1) RANGE. Beethoven eventually could not hear the music he wrote; I cannot read the notes I hear. This said, I listened to all types of music since childhood and (I believe) evolved into a connoisseur of gourmet music, as attentive to the piano of Franz Liszt and violin of Paganini as the flamenco guitar of Montoya, drums of Joe Morello (1950/60s Jazz by Dave Brubeck Quartet on Album 14), Pop drums of Rare Earth (1969, 1st piece on Album 18), the exquisite electric guitar by Santana--and his evolution from the Acid Rock electric guitar of Jimmy Hendrix on Album 19, though I don't like Acid Rock -- and his (Santana's) complex arrangement of flowing and rhythmical sounds and beats, as the 20-min (2nd) piece on Album 18 . . . the wild vocal beat of the Gypsy Kings, as well as the power and range of Placido Domingo -- who has my vote as the world's best tenor ever, though I prefer Pavarotti's "Sweet Tenor" for some songs, like "Caruso" -- the romantic Continental sound of Julio Iglesias versus the Ah-so-American wonderful romantic baritone of Elvis, the "crooning saloon" voice of Sinatra (3 songs by him) . . . the gut-tearing "Soul" voice of Gladys Knight and Janis Joplin ("Me and Bobby McGee" only), on Album 6, "Memories" of Steisand (who can pull guts in other ways), the rose-petal-soft soprano of Sarah Brightman, who cannot maintain the power of a Maria Callas, Marilyn Horne, or Kathleen Battle but is able to extend her range also to Pop music blended delightfully with classical notes and modern synthesizers, as on Album 4, why so many male vocalists cannot be blamed for wanting to share their songs with her . . .

2. CRITERIA. My criteria for excellent music is very loose on the one hand, very strict on the other, as only these 300 pieces ultimately qualified, though I might have added a few more if I could have remembered their names, or found them. (And I would have replaced a few that I included with these.) The criteria include: 1) Flow & Harmony, 2) Wonderful Melody, 3) Voice that fits the melody, message, lyrics, 4) Hopefully Meaningful Lyrics, 5) Fine Rhythm, and/or 6) Hot Tempo & Beat. In some cases, I excluded a few very nice songs (say) by Elvis, as I had already 4 or 5 by him, to make room for a song by someone else, perhaps not as nice but good enough to be included, also to extend the range of my selections.

3. CLASSICAL SELECTIONS. I like to think that I can differentiate between music and noise that is trying to be music. This is no less true if the sounds are classical notes which, to my ear, do not fit together memorably. By this elusive criterion alone, I eliminated many pieces. But my personality was also a judge. I do not like the ponderous music of Bach and, to me, composers like Hyden do not have enough passion. This latter criterion eliminated most of the rest. So I was left with about 2 dozen short classical pieces, including 2 by Beethoven, a few by Mozart, several piano pieces by Chopin and violin pieces by Paganini, and others by other composers. For long classical pieces, I certainly included Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the NeoClassical "Oxygen" by Michael Legrand as the longest (about 40 min each) 2 pieces in my collection. I did NOT include symphonies, even Beethoven's Fifth, because I prefer piano or violin concertos in which the symphony accompanies the instrument. So, for example, for piano I selected only 3 as my best: 1) Liszt's Piano Concerto #1, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and Tchaikovsky, in that order, which also serve for comparative purposes. For example, you will note that while Beethoven's orchestra, as wonderful and potent as it is, often overwhelms the piano for long periods, as if Beethoven really wanted to compose another symphony and then decided to add the piano, Liszt assigns more an accompanying role to the orchestra, allowing the exquisite and very difficult-to-play piano to really take over and shine. Tchaikovsky is somewhere in the middle, with a powerful start on piano.

4. BROADWAY, ET AL. I included a few Broadway pieces, or ones adopted from Broadway, certainly "I Could Have Danced All Night," but many just did not qualify. Foremost, I do not like screams substituting for melody, like many by Ethel Merman, who might as well yell "Help" and label the sound music, and never mind that American audiences apparently applaud all huge screams, younger audiences all deafening noise. (My ear drums convinced me to walk out of a Tina Turner concert once, though I like --and included -- one or 2 songs by her, "Private Dancer" for one. ) I should add that while I like the voice of Michael Bolton, to me the melody of his songs is second rate, why he is not included. Instead, I selected others who have a similar voice but better songs, like Bob Seagar "Still the Same." This also applies to "The Greatest," who is excluded, and even to Ella Fitzgerald, as I think Gladys Knight (6 pieces by her in Album 6) is the best of female Black Soul vocalists. There are also a few Motown selections by you-can-guess-who --- not Temptations.

5. CHRONOLOGY & EVOLUTION. I arranged the pieces roughly in chronological order so that the audience has a feel for the evolution of music -- rhythm, beat, instrumental variety, even lyrics, etc. -- for example from the flat instrumental sounds of the 1950s to the more complex and "pounding" sounds of the 1980s, as well as the generally regressive evolution of good lyrics in the 1950s and 1960s to redundant (beat) lyrics of later years . . . the evolution of Disco from Latin beat and rhythms from as early as 1930s and 1940s, blended later with American beats such as TSOP ("The Sound of Philadelphia") in mid-1970s, to Boney M ("Daddy Cool"), Fatback Band (Night Fever), Gloria Gaynor ("I will Survive") of late 1970s, to BeeGees in 1980s, to Club X Project of the 1990s, who now blend all these and good Rap (a very rare thing) to Disco . . .

6. COMPARATIVE MUSIC. I included some pieces NOT because I think they qualify as the best in their class, but to offer a comparison as to how sounds evolved in different cultures. For example, the last piece on Album 18 ("Rhythm & Beat") is a Nigerian Highlife, that is a far cry from the one I attended in Lagos in 1976, by a group called Osidivism. For 2 decades, I searched for a tape by them, in Paris, London, Los Angeles . . . Nothing! So I included this one, first to have something typically African in my set (I do not like the many African pieces I know that merely emulate Western music), but also to compare it say to the Caribbean (1st) piece I have on Album 1. (You will note they are very similar, in redundancy of the beat and lyrics, yet different in that while one can make an effort to dance to the Caribbean rhythm, the African piece, like Jazz, though this is not Jazz, is more for listening.) Similarly, listen to the exquisite 1950/60s Jazz of Dave Brubeck ,and the light Jazz sample from the 1990s, on Album 14, and then see how much Allman Bros.' "Jessica" (1970s Album) has borrowed from these sounds in its very nice Pop composition. This is one major reason, for example, why I ended Album 1 (Upbeat Vibes) with a very nice Tribal bango rhythm of Brent Lewis, and began Album 2 (Hot Soul) with a similar piece by Brent Lewis, to represent the ORIGINS of all beats, followed by Mid-East drums of Nadia Gamal, followed by Jungle bango and drums of Santana, really without skipping a beat, for this is how "beat" evolved in different cultures, why the Belly Dance of the Mid-East is no less blood-boiling than Latin Salsa, though the two (and dances) are entirely different.

7. EXCLUDED. I excluded Far-Eastern music from my collection for 2 reasons: 1) Although I attended one or two Kabuki plays in Tokyo and was entertained by Geisha girls playing traditional music, I decided I am NOT a connoisseur of such music with (to Western ear) discordant sounds. 2) The more modern music of the Far East, in turn, is almost entirely copied from the West, with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. lyrics, like an American movie dubbed in Japanese, which, to me, is not representative. However, I included (on Album 19) one short Far-Eastern piece for the sake of memories, the Vietnamese Water Puppet Show I attended in Hanoi in 1998.

As you can see, I put a lot of effort to the selection, and then to the arrangement of the music I selected, to earn for them "The Best Music Ever" claim. (I do not want to mention the number of pieces I listened to and recalled and compared, before I finalized the list . . .)

Sirman, Miami Beach, Oct. 25, 2000.

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