Inspiration ~ Jun21

New music ~ Matt Maltese ~ I really love the production and the video of ‘Mystery’ the first single from Matt Maltese’s new album which tries to celebrate the theatre in small things. Matt says the song is “a loving question mark…why we are who we are and do what we do is an unanswerable question sometimes” - there’s an appealing humility in that.

Matt Maltese releases “Mystery”

Performance ~ Stevie Wonder ~ this live set from 1974 for German TV is a bit of a hidden gem. Some of his lesser-played songs that are all so classy. This seems about peak Stevie Wonder vocal to me and I don’t know much about the drums but the pocket seems pretty dreamy to me (it’s Ollie E. Brown if you’re interested).

Stevie Wonder performing with his band at Musikladen in 1974

Music geek stuff ~ Leonard Bernstein explains the harmonic series ~ in the first of his iconic series of lectures at Harvard in 1973, Bernstein explains how the harmonic series of 12 consecutive intervals of 5ths (overtones present above every note) forms the basis of tonal music. Tonality makes us feel at home with Happy Birthday and gives us a gratifying buzz at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody and the world would be worse without it.

Leonard Bernstein explains the harmonic series and tonality