
History of Music & Modern Recording Project
From Medieval to Groups & Musicians Issuing on Vinyl by 1970
Profiles by Order of Publishing Date
Current Issue Classical:
Dec 2025 #493 Francisco Tárrega
Current Issue Modern Recording:
Dec 2025 #504 Sammy Kaye
Special Issue: Jazz:
Dec 2025 #146 Lena Horne
Launch: 31 Dec 2021.
The
HMR Project is the
completion of the VF History which is its Notes. This is a music history of
the western hemisphere from about 500 AD through musicians who commercially
recorded by 1970. The reason I didn't press further to 1980 is because doing
a page of seventies rock revealed that to add another decade to all genres
would require about two years. Since I had already spent ten years on the VF
History, though not full time until 2013, I thought it was high time to
begin the project for which reason I made its Notes. The HMR Project comes in two
constellations: Classical which is one chapter of the VF History, and Modern
Recording
which arrives to thirty-three sections commencing as of 1890.
The VF History approaches 2700 musical profiles,
of which at this writing in December of 2025 at least 650 articles in the
HMR Project have been completed, requiring five years to finish not quite
25% of the VF History. We've traveled nearly 1500 years to composers born in
the latter half of the 19th century. I was also able to chronologically
reach 1937 in modern recording by the end of 2025 (not that specific year in
music, but artists who first recorded that year). That's darn close to half
a century of modern recording. I'd like to continue chronologically until 1940,
but that's a
tall task in the meanwhile leaving categories like rock neglected. So I'd
like to complete at least 1937 in 2026. Though 1938 was also a big year for
new recording artists particularly in Swing Jazz, somewhere about that time
I plan to start rotating
through all genres and periods which have thus far been neglected by a rigid
chorological approach.
Disregarding classical where most of the action took place in Europe, the HMR Project generally concerns itself with the
following areas of modern recording: black gospel, bluegrass, blues, boogie woogie, country western, folk, jazz, R&B including doo wop, rock
including rockabilly, and vocal
harmony. Early popular includes ragtime. The VF History begins "late"
popular with the soundtrack, though the explosion of television might be
more apt with a "middle" period of perhaps twenty years between the
soundtrack when a night on the town meant movie tickets and television which
kept people at home. Finally, various genres of Latin are addressed
including the Caribbean, South America, salsa in the United States and flamenco in
Spain.
Brief notes along the progress of the HMR Project:
Update November 2022: occasioned by accomplishing about 10% of the VF History
(270 profiles) since
May of 2021. In classical that brings us to the hem of high baroque about 1100 years from where
we started in the Middle East. In modern recording we've completed the first
three decades and reached well into the Roaring Twenties, but are yet in the
acoustic period.
Update July 2023: The HMR Project had to be discontinued in April 2023 per
technical issues with the server (Host Gator - avoid along with all others
associated with the Endurance International Group. They're making money and
neither your contribution nor welfare are recognized in that). Made aware of
exhaustion as well, I've taken the summer off and play a lot of Microsoft's
Age of Empires, which old game I keep around for stretches of depression too
great to work. Clue: If you keep it at a simple level you can win at
something in life. This won't be much encouragement, however, since you will know
that you're playing at a level so easy that you can't possibly lose. That
does, anyway, keep games to a couple of hours so that you're not depressed
for days at a time.
Update December 2024: On about the 15th of December I was attacked by a hacker
which wrought the destruction of my OS by Microsoft's recovery program. The HMR Project is therefore in delay. I was well into the
romantic period in classical by then and had nigh completed the first four decades
of modern recording, about the time that Carnival began in Rio de Janeiro
and Edison cylinders about to go defunct as music forays into its swing
period. Well into electronic recording by now which began in 1925.
Update November 2025: Some
six months ago Violafair went offline for the first time since 2002 due to
software and server problems (online 2004-10 but dormant since driving big
trucks affords little time to work on websites). By this time violafair has
been through one happiness upon the next like endless dead links at YouTube,
Microsoft's FrontPage and its extensions no longer allowed near pets nor the
internet, coding no longer simply for PCs but complicated by smartphones as well,
testing WordPress to see what the big deal was, only to learn that it's a
nightmare in multiple ways including security (a third party security app
specifically for WordPress causing
Google to lock me out of my gmail account for a month). Come Windows 11 making it difficult to work with images and even notepad. Other events leave me without a computer
on which to work during summer, after which YouTube changes embed requirements.
I can't figure it out so I blow the whole thing off until Copilot solves yet
another mystery of the cosmos. In the meantime I discover that some POS in India is
cybersquatting with my domain name. My registrar gets rid of the creeps, but
by this time I've developed an attitude. I verily detest the dishonesty with
which the internet is a flood.
What was a curiosity in 2001, to build a
website to see what happens, has for most years since then been a laborious pain in the neck
with zero reward beyond my own satisfaction, which makes it a lot like the
rest of my life. Hooray. Go ahead, laugh some more. Nevertheless, the year of 2026
brings a temptation to concentrate on boogie woogie, gospel and rockabilly
so I can close out those smaller genres by next year. Following a rigid
chronological procedure finds us completing 1936 by the end of 2025. So as
we begin 2026 in 1937 I plan to pursue most artists first recording that
year. Around 1938 when we're solid into Swing I intend to break out of rigid chronological procedure
to begin cycling through other genres and periods neglected up to now like modern jazz,
R&B and rock. It may take three or four years to reach classical composers
born in the 20th century, but once I there arrive I'll cease to emphasize
classical and remove that category at the top of this page, leaving me to
better focus on the behemoth that is jazz, not to mention rock now presently
years neglected. Perhaps about that time I will begin a more leisurely pace, since other projects in my
life go neglected as I create these histories. I begin 2026 by jumping ahead
quite a lot to the modern, Shostakovich, and black gospel artist, Sallie
Martin, before returning to 1937 et al.
I began the VF History not fifteen years ago
because I had grown beyond weary of the world as I began the descent into old
age. It looked a thing possible to accomplish howsoever humble or
temporary. Even older now, thus all the more on grace, though I'm glad to be able to progress through
an examination so interesting as music history, it's
getting to be quite a challenge. Sometimes you wonder how you're ever going
to get where you're going. Quite the wrestle this twisting life in which not
all is as clear as elementary logic or math. Common for me to put fifteen hours a day into
this pursuit when earlier begun, that drive has gradually decreased as I
age. Howsoever, if I may anticipate as many interruptions in the next five
years as in the last, and if I complete as many profiles as in the last, the
HMR Project will still achieve only under 50% of the VF History. Earlier
aspirations seem to have exceeded possibility, as I doubt that 100% is
either doable or even desirable. Another unfinished education to take to the
grave.
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