Angie Woollard

Let me set the scene:  Christmas decorations are out.  We are chopping up veggies for our traditional antipasto, something we do every Christmas.  The Christmas playlist is on.  There’s chatting and singing and it’s just super cozy.  Most of the Christmas songs are familiar as we are singing along but I’ve snuck some new songs […]

I’ve tried, dear reader.  I’ve tried to be diverse, but I just keep coming back to Geoff Castellucci’s arrangements because they are so damn good.  This song is as old as the hills, and it’s not exactly known who wrote it, but the most famous version of this song is the one by The Animals.

I thought I’d try something new.  Sometimes I hear a Super Cool Thing™ in a song…but there’s not really enough to warrant an analysis of the full song.  But gosh, I’d sure like to point out the Super Cool Thing™!  So here we are. This song came up on my playlist the other day and

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song.  It was back in the days of Pandora Radio (before it was blocked in Canada), where it was a huge, cool, amazing, revelation to have songs and artists suggested to you of a similar genre to what you’d just listened to.  Mind. Blown. I had

One of my absolute, number one requirements in music is that I like to be surprised.  Some people relish and relax in the predictable – to them, it’s comfy like a warm blanket.  Not me.  Surprise me with the unexpected and I’m putty in your hands.  A few months ago I bought a book called

Not being an American, I went on a hunt to read up on this song, and what it means to people.  ‘Nostalgia’ was the overwhelming theme I came across – people associate it with their childhood, sitting on their grandfather’s knee as he played it on piano; auditions for choirs; family road trips across Virginia

I just wanted to do a quickie little write-up of this song – there were so many little details in both the arrangement and the performance of this song that absolutely captivated me, and I wanted to jot them down, almost in piecemeal point form, to share with you all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The opening sound effect

We’ve all felt that heartache from a breakup, that feeling like your heart may literally explode from sadness.  Sia’s “Death by Chocolate” is clearly written from experience, and the heartfelt expression of these words of advice is beautifully matched by the music/chords she’s chosen to pair it with. The goosebump-inducing, shiver-producing, tears-in-the-eyes part of this

(Composed by Eric Whitacre) There’s something about me I need to share with you.  I *love* bass.  Bass voice, bass instruments, the lower the better.  I even sing bass myself in a women’s barbershop chorus.  Music voiced in a lower range is so pleasing to my ears and washes over me in soothing waves of

A music-lover’s deep-dive into Geoff Castelluccci’s arrangement of Jimmy Dean’s 1961 classic “Big Bad John.”