Maurice Greene - Lord, Let Me Know Mine End

Maurice Greene is little known today, which is unfortunate as it's his birthday.  More importantly, he is the father of Anglican church music.  Contemporary with Handel, he became essentially the Court Composer to King George.  His magnum opus, Cathedral Music was unfinished at his death, but completed by his student William Boyce.  Anyone who's spent much time in an Anglican Church (or Episcopal, I dare say) will recognize much of his music.

This is perhaps his best known piece, and seems appropriate for his birthday - his first day, as it were.

Virtuso

Big Walter Horton's blues harp playing could be described as "delicate".  In a good way.

Playing the Neanderthal Bone Flute Music

Image via Wikipedia

The Divje Babe flute is said to be the oldest musical instrument we know of, although this is somewhat controversial.  I guess that it's not surprising that there's rather a lot of uncertainty regarding Neanderthal artifacts.

The flute is thought to have been fashioned from the femur or a cave bear.  The bone was clearly fashioned by man - no other animal leaves this sort of mark.  It took skill to put these holes in the bone without splitting it.  There is considerable speculation and controversy over the spacing of the holes, and whether it fits any recognizable musical scale.

To me, the speculation is, well, speculation.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all, and the proof of the flute is in the playing.  The music here is modern, of course - the Neanderthals left no known musical inscriptions.  This recording is not the Divje Babe flute itself which is safely ensconced in a museum in Ljubljana, Slovenia/

But it is music played on a reconstruction of the flute, and it sure does sound like a flute.  What ancient man played for music, and whether this was religious or for pleasure, whether it accompanied ancient tales told around the fire - alas, no reconstruction can ever tell.

 

Nokia users will get unlimited music download for a year

Nokia has joined the battle with telecom service providers for a share of the online music pie. Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, on Thursday said its customers in India will be able to download unlimited music on their handsets or personal computers. 

 The catch is that only those customers who buy a smartphone where this facility is enabled will get 12 months of unlimited free music downloads.

"The 5-series and X-series of handsets will offer 12 months of unlimited music downloads," Nokia’s Vice President & Managing Director for India D Shivakumar said. The price range of these handsets range from Rs 6,000—Rs 18,000, he added. 

But, existing customers of Nokia who already use handsets from these series cannot avail this facility. "You have to buy a new mobile phone to get unlimited music downloads," Mr Shivkumar said. He added that going forward, Nokia would make this service available on other handset series too. 

Nokia customers can download music from the Ovi Music Unlimited service that has been launched in India today. Nokia executives also said the company was yet to take a call if this service would be charged after the 12-month period expires. 

Analysts say the handset maker will find it tough to come up with a business model to charge customers for music after the 12-month period, especially in a market which is used to the concept of receiving and exchanging pirated music for free. Nokia will also have to compete with telecom service providers such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Reliance Communications, who offer music downloads to their customers for rates as low as Rs 2–5 per track. However, industry executives say most music on mobile phones in India is consumed through data cards where customers download, store and exchange tracks for free. 

The Ovi Music Unlimited service has four million tracks and off these, one million numbers are Indian music, Mr Shivakumar explained. Our nearest competitor in India offers about 100,000 tracks, he added. 

Nokia has tied up global music labels including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music for the service. It has also partnered with Indian Music Industry (IMI) to offer a consortium of more than 150 domestic music labels like Hungama, Yash Raj, Tseries, Eros and SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association). The firm said it had done an in-depth research with Indian consumers on how they would like to consume music on their mobile phones and used the findings to create a ‘Made for India’ music service proposition.