Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library student manager Nikoloz (class of 2026) and features songs to accompany a game of Monopoly.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most influential and well-known composers in the world. But some don’t know about the roots of his musical career. Young Bach, orphaned at 10 years old, moved in to live with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach. The older brother was an organist at the Church and thus cared for many musical scores, tucked away in one of his cabinets. Not only was manuscript paper expensive back then, but also the writings were to be kept secret from the general public.
It follows, that young Bach was forbidden from reading and copying this music. However, young Bach was captivated by music, and could not resist. Disobeying his brother, he would wake up late at night, unlock the locked cabinet, and take a couple of manuscripts out. Then he would sit at a high place in the house, where the moonlight would shine upon some surface he used for writing. He would copy the scores for hours at night, and stash them somewhere. Eventually, his brother caught him, but upon seeing the limit that young Bach was willing to go to, he finally agreed to teach his younger brother more. That decision gave the world J. S. Bach as we know him today.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library student assistant Nikoloz (class of 2026) and features some hip hop selections.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Although the country of Georgia is small, its history and culture are rich with no bounds. Over the millennia of struggle, Georgia has amassed history and myth. It’s hard to take in all of it, but one can experience a small piece of Georgian culture by listening to the traditional choir songs passed down through generations. The songs often talk about freedom, victory, faith, tradition, family, brotherhood, and more.
The Music Library has 3 CDs with mesmerizing collections of Georgian songs, for example, Table Songs of Georgia. This is a collection of songs that are, of course, commonly sung at tables during feasts.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library student assistant Nikoloz (class of 2026) and features some Russian songs from the 2000s-2010s.
Early on the Other Side of the World
This playlist includes Russian songs from the early 2000s, and some from 2010s. I myself am not Russian, but these songs were commonly heard on TV growing up in Georgia, very early in my childhood.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a French composer whose spare, unconventional, often witty style influenced 20th-century music greatly, particularly in France. Satie’s music represents the first definite break with 19th-century French Romanticism. Closely allied to the Dadaist and Surrealist movements in art, it refuses to become involved with grandiose sentiment or transcendent significance, disregards traditional forms and tonal structures, and characteristically takes the form of parody, with flippant titles, such as Trois morceaux en forme de poire (1903; Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear) and Embryons Desséchés (1913; Desiccated Embryos), and directions to the player such as “with much illness” or “light as an egg.” Satie was often dismissed as a charlatan by musicians who misunderstood his irreverence and wit.
One of Satie’s most known works are the Trois Gymnopédies (1888). Gymnopédie No.1 (You can listen to it here), for example, is a work of music not too complicated. Regardless, I have always found it to influence me like no other piece. Sometimes, it sets the mood to be quite melancholic while also, in my opinion, sprinkling a vast amount of joy by the end. Other times it could lay a feeling of calmness on the listener, like a break from a hard day at work or a breeze on a hot summer afternoon.
You can check out this book (among others) in the Parsons Music Library if you’d like to learn more about Erik Satie and his work.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library student assistant Nikoloz (class of 2026) and features phonk, a subgenre of hip hop and trap music which is popular in Russia.
Phonk
Phonk songs, especially Drift phonk, usually use distorted/sampled sounds that most of us are familiar with. Regardless, these phonk songs sound quite different from those melodies you might know and love, to the point where you wouldn’t guess in a thousand years that music pieces that you listen to on a regular basis are used for their creation.
This phonk comes from Russia, however more recent works that become popular are in English (That is, of course, if they have any lyrics at all.)
