Hold his mouth and stop him breathing
A lovely thing about Tantacrul's videos is that they're so entertaining, detailed, and thoroughly well made they really don't need very much setup.
I did spend a lot of time and space talking about his Shostakovich video, but that was more about his experience of YouTube and its follies (you may remember that the first upload of his video was demonetized because it had "Stalin" in the title) than what the video was about. (If you don't know much about the greatest Russian composer of the 20th century, Tantacrul's video is a great place to start.)
This one speaks for itself, starting with its title: "Cardiacs: Why I Love Them."
I learned of Cardiacs myself only because my friend Gil grabbed me by the lapels and shouted in my face that I needed to know about Cardiacs [1]. Tantacrul may be even more enthusiastic than Gil. But he's making the case to people he doesn't know, people like me and you, so there's less frothing at the mouth here, and a clearer explanation of just what you're getting into.
Tantacrul's also a gen-you-wine conservatory-edumacated composer. This informs his take on Cardiacs in a way that I couldn't possibly manage if I were to try to tell you about them myself. (You'll hear one of his compositions early on in the video, but don't miss the delightfully bananas "like-and-subscribe" theme at the end.) His breakdown of the first Cardiacs song he heard does a much better job of explaining what's good about it than I could, and as the video goes on he explains hemiola, the Lydian mode, and something called "the Cardiac cadence" that leads to the appearance of a certain modern composer that I'm pretty sure you would not already have been thinking of.
It's a pretty good use of 13 minutes.
[1] This is figurative. I don't believe I own any clothing that has lapels, and anyway we were online at the time.
I did spend a lot of time and space talking about his Shostakovich video, but that was more about his experience of YouTube and its follies (you may remember that the first upload of his video was demonetized because it had "Stalin" in the title) than what the video was about. (If you don't know much about the greatest Russian composer of the 20th century, Tantacrul's video is a great place to start.)
This one speaks for itself, starting with its title: "Cardiacs: Why I Love Them."
I learned of Cardiacs myself only because my friend Gil grabbed me by the lapels and shouted in my face that I needed to know about Cardiacs [1]. Tantacrul may be even more enthusiastic than Gil. But he's making the case to people he doesn't know, people like me and you, so there's less frothing at the mouth here, and a clearer explanation of just what you're getting into.
Tantacrul's also a gen-you-wine conservatory-edumacated composer. This informs his take on Cardiacs in a way that I couldn't possibly manage if I were to try to tell you about them myself. (You'll hear one of his compositions early on in the video, but don't miss the delightfully bananas "like-and-subscribe" theme at the end.) His breakdown of the first Cardiacs song he heard does a much better job of explaining what's good about it than I could, and as the video goes on he explains hemiola, the Lydian mode, and something called "the Cardiac cadence" that leads to the appearance of a certain modern composer that I'm pretty sure you would not already have been thinking of.
It's a pretty good use of 13 minutes.
[1] This is figurative. I don't believe I own any clothing that has lapels, and anyway we were online at the time.
I'm so glad this stuck with you! It's incredible music. ~Gil (who can't figure out how to sign in on this platform)
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