chattanooga, not Nashville, so won't attend the Festival.  But I'm watching, too.  I was living in the Nashville suburbs at the time of Perry Wallace, though. We were there from 1962-1986.  We did live in an adjoining county to Nashville/Davidson County, so were not directly involved in the busing episode, but were certainly aware of it.  Our county pretty much avoided busing by consolidating schools, i.e., in our town there was only one school with grades 1-3, one school with grades 4-6, etc.  I don't remember any specific problems, but I do know by high school (last half of the 70s) our girls had some black friends - on campus, but the groups really didn't socialize much outside. I've seen a program with Perry Wallace several years ago - he's an riveting speaker with quite a story to tell.

[Dana]

Oh Barb, how fascinating.  See if I got this right....so modes came before scales and had no sharps or flats, the Ionian mode is the same as the C scale which has no sharps or flats, the Lydian mode is  same as the F major scale but instead of B flat, it's just B.  Is that right?  So each mode Aeolian, Dorian etc would be like a different scale but without the sharps or flats?  Can you tell me what each one is, if I am correct?

....So the Dorian mode starts on D, just looked it up.......
Interesting, some of them have the names of ancient Greek islands or places, is it thought these modes originated in these places I wonder..

Loved your examples, especially the guy explaining the Lydian mode.....













 

[Frybabe]

Great post, Barb. Enjoyed the music and the info.

[bellamarie]

Oh Frybabe, thank you for the link I especially loved this one and could hear it being sung as a hymnal in church:

From Hymn to Earth the Mother of All
Homer (7th century B.C.)

O universal mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,
All things that fly, or on the ground divine
Live, move, and there are nourished–these are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!

It is so very close to this beautiful song we sing in May to Honor Mary the Mother of Jesus:  On This Day O' Beautiful Mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxEwDPb9pQE

[BarbStAubrey]

Dana - if you have a piano nearby - it is easier to describe than a string instrument - there is all sorts of tightening of string to do on a string instrument what can be accomplished easily on the piano.

if you start with C on the piano and only play the white notes till the next C that is the Ionian mode - sounds familiar - yep a C major or minor

go to D on the piano and ONLY play the white notes going up to the next D and that is the Dorian

Phrygian is E to E

Lydian F to F

Mixolydian G to G

Aeolian A to A

Again, only the white notes

It is the closest - then realize the melody that would be sung as the poem would simply in tone only follow the white note where as the accompaniment if it is another instrument or the another hand that beats out the rhythm is going to make a drone sound with several notes including the one from the mode are strummed together or singers take a couple of notes and each stays consistent with their note and hums or ahhh behind the singer who is singing the melody.

If another voice also sings the melody they do it a full octave under or on the same note but since the timber of our voices is different it sounds like an accompaniment but it does not harmonize. Harmony came into the voice of music during the middle ages.

I have a dulcimer and to change a mode the last string is constant - I just tightened it till it sings the best and then use that string to tune the others - various modes are tuned by holding down the other strings one at a time using different frets  - actually all you have to do is know the fret to hold down to tune the second string because the third is an octave higher from the first.

So for the Ionian you hold down the the one you got to sing the best at the third fret and tune the second string to that and then count the frets for an octave and hold down the first string on that fret and tune your third string - never played a 4 string dulcimer so I am not sure how the 4th string is tuned - I believe close to the third string but not sure what

Then do a Dorian I tune the second string by holding down the first string on the 4th fret going up the finger board increasing the fret number for all 6 modes.   

If you are interested in this Gutenberg ebook of music you hit the illustration for Gregorian and Ambrosian scales (Gregorian chant is all the music at the time approved for church music by Pope Gregory excluding a other rites like the Ambrosian rite - these monks had and have a different collection of music that was not subject to Pope Gregory since they were a monastic order under St. Ambrose) another aside (Long history in the RC Church of many [52 rites] liturgies and theological views that most folks today think there is only the one, elevated by the Pope - ah so) any how that chapter shows music written for the various modes and they break the modes down further according to where on the scale the music is being noted.

http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/2/0/2/9/20293/20293-h/20293-h.htm

[BarbStAubrey]

http://www.homoecumenicus.com/ancient_instruments.htm

[Dana]

oh I will look at all you said above, I just began to learn piano 3 years ago, I find the  theory rather complicated....so, anyway, what is the difference between drone and harmony?  Drone is several notes, no sharps or flats, including the one from the mode, repeated over and over,not a tune??.... and harmony is ? ..... another different tune, which might have sharps and flats, played with the left hand (talking piano here)??   What is the difference between drone and harmony?

[BarbStAubrey]

Dana 'Drone' think of a bagpipe - not exactly harmony

The system is fun when learning scales - if you go up and down in 3s c - e - g - and instead of thinking just go up, I like to think if my hands as rocking back and forth from left to right - so we end on G playing CEG but if we go below C rather than searching for what is next going up - and use my left hand it is G Sharp - then back to my right hand for D which is one up from C and then my left hand to A which is one up from G and then my right hand does E which is one up from the D that was one up from the C and then my left hand does B which was one up from the A that was one up from the G - that way it is easier to remember how many sharps - C none - G 1 - D 2 - A 3 - E 4 - B 5 - F sharp is 6 - and then the sharp minor goes backwards rocking back and forth - F 1 flat - left hand B 2 flats - right hand E 3 flats - left hand A 4 flats - right hand D 5 flats etc etc

OK back to a drone - if you look at one of the youtube dulcimer you can see them flicking back and forth on all the strings making a sound that is anything but pretty - exception, the one girl who is fingering that secondary sound that more modern players are doing - the old traditional players simply brush back and forth and the real old players used a feather with a strong quill to keep time by brushing back and forth across all the strings - one of the strings was tuned especially for the mode so the sound in included - we do not make any sound like it on the piano but then the piano did not come about till the eighteenth century - most of the choral groups from ancient times created a drone sound to back up the one single voice that was usually a very high soprano or tenor -

Harmony - think Barber Shop - all the voices add to the melody however, not on the same note and often in relationship to the note - like playing chords when doing your scales CEG - fourths is FAC and fifths is GBD  back to CEG - not only do the three notes played as a chord harmonize but the series harmonizes so that every key on the scale can go through the same system and have a harmonizing group of notes - of course it can go further into sevenths etc - that system was only developed in the early Middle Ages - and it is the basis of harmony

So one voice can sing C and a harmonizing voice can sing the same tune following the same intervals between notes in starting on another note within the harmonizing pattern. Playing the piano you do it all the time when you play a melody with two notes on the same stem - only in the very early lessons did you play one note at a time with one hand - then you used two fingers on one hand and then 3 so that all the notes played together - either 2 or 3 notes [sounds] were on the same stem that we call a chord - singers can accomplish this with each voice singing a different note on the chord, creating harmony.

A drone would brush all the notes with no attempt to create harmony and no attempt to change the tone on a scale but stay in one spot and keep time - the closes you can come to that on a piano is to take all five fingers and lay them on the white notes next to each other and simply pounce up and down keeping time.

Again there are no sharps and flats in a mode - sharps and flats is another system - there is only what on the piano would be white notes - and so a more limited sound with some unusual almost melancholy in the sound.

An idea - Dana take a very simply melody you learned the first few weeks when you started lessons - maybe it is a nursery rhyme or Silent Night - you may have to write it out to transpose it - but instead of starting on C or if it had a sharp G - start on say D and if the next note is on the next line than you know that is two steps away so two steps from D would be F because you are NOT going to count any black notes - transpose a few bars and listen to the difference.

[Dana]

OK, I will do that.  Give me some time--I'm dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Matthew here, (just such a mess). Haven't played the piano for a week.   I'll be back.......!!

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh Dana had no idea you were dealing with the aftermath of the flooding - was your home hit? I take it you are in NC - I bet you have not been on the piano - wish I could pop in and help you with some of your cleanup.

[Frybabe]

Oh, Barb, the book includes a Welsh piece or two. Super!

[BarbStAubrey]

Not exactly lyrical however, if you have any desire to pay tribute to Shakespeare's 400 year anniversary of his death we are closing in on the end of reading Sonnets - there are 154 of them that we have plowed and at times floated but more often sloughed through 111 of them - there are only 43 more Sonnets to read - there is no  constant narrative - each day is a new thought - there are several themes, like time and aging that are repeated along with some behavior that as Bellamarie put it yesterday, Oy Vey!   

Reading with us on the home stretch can be a great way to count out the days for another initiative you would like to accomplish - it is reminding me to take a daily walk and to knit for an hour a day - had another but just keeping those two going is my challenge. Reading and making a short remark is the reminder to get on with my own repetitive daily - so, if you would like to join us we would really enjoy seeing some new voices adding to this final month and a half of Shakespeare. We are on page 117 in Poetry. 

[mabel1015j]

Maryz thanks for sharing that. We've all had such interesting histories, I love hearing people's stories.

Our mother/dgt book group is reading "The Last Runaway" by Tracy Chevalier. It is only slightly what I expected. I thought it would be much more about escaping slaves, but the "runaway" turns out to be the protagonist. The protagonist leaves England and finds herself,  in Ohio, devoid of anyone she knows, and discovers that America is very different from England.  It got me thinking a lot about my life, which I love in a novel.

My question to the group is going to be "have you ever made a transition to a culture which is new to you?" As I thought about this question I realized that I had done that several times in my life. I first thought, of course, about getting married, which the obvious change of culture was marrying an African-American, but while talking to my girlfriend, we decided EVERY marriage is two different cultures coming together!!! At the same time I moved from small-town Pa to surburban NJersey, THAT was a cultural change.

Then in mid-life I started working for Dept of Army!! Aye-aye! I had been director of a small YWCA with an all female staff, which we ran with great flexibility, to an installation with 1200 employees, most of them men and run with rigid hierarchy!!! Fortunately the job I had as Federal Woman's Program Director (assisting women in being promoted, helping them move into non-traditional jobs, facilitating complaints of discrimiation or sexual harassment, training supervisors and managers about all of that and having the chief of staff "standing" behind me) gave me a lot of leeway to not get overly entangled in the hierarchy. Whew!

After that I went to be a trainer at a Visiting Nurses organization that was about 200 employees, about 99% of whom were female and the administration thought that they should try to behave as a "male corporation" would behave and were, surprisingly to me, very negatively sterotypical about "how women behave."

Getting involved in the women's movement brought me in contact with other "cultures."

So, I present these questions to you all - have you found yourself in a largely new culture? Do you think that every marriage is a transition into a new culture? Would you consider the other events that I consider a change of culture to be so?

Have any of you read the book? What did you take away from it?

Jean

[bellamarie]

Heard on the morning news Dylan has yet to acknowledge, or respond to winning the Noble prize.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/bob-dylan-is-yet-to-respond-to-nobel-prize-committees-calls-over-his-award-20161017-gs4i26.html

[BarbStAubrey]

  if the weather is anything at all as it is here where Dylan lives he may just have buried himself in a tub of ice cubes and ride out October - 92 degrees today - weather predicted 89 - tomorrow they are predicting 91 so does that mean it will really be 94 - my delightful home page is a blog from Britain with all sorts of photos and art work and poems about the English countryside - I start my computer time with short tales of crisp October and curling up by the fire with a book and quotes from Longfellow's Evangeline with the most glorious photos of the colorful autumn countryside and I have to have the air conditioner running - sheesh

Just have to share this - it is so wonderful... the prologue to Longfellow's Evangeline...

                   
    This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
    Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
    Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
    Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
    Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
    Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

    This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
    Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
    Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,–
    Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
    Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
    Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
    Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
    Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
    Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.

    Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
    Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,
    List to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines of the forest;
    List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

[JoanK]

BARB: I was fascinated with your description of Modes, and the examples.

A Tv music course taught me why polyphony/harmony was not used in early music: the system of music notation that they had was not good enough yet. those who read music today take for granted that the music they are reading tells them exactly what to play or sing (once theyt get the beat), notes, timing holds, etc. So you can sing an elaborate song with someone, and be sure you're in harmony. early schemes of written music were not that good. So learning a simple phrase and playing/singing it over and over was the best you could do.

The musicians who developed the system of notation used now should be as famous as Bach or Schubert. Unfortunately, although the same program told me their names, I don't remember them. Thus is fame.

[BarbStAubrey]

vaguely remember hearing that Joan - if you can find it again it would be great. 

[ginny]

Jean, what an interesting post and what an interesting life you've had! I also have enjoyed reading what our readers like to share about their very interesting lives and background. Thank you!

Winchester Lady, my copy of Spectacles came and I am really enjoying it. It's very different, I love the innovative way it's written,  and of course I had to cheat and read the end bits about the Great British Bake Off behind the scenes, they are surprising, too.

I'm really enjoying the book. Thank you for recommending it. Like everything else in life, there's a lot more to her  than one thought.

[Winchesterlady]

Ginny, I'm glad you're enjoying Spectacles. I might have to order a copy for myself.

I've just finished The Trespasser by Tana French. I've really enjoyed all her books and always look forward to a new one. This one was okay, but not quite as good as the previous ones. She writes the Dublin Murder Squad Series. A different detective will narrate each of her novels, and that person is usually someone who has appeared as a supporting character in one of her earlier books. So when you start one of her new books, you already feel somewhat familiar with the characters. The series began with In the Woods.

[ginny]

 Yes I'm very impressed with Miss Sue and her obvious intelligence.

I guess you all saw today that Oxford has credited Christopher Marlowe with the three Henry VI plays and hints at more?

New Oxford Shakespeare Edition Credits Christopher Marlowe as a Co-author: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/books/shakespeare-christopher-marlowe-henry-vi.html?_r=0