Rapt

   

Let it not be said that we don't keep up with the modern idiom here on Cornflower, nor that the range of this site isn't sometimes surprising. Today, for your delectation, I bring you a couple of examples of 'contemporary style in song', but this is not just for the sake of it, there are underlying educational messages, too!
     First off, physics. My lack of knowledge of this subject stems from a couple of dull years in senior school when we worked from the misleadingly named (brown, if I remember correctly) textbook, "Physics is Fun";  all that electron/neutron stuff failed to excite me and I dropped it and its fellow sciences at the earliest opportunity. But nowadays physicists are playing with toys on a scale far removed from the old Van de Graaff machine, and the magnets they use are not wee things with 'Duracell' on the side. We are talking about The Big Stuff here, so if you want a reductionist version of what must surely be the largest experiment in the world given a musical interpretation, have a look at this. (My thanks to Peter the Flautist for that link - he's involved in the science, if not the rap).
    Still in the same vein but changing to a part of the curriculum I'm more familiar with, what can I say about this version of a very famous poem?
    Words may have failed me with that one, but the next clip is a classic, written long before raps were ever devised but yet, to my ears, sounding remarkably similar in style. M.C. Auden, anyone? (Bet he didn't scratch his records).

Later: it seems this post is more topical than I thought as Sir Ian McKellen is rapping away, too!

Comments

[Peter the Flautist]

For those who would like to see more of the experiment that I am involved in, we have our own on-line newspaper "CMS Times" which you can access (and many other wonderful things particle) from here http://cms.cern.ch/ We do indeed have an absolutely enormous magnet to play with!

I also remember the "Physics is Fun" book that Cornflower talks about, but clearly I got more turned on by electrons and neutrons than she did.

Peter the Flautist

[Barbara MacLeod]

Amazing stuff!

As we are in the world of YouTube you might enjoy this 20 second video called Mummy's Little Helper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MQTyoQ9z54

[Juxtabook]

I love the Auden poem. When the night mail trains stopped a few years ago Radio 4 commissioned someone (Simon Armitage I think) to do a poem in a similar vein. I remember little about it except tha I enjoyed it. I have looked in vain for a recording of this modern version since. If anyone else remembers which poet it was, and what the title was I would be really grateful!

[Evie]

This post reminds me of MC Lars' Mr Raven, a rap take on Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. "All up in my grill like nevermore" being one of the more memorable lines, I'm not sure whether Poe would have been pleased or horrified or both :).

You can watch it here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vAml5ucZUKk

[Peter the Flautist]

At PSD8 conference (Glasgow) we are at this very moment watching the LHC rap in the lecture theatre. Happily the audience is NOT joining in.

Only 6 days to go before circulating beam in the LHC!

Dancing (in my head) Cat