Electricka's theme music

Gustav Mahler

The music you are now hearing is Electricka's theme music, my theme music. It symbolizes the things I and my cohort muses stand for. Here I explain what they are.

About Electricka's theme music

This selection of my theme music is a longer version of the same music you heard on Page 2, where I introduced myself. It's taken from March of the Dead, a major section of the fifth movement from Gustav Mahler's Symphony #2, titled "The Resurrection." (See Electricka's Credits page for this performance's provenance. In my opinion, it's one of the best performances of this work every recorded.)

That's the giant composer and conductor Gustav Mahler at the right.

Musicologists speculate that Mahler intended this March passage in his symphony to represent God's hordes, heavenly mankind and his angels marching in ranks out of the clouds and down from the heavens.

Why do I play music popularly believed to be about angels and the dead? This march inspires me, and I hope it inspires you, too. I don't see it solely as a march about the dead. I also see it as a statement about those who live now and about those who will live in the future—about mankind. I liken it to the ongoing and everlasting march of the millions of artists and their followers, past, present, and future, and to the angelic muses who have inspired them.  I see them as generations as yet unborn who will do the same. I see them all as representatives of an abstraction, of mankind and of mankind's spirit, living forever and marching forever because of their art.

To me, Electricka's theme music symbolizes something positive, something triumphant, as I believe it did for Mahler. Mahler meant it to represent Resurrection, a rising above mortality through a recognition, understanding, and appreciation of the spiritual and artistic aspects of life. And so do I. But to me, Mahler's music also represents the everlasting condition of the ancient muses and their arts in the age of electronics and the Internet—it symbolizes the refulgent power and glory of their ancient arts and artists in harmony with those of the modern-day muses. There is a permanent synergy between the old muses and the new ones; may the Communication Age fulfill its promise to sustain and elevate them all!

join The March

As you listen to this resurrection music, visualize the muses, reawakened from a slumber of 2300 years, marching down from their ancient mountain home in Greece into our modern world.

Can you hear it? Can you see it?

There it is now, that mile-high Greek mountain called Helicon in Boeotia, in central Greece, where my ancient Greek forerunners, the Muses and Apollo, god of the sun, lived, and where I believe they still live in spirit, as a divine influence and an agency working in the human heart.

On Helicon's eastern slope, looking toward the rising sun, the ancients planted a grove and dedicated a temple sacred to my ancient sisters. It's there today just as before, only now it contains the electronic modern-day muses of our own time, as well. And at some future day, in times yet to come, it also will contain who knows what other kinds of new muses.

You'll find that ancient grove there even now, if only you look for it.

next on the tour, Take the Electricka Quiz

If you've arrived at this page while taking Electricka's Orientation Tour, you're almost finished with your passage now. There's just one more thing to do and one more page to visit. (See how easy touring can be?)

What's the next (and final) thing to do on your tour? Now that you've learned a bundle about me and my web site, just for fun try taking my quiz. I call it the Electricka Quiz because it's about the things you've learned about me, my cohort muses, and the Exploring The Arts Foundation while on the tour.

To take the quiz and finish my tour, all you have to do is answer a few simple questions. Get them right and you'll become a star in the Modern Muse firmament!

• Take the Electricka Quiz now: click here.
• Or click or tap Page 5 at the bottom of this page or in the Feature Pages Box at the upper right corner of this page.

Missed the start of the tour?

Not all visitors to this page arrive by tour. People show up by other routes, as well.

If you're not a member of a tour now but don't want to miss it, it's not too late! New tours pass by here all the time and you can join the next one easily.

• Here's where to catch the next Electricka's Orientation Tour at its beginning; it starts now: click here.

Or click or tap Page 1 at the bottom of this page or click or tap Page 1 in the Feature Pages Box at the upper right corner.

ETAF Recommends

Like many other great musicians, Mahler led a fascinating life, but one a life that was far too brief. Explore this disappointed yet triumphant artist.

...Coming.

In Vienna, where he conducted, at first the music world had a low opinion of Mahler's music; but thanks to people like conductor Bruno Walter, who was one of his students and an early champion, audiences have come to recognize its true worth. There are many great performances of Mahler's symphonies. Here are only a few.

...Coming.

—Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—