The music never dies

For longer than anyone has been alive today, Frostburg has always had the Arion Band. Before Alexander Graham Bell said, “Mr. Watson, come here I need you,” Watson could listen to the band playing a march or other popular piece of music. Through the Great Depression and victory at war, the Arion Band brought joy to Western Marylanders and celebrated with them whether it was a holiday or victory at war. Even as music styles changed, the Arion Band kept up with them and adapted. “The Arion Band is believed to be the oldest, continually operating band in the country,” says Blair Knouse, president of the band. You might find bands that have been around longer, they have gaps in their history where most likely they weren’t performing for a time. While the Arion Band’s membership fluctuates from season to Read more…

Ancient music or modern noise?

“Suppose that 2,500 years from now all that survived of the Beatles songs were a few of the lyrics, and all that remained of Mozart and Verdi’s operas were the words and not the music,” the BBC News reported recently. Have you ever thought about how the music of an ancient culture sounds? Would you be able to recognize it as music or would it sound like noise? I mean consider how un-musical one generation’s music sounds to an older generation. Does that difference get multiplied by a factor with each additional generation’s separation? A musician and tutor at Oxford University, Armand D’Angour, believes he has been able to recreate the music of Ancient Greece, which is something that hasn’t been heard for thousands of years. Besides reconstructing the music from historical clues, you would have to be able to Read more…