Music

Jon Burlingame's piece on composers of the Golden Hollywood era was right on ["Festival Has Scores to Settle," Feb. 22], even though it failed to mention one of the greats of the era to be celebrated -- David Raksin, whose early influence (thanks to the aid of music illiterate Chaplin) would be hard to overstate. What the article dealt with is only a part of the larger problem that endures in the U.S. today, insofar as serious music by gifted composers is concerned. Those of filmdom's era represented by the Korngolds and Rozsas and Raksins of our past are pitifully ignored, both by the media (including Calendar)

YouTube, the video-sharing website owned by Google Inc., is in discussions with Vivendi's Universal Music Group to create an online music website, two people familiar with the situation said. The talks are still at an early stage, said the people, who declined to be named because the discussions are private. Universal reportedly approached YouTube about the idea at the end of last year and proposed a site that would include videos from all the major music labels. Under the partnership being discussed, YouTube would provide the technology to sell advertising accompanying music videos, one of the people said.

"I'm not a Minimalist," the keyboard performance artist Charlemagne Palestine said last week. "I'm a maximalist. That's the word I like, because it gives me possibilities." Palestine, known in music circles for his marathon all-night concerts in the 1970s (they were often so intense that he bled on the keys) is returning to the Los Angeles stage tonight after an 11-year absence. As part of the Monday Evening Concerts series, he will perform one of his seminal works, "Schlingen-Blangen," on one of the world's largest church pipe organs at the First Congregational Church.

Re "Musicians plead for arts funding," April 1 Linda Ronstadt said it just right: "We need to teach our children to sing their own songs." Unfortunately, she said this in support of more funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (or would that be the National Endowment for the Inanities?). We the parents need to pull the iPod plug and set about singing and playing music in our own homes. We are responsible for teaching our children the joy of creating music. It is not the government's duty.

Pop music is the wallpaper of our lives. And the delicate floral patterns designed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David define the lovesick mood of a bygone easy-listening era. Actually, the music never stopped, as the theatrical celebration "Back to Bacharach and David" makes clear. The show, which opened Sunday at the Music Box @ Fonda, keeps pulling out the timeless hits, like a magician yanking endless multicolored scarves from the same canister. Inspired by the singular sultriness of Dionne Warwick, this songwriting team (Bacharach wrote the music, David the lyrics)

Thank you, Ann Powers, for giving disco music some respect ["Their Disco Fever Is Low-Grade at Best," April 22]. I'm not one of the genre's biggest supporters, but the best of the breed exhibited a grandiose style ("expansive," to quote Powers) and an element of excitement missing in most of today's hits. Jon Konjoyan Toluca Lake

Scientists say they've documented for the first time that some animals "dance" to a musical beat. The researchers studied a few live birds and about 1,000 YouTube videos, looking for signs that animals feel the beat of music they hear. Some parrots did, and maybe an occasional elephant, according to two studies published Thursday in Current Biology(09)00890-2. But they found no evidence of such behavior in dogs and cats, despite long exposure to people and music, nor for chimps, our closest living relatives.

For a president with more than his fair share of crises on his plate, Barack Obama's decision to devote an hour Tuesday to promoting the arts should come as welcome assurance that culture has a good friend at the White House. In what was billed as an evening of poetry, music and spoken word, a group of about 10 artists and writers -- including James Earl Jones, Michael Chabon and Lin-Manuel Miranda -- entertained the first family and an invited audience of students from several local universities in Washington.

Kerry Collins leans forward and pops a compact disc into the player. The Tennessee Titans' quarterback listens intently to the country demo from someone who is hoping Collins will be a connection to music stardom. That's right, the face of Nashville's NFL franchise is also becoming a player off the field in Music City -- someone would-be singers and writers hope can get them an industry hookup. The hopefuls all seem to have heard: The quarterback turned songwriter is serious about music.

Music sales: A May 21 Business article about music industry sales said Eminem's "Encore" was released in 2005. The album came out in 2004.