After 15 years, Schickele Mix is no more
- "Dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal" - That's the tag line of
Schickele Mix, the best, broadest, funniest, and most interesting music education program ever heard. Created and hosted by Peter Schickele (best known for his other entertaining music education creation -
P.D.Q. Bach - a fictional composer son of Johannes) Schickele Mix juxtaposed Bach with the Beatles, Elgar with Duke Ellington and the Everly Brothers, Tuvan throat singing with twanging Texas Swing, or Schubert with Spike Jones in "suites" demonstrating the universality of musical techniques and themes. Checkout the
playlists and you'll see what I mean. After 15 years of broadcasts and re-broadcasts, Schickele Mix is no more. This is a shame, since three and a half years of educational weekly programs could be repeated for new audiences, if not continuously, then with a gap of a couple years until something better comes along. These programs have such rich content, it's a shame future audiences can't be created. I've got to wonder whether it's not just the 5 cycles of repeated playings (which, by the way, I've never gotten tired of) that's the whole reason for its disappearance from the airways. The program depends on a wide range of recorded music. Perhaps the new proposed
performance royalties, or even
merely their threat, have managed to claim Schickele Mix as a victim. As Peter Schickele said at the end of each program,
"It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that certain je ne sais quoi. And with the apparent demise of Schickele Mix, we've lost a serious source of that important "je ne sais quoi."
posted to MetaFilter by fpatrick
at 5:14 AM on July 22, 2007
(35 comments)
