Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.
Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening is Ariana Grande, vocal and instrumental music from the Renaissance, Creole Kings of New Orleans, and relaxing Gamelan meditations.
Here are some interesting Native American spoken word recordings with music. Login with your Glendale library card number and listen. From Music Online and Freegal: stories of the creation, myth, meditations and more. Narrated by J. Reuben and Perry Silverbird, Kenneth Little Hawk and Michael Looking Coyote.
Read Music
Are you a musician who wants to learn to play jazz? Brand Library has over 100 volumes of the Jamey Aebersold play-a-long series. Each volume comes with a CD and score to practice improvisation with the recording. Available for contactless pickup at Brand Library.
Learn About Music
The Dogs of Desire is the Albany Symphony’s new music group. They put together a great online series called Hot, w/ Mustard showcasing the work of 10 up and coming young composers. It includes videos, interviews and recipes.
Streaming Music
Native America Calling is a call-in radio program serving Native communities. The program covers a variety of topics including music. They have recently featured musicians such as Bluedog, Samantha Crain and Angel Baribeau.
Read About Art
Check out a book through our contactless pickup service to learn more about Native American Art. Find more on our reading lists for Native American Heritage Month: Adults, Teens and Children's.
Learn About Art
Watch Tending Nature, a series shining a light on how Indigenous knowledge can inspire a new generation of Californians to find a balance between humans and nature. Explore how the state's Native peoples have actively shaped and tended the land for millennia. Try season 1 episode 2 Decolonizing Cuisine with Mak–‘amham to see how two Ohlone chefs Louis Trevino and Vincent Medina are revitalizing their Ohlone language, food practices and adapting them for a modernist palate.
Try the Architecture Podcast from the journal of AIA talking to innovators working at the cutting edge of design, technology, and practice in architecture. Listen to a conversation with Tammy Eagle Bull, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, on cultural appropriation from body art to marketing language and architectural design.
Watch Coffee with Kim, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Director, Kim Peone speaks with artists including basket makers, weavers, painters, jewelers and more about their work from the virtual 2020 Santa Fe Indian Market.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
15,000 & MORE, by artist Connie DK Lane, is a memorial tribute to the lives lost from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in California. The concept is based upon Chinese ancestral worship of deceased relatives and family members with a special ceremony. This ceremony requires burning a mixture of gold and silver joss papers (ghost money) as an offering to the deceased. The joss papers are folded before being burnt to pay tribute to the afterlife. To participate, pick-up your kit at Brand Library on November 21 or from Glendale Central Library today through November 21, 12pm - 6pm. Once you have completed folding the ingots, please return them in the paper bag back to Brand Library & Art Center or Glendale Central library branches during contactless pickup hours.
From the Chumash Museum in Thousand Oaks, learn about Chumash history and culture. Try some coloring sheets teaching the Šmuwič (Barbareño) language, a native plant guide, watch videos to learn more about indigenous science and lifeways and more.
From the Alaska State Museum try making a paper bead necklace or a camera obscura. Watch Kay Field Parker, master weaver from Juneau, Alaska, demonstrate ravenstail two-strand twining to help students clearly understand and see the technique. Ravenstail weaving is an ancient form of twining used to create robes with bold and dazzling geometric designs.
Staff e-Recommendations
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World begins with an arresting image — a Blackfoot chief (in full regalia) sits upon a stage, mouthing along to a fuzzy wax cylinder recording of traditional native chants. He then steps forward, through a column of shadow, only to be suddenly reborn in the image of rock n’ roller Link Wray, jamming out riffs on his electric guitar. The statement is clear: while Indigenous Culture has not so much disappeared as it has been deliberately banned and erased, it still lives on in a new guise. Rumble explores the unrecognized contribution of Indigenous Peoples to popular music starting with the title track “Rumble” by Link Wray (of Shawnee ancestry) that caused a disruption in the power chords of rock ‘n roll history. Before Link Wray, Delta Blues guitarist Charlie Patton drummed his guitar inspiring Howlin’ Wolf, and band singer Mildred Bailey popularized the jazz vocal style of stretched and condensed notes in the 1930s. The film is by no means exhaustive in its detail, but it is a vital introduction (or reintroduction) to artists whose native roots have not been widely-discussed, such as Taj Mahal, Billy Hancock, Peter La Farge, Buffy Sainte-Marie, John Trudell, Stevie Salas, Jimi Hendrix, Pat Vegas, Taboo, and many others. There’s a memorial section of the film dedicated to guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and the heavy metal, manic drummer Randy Castillo (whom I could watch all day). I can’t recommend this film strongly enough! -SB
Jake Shimabukuro Trio (2020). Jake is a native of Hawaii and is probably the best known ukulele virtuoso today. He has quite a few solo albums under his belt and works with a rotating lineup of supporting musicians. For this album he formed a band with Nolan Verner (bass, piano and percussion) and Dave Preston (guitars, lap steel and percussion) - the three playing all of the instruments on this release and cowriting all of the original pieces. The album is eclectic combining rock, pop, Hawaiian, flamenco and more. The album is almost all instrumental, the only vocals being Preston’s wife Rachel James sings vocals on a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide to close. There are 9 originals and 4 covers including an arrangement of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and the Hawaiian song Wai’alae. One of the most interesting parts of this album is the use of ukulele with guitar and bass giving it 3 ranges of string sounds (high, medium and low). Among the originals When the Masks Come Down, Twelve and Fireflies are my favorites. The positive life affirming energy of this album will brighten your day. -BW
Covid-19 Resources
Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) is available from the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, the City of Glendale, and the Library, Arts & Culture department.
Resources for Music Businesses And Industry Workers, Playing for Change, Sounding Point LA
Resources for Freelance Artists, California Arts Council, Americans for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts