Talent Worthy of Wider Recognition

[Hornbein]

The double lead guitar technique was invented by George Harrison on Your Bird Can Sing but the style didn't catch on. Jimmy Page put it on the map in Ramble On, then the Allman Brothers made it their signature. I like double lead guitar because that unique soaring sound is something no other instrument can match. It can feel like flying.

D_Drive​

In the 21st century progress continues. Orianthi with Steve Vai is right in there with Highly Strung. We have Nagoya's* D_Drive playing complex raucous hard rock lines in great synchrony. Here we efficiently combine the two as Yuki from D_Drive covers Highly Strung. It's almost identical.



Today Larkin Poe takes the southern rock thang to the next level as they continue to make it big.



That nonfiguratively made my hair stand on end. This needs a vocal though. Hmmm, I could do that. Check back in a year or two.

--------------------------------------------------------------

*Nagoya is essentially the same as 1960's Detroit, as it harbors the Toyota factory. D_Drive's music revolves around the driving of automobiles. I have seen D_Drive in person and attest they can really do that on stage.

 

[Hornbein]

In my Tokyo sojourn I discovered that in my case ticket price is negatively correlated with concert quality. The worst concert was almost the most expensive and possibly the best was free. I can't be bothered to do the math but outlier leverage might yield a correlation something like -0.5.

This is easy to explain. Ticket price depends on fame, not on quality. I attend mostly classical concerts. Classical music is largely about passion. Who has more passion than a teenager? And if you want to make a living as a classical soloist you'd better have all your chops by about age twenty. So the best concerts of all tend to be given by the winners of classical music contests who as of yet enjoy no fame. The free one was an exhibition by students at the Gedai high school, a division of the number one music school in Japan. They were setting the air on fire, those very dowdy high school uniforms and thick eyeglasses notwithstanding.

Now this sample is not at all random. I go to a lot of effort to find these wonderful concerts. I stumbled over that high school exhibition by accident : it wasn't publicized at all. A random sample might very well find a positive correlation between price and quality. But why should I care about that? I don't.

Hillary Hahn.​

Oh, that expensive concert. A Hillary Hahn recital at Tokyo Opera City. Many would chose her as the best in the world. No passion that night. Zero. She recently had a baby so the fire burns low while tenderness arises. Well HH, you are a professional classical violinist with the heaviest of reps. I expect value in return for my one hundred dollars. If you don't feel it, fake it. That's your job. Oh, congratulations on having become a mother. It seems to have put you at peace.