I've got a little Liszt...to add to this list

In my previous post, I mentioned that I've long been naturally drawn to tune connections. Back in "The Aughts," when the blog was young, I wrote a series of what I called "Tune Theft" posts lightheartedly using the term "theft" to describe instances in which a given melody seemed to borrow quite a bit from a previous melody. As so often on the blog, I was interested in how it is that a given set of notes can carry a specific identity which can nonetheless be repurposed to create something quite different, much as we just saw with four notes from "Swing low, sweet chariot." You may find the original list, mostly from 2007 with some other additions grafted in, here.

A whole new world

Once again, one blog post topic has generated unexpected journeys down a path I'd never intended. You could say that exploring the harmonic progression in four bars of Dvořák's "New World" Symphony opened up whole new worlds of things to write about. At first I thought this would just be a little postscript post, but it has resulted in a few more creations than I'd imagined.

The topic of the day is this: what is actually "new world"-ish about Dvořák's 9th Symphony "From the New World?"

Post #700: America the Beautifulish (Emptying the Desk Drawer #8)

I actually have a couple of things prepared to blog about, but will save one for the near future (tomorrow?). Today, I'm again posting something I created informally which I still thought worth documenting, so this goes in the "Emptying the Desk Drawer" category (see end of post for the complete set). In this case, this past Sunday morning I ran across music I'd created quickly and played on July 6. As the "July 4-adjacent" Sunday this year, we had originally scheduled to have a flutist play "America the Beautiful" (which actually appears in our hymnal) in an arrangement I intended to make. When the flutist ended up being unable to play that day, I decided I'd invent something for organ alone.

...to explore strange new worlds

As summer winds down and students begin to embark on new worlds of learning, let's consider seven chords from Antonín Dvořák's famous Symphony No. 9 titled “From the New World.” Although most of the discussion of the “New World” quality of this symphony focuses on melodic material that might borrow from Native-American or African-American influences, the opening of the second movement has an other-worldly quality which comes mostly from its unconventional harmonic progression. 

Someone posted last week on a Facebook Music Theory group asking how these harmonies would have been understood by theorists in Dvořák's time. Most of the hundred-plus responses focused more on how one might now analyze the harmonies, and that's what I'll do as well;

The Augmented Reality Waltz

Ever since that fateful day (a story with an amazing coincidence) thirteen years ago when I discovered "Augmented Sixth Day," I've found that many years I forget to celebrate either until the day of or even long after the day has passed. (This is where a well-stocked Hallmark section could really help keep a guy on track.) In fact, I'm alarmed to see that I've only made holiday-specific posts three times before on this august day, plus another one a couple of months late in 2021. Here's where we've been so far.

• Happy Augmented Sixth Day - 8/6/2012
• Happy Augmented Sixth Day! (2016 ed.) - 8/6/2016
• Augmented Reality - 10/16/2021
• An Aug 6 for Aug 6 in an August Sextet - 8/6/2022

I suppose this is a time of year when I'm least likely to look at a calendar closely since it's generally vacation time, but a couple of days ago I was reminded the big day was coming.