Classical Gas

I thought this was a song belongs to Mark Knopfler. Because there is a video on Youtube shows this piece of music as if it a song of Knopfler and i saw this song thanks to that video for the first time. I have always been listening this classical gas from this video without knowing even its name. But I have wondered its name from the beginning. When i was doing a little research about the name of the song, i figure out that the song belongs to Mason Williams as oppossed to Mark Knopfler. And I have learned the name of this amazing song: Classical Gas. 

I took a glance at the official website of Mason Williams as well and I saw that classical gas is the masterpiece of Williams and he has been known with this song. When he composed it, we were not even born. Thanks God we are listening now. On his website, it has been made a mention of Classical Gas as below and i think it deserves all of compliments and reputation;

It is a guitar piece like no other, 

an anthem for an era, the most influential, most played, most loved instrumental hit of all time. Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Classical Gas with legendary guitarist, Mason Williams!

Let you know a great voice: Victor Deme

What a great song and what an amazing voice!..

Victor Deme is a west African singer from Burkina. It is very difficult get some knowledge about him on the net. It seems that he is world-widely famous but it was like a Chinese torture to make a research about his life and music career on the net!..It was really made me surprise to not find his biography even in English. As i saw on the net, he has given concert even in South Korea! I dont know why but there are very few information about him. It has been given some info about him on wikipedia but it is in French and I couldn't get even a word. What i have done is using google to translate into English and trying to figure out something about him.

what i have understand about his life is that he was an amateur musician but a professional tailor. Tailoring is his family's occupation which has been passing from generation to generation and he learned to sew from his father. Let alone being world-wide, he's probably never thought to be a famous musician even in his country: Burkina Faso.

Here, i would like to add something that the meaning of Burkina Faso is 'the people who love their land'. But I can sense a bit from his voice that Victor Deme does not only love his country Burkina but also he loves all the continent of Africa and his voice cries for all Africa. You can sense it when you hear his voice at the first time.

The aim of this post is making people aware of that talent, especially about the music he is performing. Victor has got his fabulous music talent from his mother. I don't know anything about his mother but as she made Victor love music, she should be a good musician or might love music much more than anything.

Victor's talent has been discovered by a French journalist and a local hip-pop promoter as i learned. (He sings in French by the way.) He is at his age of almost 50 but he still doesn't abstain from pursuing his music career. He's recently been in the United States as for his first time in order to have his second record.

I want to add some video clips to share with the reader of this seldom updated blog. :)

In this video, you can see the good performance of Victor Deme and you can feel the melodies from Africa, even though you may be not able to understand of the language.

Lastly, I can't help to say some further things about that damn popular culture which let many useless people to be famous but keep such great talents in the background.

Deme has been known by many people on globe today but he is not a puppet of popular culture, instead, he is a real musician whose value should be known! Yes, he definitely should be treasured! Ok, I am leaving you with this unique voice.

You know what, as if the guitar cries in his hands and he wipes out its tears using his wizard fingers. I love the way he plays, I love the way he sings and I love the way he acts.

I wish Deme great success and encourage you all to know and listen his masterpieces. He deserve more fans, at least for the sake of Africa.

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Mustafa Akyol: Faith versus tradition in Islam

The legend of 1900

I was in Hong Kong two days ago and there was nothing to do when i had to waiting for getting my visa till 4 on Tuesday in the afternoon. I did not have much time to visit some places like the Big Buddha and Ocean Park, so i just got around the city and mingled with the crowd. Only activity for me in HK was taking pictures and eat lunch and dinner alone in Turkish and Pakistani restaurants. Being alone during a trip is really awful and boring. You trying to enjoy but you could not do. Ah, i wish i went to HK with a friend and made some craziness while getting around the city. I actually like to travel alone but sometimes it may be so meaningless. dunno but i don't think i am willing to travel alone for later. I went to 'avenue of stars', got on the ferry, visit some well-known passages and shopping streets, watched the light performance across the river walked aimles on the streets.

In this post, i dont want to narrate my trip impressions. Instead, I want to speak of a great movie which i have seen when i was alone during the long nights of HK. I decided watch a movie before sleeping and my choice was 'the legend of 1900' which i had seen it accidently on the page of my friend's blog. The legend of 1900, it was really a fairly well movie that full of surprises. It is a first English language movie from an Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore and it has been starring by Tim Roth.

The movie starts with a deal between Max and a shopkeeper who is a music instruments seller.. Max is a musician in need and the only valuable thing he possess is an old trumpet and he has to pawn it to the shopkeeper.

It should be not so easy to leave from the thing you love most. For a musician, the most beloved belonging is his/her instrument. It is the most difficult thing for Max to pawn his trumpet and leave from it but there was nothing to do but selling it! Before pawning the trumpet, he asks to make a last playing and he plays a speacial piece which the shopkeeper has heard it before from a broken record. When Max starts to play, shopkeeper recognizes the song and ask how it is known by him as well. Max starts to tell the story of 1900 who is the owner of the piece.

Attention please! Contains plenty of spoiler! J

Kidding! Of course, i wont write a lot of spoiler here coz i recommend you all to watch the movie and see what will happen to 1900. Only the thing i want to say is that life of 1900 has passed in a ship from birth to death.

When Max tell the story of 1900 which you are gonna watch soon, i hope, the shopkeeper purchease his trumpet and give it back to him and say: ‘A good story's worth more than an old trumpet. ’

And Max takes back his trumpet and walks out into the rain while you cant help to burst into tears!

enjoy great jazz music

i can tell you many websites if you like music, i mean if you are an addict one. and how can be called when one is a music addict? musicholic or what? anyway, i dont have an idea on this.

as i said, i could recommend many websites for music addicts but on this post, i want to say only one, guys..it is jazzradio.com

because i wrote several posts on music, so this time i wont write anything about my music love and i wont recommend any other websites also.

as for jazzradio.com, you can listen any kind of jazz music here. like smooth jazz, guitar jazz, piano jazz, saxophone jazz and many others like paris cafe and timeless classics and blues.. click link written below and see the options. choose your best one and start to enjoy.

i, personally, like and listen smooth jazz as i listen others as well. some of my friends think that smooth jazz is played in the porn movies and some people think smooths jazz is a kind of jazz that listened only by the people who can not listen and dont like listen original jazz music..and some also say that smooths jazz is played only in hotel lobbies or maybe in restaurants..i dont care what people say about smooths jazz, i easily can say that smooths jazz is great, especially when you have to sit before pc for hours. A great way to relax when you feel that you are a geek before computer. coz today, you cant help to sit before computer and doing your works. this could last for hours and sometimes for days. so, music is best best solution to relax and image the outside while you cannot but sit in the room for a long time..it s also a good channel when you re reading a book..

anyway, if you dont like smooth jazz, try to listen paris cafe or timeless classics options.. you will find an option according to your music taste...have nice times.

JAZZRADIO.com - enjoy great jazz music

jasmine tea and prejudices against green tea

China. It is known as the motherland of tea. You can find any kind of tea there. Thousands of varieties of tea. I have never guessed that China is such famous for its tea. People (most of them) can not drink coffee and they got used to drink cola and other beverages in the near future. Speaking of people in history, tea should be the only drink that has been drunk and served. As a matter of fact, this custom has been maintaining till today. It doesnt matter where you go, and what part of China you have been, as soon as you sit, tea will be served.

This custom is so similar to ours in Anatolia. but the tea we serve is black tea. Any place you go, you will find only one kind of tea and one serving method: black tea in a special tea-cup with two pieces of sugar.

If you read the book, yes, I would love another of glass of tea, which contents the letters of an American woman and her adventures in Turkey, you will see so clearly the interesting customs of Turks and our tea serving habits. -I would love to write a post about this book but it has not finished yet-.

Here, I want to give point to the similarity of our culture but i should add also that tea was not a part of our culture. Instead, coffee has been drunk during the Ottoman era. But today, it is known that coffee belongs to American culture and tea is a part of our Anatolian culture. Intermixed cultural habits. Anyway.

ah, I was talking about tea and China. Getting back to subject, it is very little known that even the word we use for tea in Turkish comes from Chinese. 'Cha' is used to refer tea in China and we use 'çay' to refer and they pronounce almost same. History of tea in Turkey can not pass one hundred years while it is thousands years in Chinese history.

When i was in China, probably thousands of cups of tea has been served to me and i might to drink only ten cups of them, maybe less. I have been there more than five years and drunk just little of green tea? It is so hard to imagine it but that is the truth. Unfortunately.

I have never thought about it till i move to Taiwan.

I got used to drink Jasmine tea after went to Taiwan.. I ve never drunk it before but I am drinking it now with pleasure. When i got used to drink green tea, I figured out that I couldn't drink it only because it came to very bitter to me. Coz I have added a lot of sugar in my tea and I could drink only if i did so.

At first, I tried to drink jasmine tea by adding a little sugar and later on, it came to very strange to drink sweet. It is a bit bitter but you can feel the real taste of it. I still can not drink black tea without adding sugar but it s not same for green tea.

Green tea is more healthy and more tasteful. Since start to drink green tea instead of black, I have been criticized by the Turkish people around me. They are getting angry (of course not seriously) to me just because i drop to follow our own Anatolian culture. I insistently tell them that tea is not a part of our culture as i mentioned below, if you pull me to drink coffee, that can be acceptable but if it is black at issue, you don't have any right to criticize. :)