I took a music appreciation class back at South Alabama during the winter of '88. As I understood the class from the catalog, you listened to classical music, attended concerts, and wrote about them. Pfft. This should have been an easy "A".
It got a little more complicated. At least our instructor turned out to be pretty hip. "I'm Dr. Wermouth, pronounced the same as the spirit." The good doctor regaled us with stories of music department get togethers. He explained that if you looked at an album, you'd see changes in the density of the grooves and that these changes were dependant on the passage of music. Louder, softer, faster, or slower passages affected groove density. A favorite parlor game was to cover up the record label and, based on the number of tracks and the lay of the grooves, his colleagues would have to name the composer, the piece, and the movement. Holy crap.
For our final he stood at the front of the class with several turntables loaded with records. He'd start each player in turn and drop the needle at random points. Naming the composer, piece, and movement was then on us. Still not nearly as bad as those departmental shindigs.
The classroom lectures also got pretty animated. Bo Derek's Bolero was released a few years before, and this prompted the discussion of Maurice Ravel's 1928 composition, "Bolero", and how it had been used in Derek's previous film, 10, as a backdrop to a lovemaking scene. Before you get any ideas, be advised that depending on the particular arrangement, Ravel's "Bolero" can easily approach 20 minutes.
As an alternative, I offer Foghat's 1975 release, "Slow Ride". The album version is just over 8 minutes. There's also the released single version that doesn't exceed 4 minutes. Just sayin'.
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