Bill's Blog
Periodically, I'll write about music, language, photography, and other topics.
January 21, 2025 HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE "HOMAGE"
For most of my life, I pronounced "homage" as "AH Mig" with "H" silent and the accent on the first syllable and a hard "g" as in "gee" at the end. Suddenly, a few years ago, I heard someone pronounce it "OH mag" with more of an equal stress on the syllables. At first, I thought it was a mispronunciation, falling in with grammatical errors like using "lie" when "lay" was correct. I said nothing. You can't go picking fights over these kinds of things, no matter how grating they are. A funny thing happened. I kept hearing the new pronunciation. I finally realized that this was a French pronunciation. The puzzling thing is, why was there a sudden shift? I say this with all seriousness. Did the literati decide to shift? If so, did they send out a memo? Was I not on the list? Or did nothing at all change? Were people always using different pronunciations, and I never heard the French pronunciation, either by chance or by closing my mind to different pronunciations? LISTEN ON YOU TUBE
(January 13, 2025) BIG MOMMA THORNTON.
Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" was released in 1956. It sold ten million copies. However, the song was written for, and first released by, Big Mama Thornton in 1952. It is considered a significant song because it bridged the world of blues and rock-and-roll. It was also one of the first songs in which the guitar was the dominant instrument. It was at the center of controversies and lawsuits over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement. Big Momma Thornton received little or no money in royalties or residuals. At her peak, she earned only $50 a night for her gigs. Destitute when she died, she was buried in a pauper's grave. There is some effort to erect a marker for her. All that being said, Presley had a remarkable voice. Like bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, he came along when people wanted to hear white boys sing the blues.
Chasing the Algorithm
At my advanced age, it's hard to keep up with popular music. I was seated next to a metal band at a restaurant and stopped at their table, hoping to have a brief conversation about musical influences, or some other esoteric topic. They looked at me like I was crazy. Fortunately, the Yahoo algorithm doesn't think I'm a weirdo. It keeps feeding me articles about music. From one recent article, I started a Spotify playlist with two Charli xcx songs. The algorithm quickly filled in the playlist. But how does the algorithm work? It used attributes such as "genre, tempo, mood, and key signature" to provide songs similar to Charli xcx. Yet, it evidently closely monitors my activity, seeing which songs I repeat and which ones I skip. Despite all this, the Spotify algorithm felt like a top forty list. Spotify also provides an AI DJ. This cool, urban-sounding AI really had me figured out, adding older songs I knew that weren't on a playlist. It also added songs I'd never heard, but they were pleasing. Recently, I shifted to playlists of classic jazz and 1940s music. If I stick with those for a month or so, will the algorithm pick it up and start mixing hip hop and crooners? Will I keep getting the cool DJ? Will the AI understand "Mairsy Doats?"