Monday, July 20, 2009

Music: More than just notes on a page . . .

Since I started traveling more regularly about 4 years ago, I have a growing interest in listening to different international artists like Zucchero and Lara Fabian. And it just makes sense that the two passions in my life seem to go so well together! :)

And here's what I love about music and why I think it is the ultimate universal language. Although I can't understand the words, I can feel the emotions of a song when they are performed so beautifully by an artist. Here are two of my favorites.

Italian, Zucchero . . .



French, Lara Fabian . . . .



Spanish, Lara Fabian . . . .



And since I'll be headed to Scotland . . . Runrig!

18 comments:

  1. Hey Kathy, great post! I'll have to wait until I get home to listen to these but how cool. I agree about how sometimes I really like listening to songs where I don't understand the words (and I feel the same way about going to Mass in Venice!). You can get into the emotion without getting caught up in the meaning, I think.

    Hope you are having a great Tuesday!

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  2. Excellent choices. Lara Fabian is one of my favs. We really like soundtracks and she has two excellent songs included in sound tracks - The dream within from Final Fantasy and For Always from AI. For Always was also recorded as a duet with Josh Grobin. These are both heavily played in our household.

    Here is another great song recorded in Spanish that you might like. We heard it over and over when we went to Chile but never learned the artist. When we came back we went to dinner at our local Mexican restaurant and heard it again. We asked the server and she just lit up. It was her favorite artist. Check out "Si no te hubieras ido" by Marco Antonio Solis.

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  3. hi Annie, thanks for your comments. I would say that I love listening to Italian, French and Spanish the most although I do enjoy all. I'm so glad you mentioned Mass in the churches in Venice. I forgot about the beautiful singing in the Maria Salute Church, a memory that I will always treasure. So beautiful to hear. And I understand what you mean by feeling the emotions without getting caught up in the meaning. Great point.

    It's funny but sometimes I even enjoy singing along without understnding the words. I do that with songs I really like and I did it during mass in Venice.

    Thanks for your comments and thoughts on the subject Annie! Have a great day today!

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  4. Hi Marta, I have a couple of songs by Lara Fabian from iTunes and I absolutely love her too. She is fabulous and the fact that she can sing in so many languages is amazing to me. Thank you so much for the song recommendations (I also like Josh Groban). I will look for them on iTunes when I get home tonight.

    And I am definitely going to look up "Si no te hubieras ido" by Marco Antonio Solis. Thank you for the tip. I can't wait to hear it!

    Thanks so much too Marta for your comments and recommendations. Have a great day today!

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  5. Wonderful post, Kathy. All lovely songs.

    I love Lara Fabian, and her song Je taime(sp?), is one of my absolute favorites, I too sing along even when I don't know the words. LOL. A friend of mine who speaks French got tired of me saying the words wrong, and wrote down the songs for me in English letters, so she said at least "I am not butchering the lyrics".

    Thanks for sharing the wonderful music with us. You are right, one does not need to understand the words to appreciate it.

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  6. Hi Kathy,

    I like your taste in music! Zucchero has been a favorite of mine for many years (love those raspy Italian singers!). He has a fantastic CD with duets with some great singers, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Bocelli and Cheb Mami among others. I don't recall ever hearing Lara Fabian but then I might have; so many times I hear a beautiful melody but fail to take note of the singer.

    I just noticed your picture of the month. Gorgeous photo! It gave me much joy to see the colorful houses of Burano.

    Wanted to thank you for thinking of me and leaving a comment during the 4th of July weekend. You're so sweet! I remember last year during that holiday weekend we were communicating by email, talking about your flight to Spain and about the fare. Funny how some things stay engraved in our memories.

    Wishing you a great evening and a super week!

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  7. Thank you for these two beautiful voices. I'm hooked on italian singers but love french and spanish music as well. It really takes me away to some far away place. A very happy place.

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  8. Hi Candi, glad you liked my post and the songs. Your story about what your friend said and did is so funny. For me it helps that I do most of my International singing on my long commute to work where no one else is in the car to hear my pronunciations! :) I love Lara Fabian too and I only recently discovered her after I read a Slow Travel thread with Italian song recommendations and I found her when I saw a YouTube video of her and Laura Pausini singing La Solitudine in Rome on the Spanish Steps. So beautiful. And then when I heard her sing Caruso and this song I became a huge fan. I would see either Zucchero or Lara in a concert any day. Thanks again for sharing your story and have a great day today.

    Welcome Back Maria! We missed you around here, but I'm glad that you were able to spend time with your mom and family. I'm sure that you had a wonderful visit with them.

    Glad you like my choices. And yes Zucchero's raspy Italian voice is very cool. I down loaded many of his songs. And I think I have the songs with the artists you mentioned. Sheryl and he sang Blu and Cheb and he sang Cosi Celeste, I think. And I can't remember now the one that he and Bocelli sang together. But I bought them individually on iTunes so I may not have all of them in that CD. I'm going to have to make sure that I have all of them now that you mentioned it. Thanks for liking my Burano photo. I also enjoy looking at all the bright colors and even the laundry hanging was so cool to me.

    Happy B-lated 4th! I totally remember last year when you e-mailed me about flights to Spain. I couldn't help but remember it when I was at the beach this year. :) And I thought, hope Maria's having a great time with her family. I was so thankful to you.

    Thanks again Maria and have a great week too. And have a fun camping trip this weekend. The salad selections have been fantastic and you'll have a lot of fun trying the recipes. I can't wait to try your thai salad and Annie's couscous.

    Hi Barb, glad you liked my choices and songs. I love Italian singers too. If you get a chance check out Lara singing Caruso. She's fabulous singing in Italian too and that is by far the best performance of that song. Also Marta provided another great recommendation of another singer I have not heard of before. Marco Antonio Solis and he sounds fantastic. There's a great thread started by Janet on Slow Travel that has a ton of recommendations and that is what got me hooked: here's the link:

    http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/862600685/m/8881051423?r=9171070333#9171070333

    Hearing my Italian songs always reminds me of my trips there which makes me happy too. Thanks again and have a great day today!

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  9. Great picks, Kathy! I'm the same -- I love to sing along almost phonetically, even in a foreign language where I don't even know the words.

    BTW, Mary (Reflections on my 39 years in Umbria) has begun to post on her trip last month to Edinburgh. Very interesting!

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  10. Hi Sandra, thanks for your comments. I'm glad that you liked the songs and also enjoy singing along. Seems like we all seem to enjoy the same things. :)

    Thanks for mentioning Mary's post. I read it before heading to work and really enjoyed looking at her photos and reading about her impressions of Edinburgh. There's a great photo of her and her daughter having tea in their beautiful hotel there. I also read that Deborah is back from her three weeks in Scotland and she just posted some beautiful photos from her trip. Gorgeous scenery. I'm enjoying reading Mary's and Deborah's posts and looking at their photos. It's really getting me excited about my trip there. Whoo hoo! :)

    Thanks again for the tip on Mary's trip. Thanks to you I discovered her beautiful blog and have added her to my blog roll.

    Have a great day today!

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  11. So cool. I heard Zucchero when a younger man recommended him as a contemporary singer - right one! Lara Fabian I found on an international cd quite by accident two years ago....thanks! menehune

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  12. Hi Menehune, I first heard about Zucchero on Slow Talk right before my trip to Italy in 2007. I've been a fan since then. And like you, I discovered Lara Fabian while looking for videos on Laura Pausini and found this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR0eXZQD10g

    I've been a huge fan ever since. Thanks for your commnents M and have a great weekend!

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  13. Kathy, thanks for introducing me to all this great new music; I hadn't heard of any of these artists. Lara is fantastic!

    And I like your driving in Scotland post too (and your reminder sign!). I hadn't even thought about the whole gear shift thing. It will be an adventure I am sure!

    Did you see the interview with Susan Boyle last night? It was good but there were a couple of places where her Scottish brogue was so thick I had trouble understanding what she was saying. So trouble at all understanding her when she sings. They showed her in the studio working on her album; I am looking forward to this fall when her album and Adam's both come out!

    Hope you are having a great week!

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  14. Hi Annie, I'm so glad that you like Lara. She sings with such great passion. Wouldn't she and you know who make an interesting pairing.:) I would actually love to see that.

    Glad you liked my driving post. I think you are right. I just hope the brake and clutch are in the same place or I'll really get twisted around. I'm packing my sign for sure. LOL! Like you said, it will be an adventure.

    I'm so bummed that I missed Susan's interview. Glad that you got a chance to see it. I remember that video clip of her and she does seem to have a very heavy accent. I'm so surprised that she lost the competition, but then look at Adam! :) I'm very happy that her life has taken a wonderful turn and that she is living the dream. Her mom would've been so proud of her. I can't wait for her album to come out. How great that she is in recordings now. And I can't wait for Adam's Cd to be released too.

    Did you hear that Kris Allen took out "No Boundaries" from his set on the AI tour! He said that it didn't go with the other songs. Ooops! :)

    Busy week and I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday! Have a great day today and one more day until the weekend. Yay!

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  15. No! I had not heard that about "No Boundaries"! Too too funny and good for him for taking it out (poor guy has had to sing it enough as it is).

    And you are right...second place does seem to be an alright place for both Susan and Adam!

    And yes, almost Friday is a good thing!

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  16. Hi Annie, and Kris is such a polite guy, he won't say what everyone else is thinking... :)

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  17. Wonderful pieces Kathy. I hadn't heard of any of these artists either, so am also very glad to be introduced to them through your blog. You have a great feel for music that speaks to the soul!

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  18. Hi Anne, glad you liked the songs. I was introduced to Zucherro by reading a Slow Travel Thread and found Lara by accident while looking at another Italian artist. Artists like them who can sing from their soul are just too good not to be appreciated by more people. What's the old saying, a picture is worth a 1,000 words. I think the sound of music is in that same category. :)

    Thanks so much for your comments and have a great day today!

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It's me Trekcapri (aka Kathy). Thanks so much for visiting and leaving a comment.