I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on my computer. There are a ton of books out there in electronic format. Many of the books are in the familiar Adobe pdf format that can be read by many Windows and Mac ebook readers. There is also the open standard epub format as well as a plethora of proprietary formats with various forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM). The library system in our area carries many books in electronic format and that makes it easy and convenient for checking out and reading. I’ve checked out a few in the past week or two. No need to trudge to the library if you don’t want to – a book is just a few clicks away! Ah, but I digress.
Although my musical roots are in rock music, it’s not too conducive when you’re trying to read a book, especially if you’re trying to comprehend technical material. For reading books, I select easy listening- or instrumental-type music for a background. I was going through my iTunes library the other day and came across some albums that I hadn’t listened to in years. When my wife and I lived in Monterey, CA, we would visit various vineyards and local wine tasting rooms. Many had background music playing and many of those CDs were available for purchase. Danny Wright was one of the first artists we became acquainted with as a result of those little trips. Another was Jim Centorino and Carole Cole. They made a CD called Footsteps in the Sand back in 1990. My three favorite songs are below. I couldn’t find any YouTube versions for Ultimately Love or Ancient Romance. I put these songs on my local server so you could still listen to them. The Child of Dreams link will take you to YouTube. BTW, the YouTube link displays the title of the song as, Ultimately Love, but it’s really Child of Dreams. In looking at the liner notes on the CD, I noticed that all three songs I chose were composed and produced by Jim Centorino. I guess I like Jim’s compositions over Carol’s. Anyway, enjoy the songs.
- Child of Dreams (my favorite)
- Ultimately Love
- Ancient Romance
Here’s some interesting music if you’re ready for a change of pace. This music would probably fall under the genre of Electronic/Indie. I’ve been listening to a few new groups lately like Moby, Flow Machines and now, The Knife. The Knife are a musical duo from Sweden. The band consists of siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer. To say they’re a little different would be an understatement. They pretty much shun most public appearances. Even when they win Grammys for their work, they don’t ever show up for the award presentations. They’re more or less anti-mainstream media and have their own record label, Rabid Records. The picture above is from an interview they did for a station in Stockholm, Sweden.
I’m a hard rocker at heart, but I do enjoy almost any style of music. Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental and mellow music. At the risk of being shot by my hard rocker friends, I’ve been listening to Enya, Danny Wright, Yanni and Nobuo Uematsu. For sure though, no Barry Manilow – Ha Ha!! Anyway, I was poking around on YouTube the other day and came across another musician whose music I thoroughly enjoy. His name is Yiruma and he’s a South Korean pianist and composer. There’s not a lot about him that I can find on the Internet. From what I can tell, he’s currently serving in the Korean Navy. Military service is mandatory for all male Koreans. He has several albums on iTunes. I found one album of his that was pretty funny called “Puppy Dung”. I think it’s a soundtrack for some animation video.
3 Doors Down is an American rock band from Mississippi that began in 1994. Their first album, The Better Life, came out in 2000. The band’s second studio album, Away from the Sun, was released in 2002. I think this is one of the better rock albums that has come out in the past six years. If you get only one of their albums, this would be my recommendation. This album had multiple hits including Here Without You (my personal favorite), When I’m Gone, The Road I’m On and Away from the Sun. They will have a new album coming out on May 20th and a couple of the songs are already out there for listening/viewing. The music video for one of these upcoming tracks, Citizen/Soldier, is featured on the National Guard Recruiting Site 
First off, I’m not a big Radiohead fan. Their music is okay, but I wouldn’t want to listen to them all day. That being said, there is one song of theirs that stands out and is worth listening to. The song is Street Spirit (Fade Out) from their 1995 album, The Bends. The song has a haunting and beautiful melody but the lyrics are rather depressing. If you’re in a real happy frame-of-mind, this song won’t help your situation any. The emotional impact of the song is about tenfold stronger if you watch the video. It really makes the song that much more powerful. It’s shot in black and white and uses multiple frame rates and slow motion photography to achieve the outstanding visual effects. I’ve also presented the lyrics below, if you’re interested. It’s most definitely worth a watch.
My first selection is the song, Far Away, by Nickelback. This group hails from Canada and has been around since 1995. The song is from their fifth album, All the Right Reasons. It’s their latest album and it was released back in 2005. This album is not a one-hit album. It contains many excellent songs such as If Everyone Cared, Savin’ Me, Photograph, and Next Contestant. This is their best album, IMHO, and I highly recommend it.