Generally speaking, people dislike high-pitches (sirens, alarms, etc.), but really like low pitches (hence, the car that drives down your street at 2am with booming bass speakers.)

Ottorino Respighi wrote a series of pieces based on pine trees around Rome (it sounds strange, but it’s true.) The second movement of this piece depicts pines near a lonely catacomb. The descent into the deep, dark, subterranean grave is musically painted with some deep rumbling bass – provided by the bass instruments, of course, but especially by the lowest pipes of the organ.

Because, you know, I’m all about that bass …

If you are a mother or like a mother to someone, Happy Mother’s Day!

Antonín Dvořák wrote a sweet little song which is perfect for this day. “Songs My Mother Taught Me” describes the tender voice of the author’s mother singing songs with tears in her eyes – and now the teary-eyed author is singing those same songs to her child.

If you live anywhere near where  I do, the rain is really coming down today!

Art imitates life; you can find all kinds of musical attempts to capture the spirit of a good cleansing storm. You got your gentle snow storm, your generic winter storm, and then you got your classic thunderstorm, compliments of Gioachino Rossini and his opera, The Barber of Seville. Like most Italian opera, it’s light and elegant.