tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671736898218970702024-02-25T07:42:41.753-05:00MMmusingMichael Monroe's Mostly Multimedia Musings on Music, the Mind, Meaning, and more.MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.comBlogger669125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-23100209584645382552024-02-24T22:43:00.004-05:002024-02-25T07:42:07.299-05:00Seventeen, Going on Eighteen<p>No time for a major post to celebrate this blog's seventeenth <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/02/hatto.html" target="_blank">anniversary</a>. But I thought I'd post this fun video I made a little over a year ago. It's been on my list of things to blog about for all of that time, and I'd still like to say more about it, but the basics are as follows:</p><p>I'd created a <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/ArpeggioFun.pdf" target="_blank">worksheet</a> for an Intro to Music Theory class which provided a series of arpeggios. The students' job was to identify the triad quality represented by each arpeggio. As usual with a worksheet, I made some effort to create a semi-random sequence of triads so there wouldn't be any obvious pattern to help students guess the answers. This also means that the patterns created were intended not to have any clear functional relationship from bar to bar. But...I noticed while absent-mindedly playing the page for the class that I kind of liked the way the unintentional progression progressed. </p><p>So, I tweaked a couple of minor things, added a bass line, and soon had produced this fun little bit of ambient music. </p>
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Of course, the blog has been sustained over these seventeen years by all manner of accidental inspirations, so aimless and random as this might seem, it kind of fits the spirit of MMmusing. Happy MMmusing Day!<div><br /></div><div>UPDATE: I meant to add that this little "accidental composition" reminds me of the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/pascal-wyse/cautionary-tales-theme" target="_blank">theme song</a> for the "Cautionary Tales" podcast. (You may hear that theme used in context around the 3:10 mark <a href="https://youtu.be/pySyTQatFdE?si=zbSQj8OyHTJo4Dbv&t=190" target="_blank">here</a>.) Has a similar off-kilter progression and a similar way of building up layers. So, if you have an off-kilter podcast and are looking for a theme song, let me know!</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-88097895949092106722024-02-03T17:45:00.004-05:002024-02-03T19:05:43.482-05:00Whose Fault Is It Anyway?<p>One of my favorite parts of teaching middle school boys the past five years is that we spend a quarter of every fall semester slow-watching <i>Into the Woods</i>. In my opinion, it's a perfect musical for this transitional age - a show that is constantly exploring what lies "in-between" the safety and familiarity of childhood/home and the excitement and danger found in wishing for more freedom and responsibility. Every middle schooler lives in this transition between kid and grownup.</p><p>In addition to watching, we do multiple projects which give the students a hands-on opportunity to engage with Sondheim's musical ideas. This year, I found a good deal of success getting groups of four students to learn a <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/yourfaultdialogue.pdf" target="_blank">central section</a> of the big "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sve1K1AspTk" target="_blank">Your Fault</a>" number in which characters argue back and forth in rapid-fire fashion. (Believe me, rapid-fire argument comes naturally to these boys - but they don't usually do it with a beat.) The students also work on digital audio projects - using a Garageband-like educational platform called <a href="https://www.soundtrap.com/musicmakers" target="_blank">Soundtrap</a> - in which they are provided with motifs from the show which they can re-mix by looping, changing instruments, changing tempo, adding beats, etc. </p><p>This year, to give them more opportunity to interact with "Your Fault," I entered all the notes in MIDI format for the five characters and the piano reduction of the accompaniment. Once I had this complex two-minute ensemble reduced to data, I knew there was a lot of potential energy for me to do something creative. For starters, I just made this simple re-mix, meant to sound kind of silly and lighthearted. (It's all saxes with a beat, bringing out the playfulness of the back and forth but minimizing the angst.):</p>
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<hr />Nothing fancy. Though it certainly takes some of the humanity out of the characters, I really like the way it showcases the mechanical ingenuity of Sondheim's restless ensemble. When characters are running around performing this on stage, trying to make lyrics clear, it's almost impossible to achieve rhythmic perfection. That's fine, but I like hearing the argument in pure musical form.<br /><br />Somewhere along the way, I had the idea that it would be fun to use this data for an animation of the scene, and over the past couple of weeks I've been spending idle hours making my own little "Your Fault" machine using my old friend <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2014/04/sol-searching.html" target="_blank">Scratch</a>. There's a lot more I could do with this (believe me, I have <i>so </i>many ideas), but I've arrived at a very satisfying stage, so am sharing what I have.<div><br /></div><div>The primary concept is to use the MIDI data (basically, information about which notes to play and when) to trigger simple movements for the characters. Since this song is fundamentally about characters pointing at each other and saying "it's your fault," the movements are mostly just about facing and pointing in the right direction, and the characters also bounce nervously in response to each note they "sing." I also added cartoon-like captions with the lyrics. One of the most fun aspects of the project is watching the way the lyrics interact with each other from the four-plus corners of the frame. No matter what the tempo, the movements and lyrics are always cued precisely by the same data which cues the note changes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because MIDI is so flexible, I couldn't resist creating the option to re-assign instruments and volume levels for the characters. Unfortunately, Scratch doesn't really have many great sounding instruments, so the choices aren't that great, but among other things, it's easy to effectively mute a character (or the drums or whatever) if you want to try playing a role yourself. Feel free to give it a try <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/957480631/" target="_blank">here</a>:<hr /><br />
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<hr />Note that if you follow <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/957480631/" target="_blank">this link</a>, you'll find instructions for how to customize playback.<br />
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You may view a demo run-thru and then some demo of setup features, following by a blistering marimba run here:
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If you don't mind me patting myself on the back, I'll walk through some of the things I had to accomplish. Scratch is a fun, flexible environment, but not exactly made to do what I was trying to do. Although Scratch objects can be told to play <i>x </i>pitch for <i>y </i>number of beats, it's not naturally designed to run multiple parts at once, and getting the data into Scratch takes some creativity as well. It's not remotely as simple as saying, "Hey, Scratch, play this MIDI file."</div><div><br /></div><div>As mentioned, I had a head-start in that I already had all of the notes entered as MIDI, using a different program. (A fun cheat here is that, though Sondheim's music is highly chromatic and constantly changing keys, I didn't have to worry about enharmonic spellings. For MIDI purposes, a C-sharp or D-flat will sound the same in this context, so I didn't need to worry about precise note spelling as I hastily played the notes in.) Because I don't really have a good method to have a single part play multiple notes, I did have to spend some time simplifying the accompaniment to be two single-line parts. That was fun, but I didn't knock myself out looking for perfection. I think what I have gets the job done.<br /><br />Although MIDI data like this is pretty darn simple, I had to use a little command-line tool called "<a href="https://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/midicsv/" target="_blank">midicsv</a>" to convert from its natural binary state into a text-based file I could manipulate in a spreadsheet. In Excel, I created a few simple functions which allowed me to turn the information for each character into simple lists of pitches and rhythms. Scratch then has a simple way to important such lists into variable sets, so I had the fuel I needed to run the machine.<br /><br />The rest was basically a matter of creating the cartoonish characters (did not invest a lot of time in that!) and their various poses, identifying which lyrics trigger which movements, and designing an interface for the user to adjust parameters. Again, Scratch doesn't necessarily have this stuff built in, so everything from the volume/tempo sliders to the highlight boxes which show instruments selected had to be created from...well, from scratch. (This usually means writing functions that, for example, keep the slider bar moving horizontally with the mouse, but don't let the vertical position change and don't allow the slider to go past the two endpoints.)</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing that makes this different from most <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/427615" target="_blank">Scratch projects</a> I've designed is that I wanted to make this mobile-friendly. The older version of Scratch wouldn't even work on mobile devices, but since 2019, projects can run on mobile, with varying degrees of success. This means that simple keyboard commands don't work very well (those are generally easier to program), but anything which reacts to mouse clicks also works pretty well with finger control on a phone. Since the dialogue boxes Scratch uses to solicit text input are pretty ugly and take me out of the imagination world a bit, I like having all the controls accessible from within the little world I've made.<br /><br />As I've written <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2014/04/sol-searching.html" target="_blank">before</a>, what really makes all of this satisfying is to experience the ways in which coding are similar to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGox2SE0XzScKN4OF3U2f7EW2" target="_blank">composition</a>. It's always about figuring out how to create a structure based on a web of interrelationships. When the design works, the result can feel like magic even if it's grounded in math. Sometimes this is due to a truly creative, unique solution to a problem (like when a composer writes an amazing melody) and sometimes it's just the satisfaction of using standard formulas effectively (as when a composer uses established principles of harmony and voice-leading).</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, there are MUCH more robust languages with which to program that would create higher-quality results all around. But aside from the fact that the childlike Scratch aesthetic suited the subject matter, it also makes me feel more connected to know how the internal mechanics work. Having to think specifically how to create functions which read, react to, and sync MIDI-like numbers is a more hands-on experience than using pre-programmed plug-in functions - just as it's more satisfying to create a musical composition by choosing all the pitches than it might be to use pre-fabricated music loops. This program will definitely glitch sometimes, especially if you push the tempo up over 150 (hint, hint), but it's remarkable to me how well it holds up considering all the decision-trees I know it's processing and how many notes have to be triggered in such little time.<br /><br />I now have a pretty cool set of music projects created in Scratch. This one is most similar in scope and function to "<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/122862538" target="_blank">Poppy Bach</a>," which plays a three-voice Bach fugue and gives the user a wide variety of customization and view options. But I'd encourage you to check out each little scratch-world found in this <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/427615/" target="_blank">gallery</a>. <br /><br />While I'm here, it's also worth pointing out another "Your Fault" project I created within the class context a few years ago. In this case, I had done some editing of the audio from the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Into-Woods-Sondheim-Bernadette-Peters/dp/B000W0X36Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1HCNXYPKC2PF9&keywords=into+the+woods+peters&qid=1706991551&sprefix=into+the+woods+peters%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-1" target="_blank">filmed 1987 Broadway production</a>, so that the music stays reasonably close to an unchanging beat, which means I could easily drop in other beats and sound effects. Although I should probably re-edit to turn down the drums a little, I think this is pretty fun!
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<br />As an epilogue, I'll note that the great musical humorist Peter Schickele (inventor of PDQ Bach, etc.) passed away recently. As I've thought about his legacy, I thought about how much he and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Borge" target="_blank">Victor Borge</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igudesman_%26_Joo" target="_blank">Igudesman and Joo</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwoSet_Violin" target="_blank">Two Set Violin</a> all benefit from the generally ultra-serious attitude with which those in the classical music world think of "playing" music (even music intended to be lighthearted). All of these comedians have become popular and established enough that their audiences take great delight in the irreverent treatment they display towards the canon, but I continue to wish we cultivated a more genuinely <a href="https://www.classical-scene.com/2020/04/27/time-to-play/" target="_blank">playful attitude</a> in general.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's a lot of mistrust about what happens when musical ideas are reduced to math. While I agree that something is lost when we take singing actors out of a number like this, I think this process enable us to appreciate something about the craftsmanship beneath the surface. (Also, again, this program will stumble every now and then so it's not so mathematically pure due to my own human frailties as a programmer! Take that, AI.)</div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-59303424768003222472023-12-25T09:44:00.002-05:002023-12-25T09:45:27.402-05:00Once upon a time...<p>Once upon a time, I wrote my first twenty-first century fugue back in <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2015/12/fugue-in-royal-davids-city.html" target="_blank">December, 2015</a>. (I do have <a href="https://youtu.be/W9POn5BcZfg?si=aoHHNXSjNCX52Gor" target="_blank">one</a> ancient twentieth century fugue as well.) I've played this fugue at some point just about every year since, but have never been happy with the original piano recording I made on an out-of-tune piano. So, the other day when I found time on a beautiful Steinway to record my <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/12/old-faithful.html" target="_blank">new "O come, all ye faithful" fugue</a>, I did a few takes of <i>Fugue in Royal David's City </i>and definitely improved on the old version. (A better organ version is still on the to-do list.) </p><p>Just in case you don't know the original tune which famously opens every King's College Lessons and Carols service, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT3cfXd3Shk" target="_blank">here it is</a>. Some of the verses are printed below as well.</p><p>MMerry Christmas!</p><hr />
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<hr /><blockquote><div><div>1 Once in royal David’s city</div><div>stood a lowly cattle shed,</div><div>where a mother laid her baby</div><div>in a manger for His bed:</div><div>Mary was that mother mild,</div><div>Jesus Christ her little Child.</div><div><br /></div><div>2 He came down to earth from heaven</div><div>who is God and Lord of all,</div><div>and His shelter was a stable,</div><div>and His cradle was a stall:</div><div>with the poor, and meek, and lowly,</div><div>lived on earth our Savior holy.</div><div><br /></div><div>3 And our eyes at last shall see Him,</div><div>through His own redeeming love;</div><div>for that Child so dear and gentle</div><div>is our Lord in heav'n above,</div><div>and He leads His children on</div><div>to the place where He is gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>4 Not in that poor lowly stable,</div><div>with the oxen standing by,</div><div>we shall see Him, but in heaven,</div><div>set at God’s right hand on high;</div><div>when like stars His children crowned</div><div>all in white shall wait around.</div></div></blockquote>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-88301068386487754652023-12-23T22:47:00.001-05:002023-12-23T22:47:36.985-05:00Old Faithful<p>This will be short, but as the year comes to a close, I've used an old technique to get me to do something I otherwise might not do. In this case, I submitted a new <i>Fugue on Adeste Fideles</i> as title of the prelude for tomorrow afternoon's second Christmas Eve service. The fact that this fugue didn't yet exist was just a way of writing a check that I'd have to cash.</p><p>For better or worse, the check has cleared, and I even have a couple of recordings to show, one a rather overblown virtual organ fest and the other a quiet run-through on piano this morning. As with all of the two-dozen or so <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGox2SE0XzScKN4OF3U2f7EW2" target="_blank">hymn fugues</a> I've written in the past few years, I've often thought of these as primarily functional and flexible, so I like the idea that this fugue can reach a grand and triumphant conclusion - or remain a mostly calm, contemplative piano meditation. </p><p>What with the busyness of the holidays and three church services tomorrow, I haven't exactly perfected this piece or the recordings, but these will have to do for now. Merry Christmas!</p>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Ado5iQfLsA?si=jbPE5NTjLKSNH_1s" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-50019234763091192352023-12-21T13:56:00.002-05:002023-12-21T21:00:36.174-05:00'Tis the Season<p>Back in 2014, the 50th anniversary year for Terry Riley's iconic aleatoric masterpiece <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_C" target="_blank">In C</a></i>, I was inspired by a pun (as <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2017/06/punspiration-or-puns-as-portals.html" target="_blank">so often</a>) to create a holiday homage. It may have been that the pulsing C's which traditionally anchor performances of <a href="https://youtu.be/AVfAoNHjTHQ?si=3rDUBRFbskmn769i" target="_blank">Riley's work</a> first reminded me of jingle bells. I can't remember for sure, but once I made the "In C <span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;">→ </span>In Season" connection, there was no going back. Best of all, I think it really works.</p><p>Rather than the 53 generic riffs in C Major that Riley devised, I used melodic snippets based on well-known seasonal tunes. Thus, part of the game of listening is to hear these various melodies emerge from the texture and intermingle in unexpected ways. You may read about the origins of <i>In Season </i><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2014/11/seasons-greetings-in-c.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and I highly recommend a visit to this <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/inseason/" rel="nofollow">dedicated page</a> which includes an embedded virtual performance and links to the score and instructions. </p><p>Although I forced some family members to play along back in '14, I've never assembled a real performance...until this year, when the combined high school and middle school bands at the school where I work performed it. I don't have a recording yet of that performance, and I likely wouldn't share it anyway as it was necessarily under-rehearsed. And, though I think it was a real success, I realized how challenging it is to perform for young musicians. They've spent so much of their early years of training learning to play at the right time, with a clear sense of meter and how things fit together. Although <i>In Season</i> demands a very strong sense of rhythm, it's not easy to play confidently when the concept of a downbeat quickly evaporates.</p><p>So, I had the idea of creating a new virtual performance for the blog this year. Just as performing this music is more challenging than a quick glance at the score might suggest, creating a decent virtual performance was/is..a big headache. Since my <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/inseason/" target="_blank">2014 virtual performance</a> mostly featured orchestral instruments, I decided to go more with a mallets/electric/plucked/synth ensemble this time. I hoped it would be easier to get satisfying sounds, but creating a good mix that feels "of the moment" is daunting no matter what instruments are used.</p><p>By the far, the most fun and instructive (for me) aspect of creating this was working from start to finish in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) rather than a score-based setup. The advantage of the DAW is that each of the fourteen melodies can be encoded as a MIDI loop which can be dropped onto a beat grid and then looped as desired simply by dragging. No worries about messy ties over barlines. There was still a lot of decision-making about when to pause a given instrument and how to think about having it converse with the others. In our recent performance with students, I emphasized often the important of having them take many breaks simply to listen rather than play constantly. This was in part to keep them from being overwhelmed. With MIDI, the "players" can go on forever without a break, so I had to make decisions about putting spaces in - fewer still than would be likely in any live performance.</p><p>Look, the truth is, I could easily spend dozens of hours perfecting this, but at some point I had to remember I had a family and settle for something which is still spontaneous in many ways. I did have fun converting the DAW "score" into an interesting visual as well. Although the "notes" are tiny, it's color-coded so you can see which track is doing what. (You'll have to determine for yourself what the instruments are, but they should go more or less left to right across the stereo spectrum.*)</p><p>I realize a skeptic might look at this or Riley's piece and figure it's all kind of random and silly (I know because I was an <i>In C </i>skeptic for decades!), but there is a real order and sense of structure which I believe emerges. You can see the fourteen snippets below. Here's what I <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2014/11/seasons-greetings-in-c.html" target="_blank">wrote back in 2014</a>:</p><blockquote>I think [the] large-scale structural aspect of In C is under-appreciated (at least it was under-appreciated by me for decades), and in a small way, I've tried to create some structural flow within my holiday jumble. Most obvious is that the more rhythmically busy patterns occur in #6-11, bookended by the two longest and slowest fragments, #5 and #12. (Note also that #5 ascends and #12 descends.) #3 leads very naturally into #4, both by shared dotted rhythm and the G-F-E connection. #4 ends with the same rising G-C that begins #5. Only C-D-E-F-G are used through the first five fragments. A appears only in #6 and #8-12, with the leading tone B appearing only in the climactic #10-12. (There's a sense in which 9-11 transitions into A Minor, the relative minor of C, and then the expansive #12 brings us back to C.) The final fragment, #14, is the only one not to include C, so it serves as a kind of implied dominant that might lead back...</blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdqZFcxiSqr0IPIuede5TcyFP6MlshUECX27VO9VMDYqY6wnovi7W4LrzgCjGqEtI13Q-kplmrn2AovJvrr03fSdS_tr5nngk9vnethgVwAIJwuuQyGVDFAehdTZUxt1Ch7W_p5pVmUFokTImlKHqGkCb0TuYoqMgPk3OkX4f3OAPLsus169vnhBp9dMc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="786" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdqZFcxiSqr0IPIuede5TcyFP6MlshUECX27VO9VMDYqY6wnovi7W4LrzgCjGqEtI13Q-kplmrn2AovJvrr03fSdS_tr5nngk9vnethgVwAIJwuuQyGVDFAehdTZUxt1Ch7W_p5pVmUFokTImlKHqGkCb0TuYoqMgPk3OkX4f3OAPLsus169vnhBp9dMc=w400-h249" width="400" /></a></div><br />Having now been through this piece many times with students and via virtual work, I can affirm that these features consistently shine through, although I hope new and interesting things happen each time as well. Give it a listen! Then go play it!<p></p>
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</center><center><br /></center>* The instruments used are <span style="text-align: left;">basically an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a synthy guitar, an electric piano, a harp, a synthy keyboard, marimba, bells, vibraphone, synth, and electric bass.</span>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-38247952390365297792023-11-30T22:27:00.004-05:002023-12-01T12:17:34.603-05:00Sondheim Slanted Evening<p>Hopefully the post title is reason enough to be wary of where we're headed here. Just two years and one day ago, I was writing a <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2021/11/hats-off-to-so-many-hats.html" target="_blank">tribute</a> to the remarkable creative force behind <i>Company</i>, <i>Sweeney Todd</i>, and <i>Into the Woods</i>, and here I am presenting a couple of silly distortions of his exquisite musical/lyrical ideas. But it certainly comes from a place of affection.</p><p>First up, a couple of months ago, I mentioned seeing just a two-bar cadential figure shown in a question on a Facebook group and I knew at once I'd played this flourish.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGr0qijFuvmC_PONC-FlNEA5ZA5HjPrUW_w3nxpdlXkmLL7epb9QnPMyenDnnZlCqEz95PxkCUQbw8BrLQS66oPhWMwq47XAOSIJzvGaxDbIyvjgZKyFy5Zl2XXW_gFpUpxqWqPuCbGE6J6eXP37tGsCMheu3IsMHjJogEWh1iTlFqSTIME8tw-eAX0_4/s922/stepsflourish.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="922" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGr0qijFuvmC_PONC-FlNEA5ZA5HjPrUW_w3nxpdlXkmLL7epb9QnPMyenDnnZlCqEz95PxkCUQbw8BrLQS66oPhWMwq47XAOSIJzvGaxDbIyvjgZKyFy5Zl2XXW_gFpUpxqWqPuCbGE6J6eXP37tGsCMheu3IsMHjJogEWh1iTlFqSTIME8tw-eAX0_4/w400-h98/stepsflourish.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>It took me a bit of time to realize it's the closing gesture (hear at 2:29 <a href="https://youtu.be/yiXGsvvocsQ?si=uPYIRgvQjh-WxBUS&t=149" target="_blank">here</a>) from <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiXGsvvocsQ" target="_blank">On the Steps of the Palace</a></i>, Cinderella's big number from <i>Into the Woods</i>. When I mentioned this to some friends online, one repeated a suggestion she'd made before about combining Sondheim's <i>Steps</i> with Borodin's lovely orchestral tone poem <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qS0EO48mNg" target="_blank">In the Steppes of Central Asia</a></i>. Ultimately, I failed to resist this temptation.</p><p>As it happens, I was making this around the same time as I was <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/10/it-talks.html" target="_blank">converting</a> Schubert's <i>Erlkönig </i>to a major key, and we were discussing major/minor modes in a couple of theory classes, so I found it interesting that the "key" to getting Borodin and Sondheim to play nice together was to set the former's plaintive minor key melody against the latter's major key ostinato accompaniment. (If you don't know the originals, you may follow the links in the previous paragraph.) </p><p>This turns out to be a nice way to look at the concept of relative major and minor keys, keys which are "related" because they basically use the same set of pitches but with a different starting/ending note. One simple way to say this is that if one starts on the sixth note of a major scale (down two from the original home pitch which can be called 1 or 8) and follow the scale trail up to the same note, one ends up with the major key's relative minor. Thus, Borodin's minor key melody, which begins on scale degree 5 can actually be harmonized in major simply by treating each scale degree as if it is two lower. The same pitch is now treated as scale degree 3.</p><p>I'm sure that sounds quite pedantic, so here's a quick demo. </p><hr />
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<p>First you hear Borodin's melody more or less against his original minor key harmonies, starting on scale degree 5. (This version is already transposed to the key [B Minor/D Major] I used in my mashup below, and the meter has also been switched from Borodin's 2/4 to Sondheim's 6/8, with a few other melodic adjustments.)</p><p>Then you hear the exact same melody against the repeating accompaniment vamp Sondheim uses in his song, except the vamp is downshifted from D Major into the same B Minor as the melody.</p><p>Finally, you hear the <b>exact same melody </b>against Sondheim's original accompaniment, this time shifted back up to its original D Major. Though not all minor-key melodies transfer so easily (I think it helps that the original minor key melody does <b>not</b> use scale degrees 1 or 2), this one actually works fine against the new harmonies - but it certainly sounds different! It's worth noting that one reason this mashup sort of works is that both Borodin's melody and Sondheim's melody (which you don't get to hear here) spend a lot of time over pedal bass notes (basically meaning the lowest note in the accompaniment doesn't change).</p><p>To complete my silly little arrangement, we open with the major-key melody which opens Borodin's tone poem, then transition into Borodin's main tune (now contextualized as major) and, of course, we end with the flourish that got me into this mess in the first place.</p>
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<hr />Now as if that wasn't silly enough...today, I ran across a discussion in a Sondheim Facebook forum which resulted in someone jokingly proposing a mashup of <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcI_Px5_Vi8" target="_blank">The Ladies Who Lunch</a> </i>from <i>Company </i>with the technopop classic <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7FrLagBXng" target="_blank">I'm a Barbie Girl</a></i>. Someone else suggested the title, <i>The Barbies Who Brunch</i>, and my mind started racing again.<div><br /></div><div>Although this might seem particularly absurd, the aging alcoholic bitterly singing about the "ladies who lunch" might be thought of as a cautionary tale about where a plastic Barbie lifestyle leads. Joanne sings derisively about Barbie-esque women who live glossy, empty lives. And speaking of "major vs. minor," the "Barbie Girl" song, though relentlessly upbeat, is in a minor key which gives it a bit of a dark undertone, while Sondheim's depressing anthem is a great example of a sad song in a major key.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this case, most of the music is Sondheim's, with lyrics inspired by "Barbie Girl" and some melodic quotations from the pop tune mixed in, most notably in the accompaniment. </div><div><br /></div><div>By the way, a case could be made that Sondheim would be most offended by my frequent use of slant rhyme here (brunch/such ~ world/girl ~ Ken/him). He's generally not a fan of rhyming only halfway, as well described <a href="https://www.stephenlegawiec.com/new-blog/stephen-sondheim" target="_blank">here</a>. "Using near rhyme is like juggling clumsily." Oof. However, I feel like the slant rhymes help pay homage to the pop idiom - and, they were the best I could do in the middle of an otherwise busy day.</div><div><br /></div><div>This mashup probably won't make much sense if you don't know both songs reasonably well (see links above), but I think it kind of works. Notice I only tease the idea and don't continue with the main body of Sondheim's song, but I am pleased with the Bossa Nova Barbie beat that ends this:</div><hr />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAuDCSrsP1E?si=fNGY1Odt2qGF4aog" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-16122629613639988092023-11-11T23:01:00.012-05:002023-11-17T11:44:19.613-05:00Concentric Circles: Nardini → Kreisler<p>Time and again, I return here because of some happenstance by which I make unexpected connections between two works. We've had:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2008/12/rite-of-appalachian-spring.html" target="_blank">Stravinsky and Copland</a></li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2009/11/name-that-bassoon.html" target="_blank">Copland and Mendelssohn</a></li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2011/06/somewhere-between-beethoven-and-strauss.html" target="_blank">Beethoven and Strauss</a></li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2013/11/shostakovich-mashed-up-memories.html" target="_blank">Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams</a></li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2016/04/seaquest.html" target="_blank">Britten and Ives</a></li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2014/12/what-lurks-under-sea-of-my-mind.html" target="_blank">Jackson and Menken</a></li></ul><div>In the last few weeks, I've been doing a lot of accompanying of young string players, and it's provided opportunity for a couple of unexpected new discoveries. The first connection came up two weeks ago when I had back-to-back rehearsals for a concerto competition with a violinist playing the first movement of Prokofiev's first concerto and a violist playing the first movement of the Walton Concerto. I <i>adore</i> the former, but do not know the latter well, having only played it once years ago on short rehearsal - although I did once make this [warning: viola joke] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXO7MVf8Sb8" target="_blank">"director's cut" video</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, after some rehearsing of both, I started to notice a strange kinship between the two concerti. Each first movement begins with a quiet, lyrical, flowing melody for soloist in compound meter. Each progresses to increasingly busy passagework with relentless sixteenth notes, and each ends with the opening melody in solo winds while the soloist decorates with graceful, perpetual motion flourishes. [Worth noting it's pretty unusual for a concerto first movement to begin and end softly/slowly.] I mentioned this to a couple of musician friends, and one (a violist) sent me a link to this remarkable <a href="http://atararad.com/walton_en.html" target="_blank">article </a>by the violist Atar Arad who makes a compelling case that Prokofiev's 1923 concerto served as a sort of hidden model for Walton's 1929 work. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll leave it to you to read the article (which has some very detailed analysis) and follow up on these connections, but again, what was most interesting to me is that the dots connected naturally for me simply by playing the two pieces within the same hour. In addition to the openings, you could compare the violin passagework at 3:46 with viola passagework at 4:00 and the ending sections which begin at 8:05 [Prokofiev] and 7:10 [Walton]. If you backtrack from the endings, you'll see that each composer links to the closing section with slow, intense, dissonant double-stops for the soloist. But there are many other likenesses to be found.</div>
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Then, Friday night I accompanied a series of student recitals which included a not well-known concerto by the 18th century's Pietro Nardini. This turns out to be one of those works of somewhat dubious origin which was most likely assembled in the 19th century or later and thus has more Romantic stylistic features. There's an interesting and somewhat entertaining discussion of this concerto as a pedagogical work (apparently unpopular with many students?) <a href="https://www.violinist.com/discussion/archive/26978/" target="_blank">here</a>.<div><br /></div><div>Honestly, as a student concerto I was not finding it that interesting to play, but there is a striking, heartfelt passage towards the end of the first movement that caught my ear. The violinist plays a soaring sequential idea (same two bars repeated several times with each repetition a step lower) over a "circle <a href="https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/56" target="_blank">progression</a>." Circle progressions (in which chords roots move up by 4th or down by 5th in a way that recalls the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths" target="_blank">Circle of Fifths</a>") are very common, but there was something about this one that just felt...emotionally right. <div><br /></div><div>I then realized it was reminding me a similar progression in Kreisler's <i>Praeludium and Allegro</i>, an all-time favorite "meant to sound old" piece - which I had rehearsed about twenty minutes before! Lo and behold, both works are in E Minor and the progressions basically use the exact same chords except Kreisler indulges in a few more major sevenths, a sonority not super common in Common Practice Period Harmony, but which adds an extra layer of pathos to both sequences.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here they are played one after the other (by Pinchas Zukerman and Tasmin Little) and then - of course! - played simultaneously. Kreisler's work is one of the original pieces he originally credited to an "ancient" composer (Pugnani), but I would guess Kreisler would have known the already Romanticized Nardini concerto and might very well have borrowed these chords, whether purposefully or accidentally. </div><div>
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<hr />Of course, both works go their own directions after starting these phrases with that identical progression, but each composer leverages the logical structure of a Classical progression (movement by descending fifths has a particularly strong sense of forward motion) to strengthen and stabilize their more Romantic melodic/dramatic components. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this or if I would have noticed if not for fortuitous happenchance.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Just a couple more observations about these works. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sbdQoawuvs" target="_blank">Nardini </a>is a good example of a work which I think is partly undone by a not-great primary theme. Nothing wrong with the opening idea, but it's just generic, even though it seems to aim for drama. This is a topic I'd like to return to as there are some great works which I believe overcome subpar themes, and other works with fantastic tunes that don't lead anywhere satisfying. There's no reason the primary theme must be first-rate, but for lesser known works like Nardini's, it's more of an uphill battle to overcome a blah first impression.<br /><br />As for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmPK40La2ng" target="_blank">Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro</a>, I really do love everything about this bit of pastiche and the only music of his I love as much is his first-movement <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmZ-BxN0Jow" target="_blank">cadenza </a>for the Beethoven concerto - another case in which he's intentionally working within a more Classical aesthetic which I find merges well with his sentimental tendencies. (The first part of Kreisler's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Mywe637oI" target="_blank">Sicilienne and Rigaudon</a> is almost as good, but maybe leans a little too sentimental, although if we're talking Kreisler, I'll admit that I do unreservedly love <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5PBQp1oxw" target="_blank">this tune</a>.)<br /><br />============<br /><br />P.S. This <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/parody-parade.html" target="_blank">post </a>includes further reflections on my affections for Romantic/Modern works intentionally meant to evoke Classical style. I should've added Prokofiev's 1st and Shostakovich's 9th to that list of lovably neo-classical symphonies.</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-84522716598431133892023-10-31T19:37:00.002-04:002023-10-31T19:40:10.423-04:00It talks!<p>Just to put a bow on my <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-strangers-just-friend-you-havent-met.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, I'm back with one more version of my <i>Erlkönig in G Major. </i>Though it might seem I'd taken this as far as I could, there was still a level of horror to unlock: have a creepy synth voice sing the new "translation" I'd made to go with the major/minor tonality flips. (Please don't mention that there is theoretically yet another step, which would be to have a real person sing this.)</p><p>So, what better day than October 31 to prove that Schubert had only begun to explore the darkness in his iconic song? There is lovely irony in the fact that turning the tune to major actually makes it more disturbing than the original. The same is true for the way a disembodied synth voice brings its own special kind of undeadness that no live human could quite achieve. I hope.</p>
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<hr />And no, the diction's not great (my choir members will note that I never seem to care much about diction anyway except as it affects sound/blend), but the price is right with this virtual singer software.<div><br /></div><div>As it happens, I recently updated my<a href="https://twitter.com/MMmusing/status/1706343810626711806" target="_blank"> "pinned" Twitter post to say</a>:</div><blockquote><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To quote Sondheim: "I'm still here!" Check out my unique multimedia creations, many either visualizing or distorting (or both) the classics.
YouTube: </span><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/9Z1wlpUUKA" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" role="link" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d9bf0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;" target="_blank"><span aria-hidden="true" class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-hiw28u r-qvk6io r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" color="inherit" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space: inherit;">https://</span>youtube.com/MMmusing</a><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
Blog (16+ years): </span><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/aDiD5V4osx" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" role="link" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d9bf0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;" target="_blank"><span aria-hidden="true" class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-hiw28u r-qvk6io r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" color="inherit" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space: inherit;">https://</span>mmmusing.blogspot.com</a><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
Random Sampler (spin the wheel!): </span><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/B6miqG0sVi" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" role="link" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d9bf0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-overflow: unset; white-space-collapse: preserve;" target="_blank"><span aria-hidden="true" class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-hiw28u r-qvk6io r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" color="inherit" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-overflow: unset; white-space: inherit;">https://</span>thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/machine.html</a></blockquote><p>Only later did I realized the "16+ years" might look like some sort of age restriction. I reasoned that I had in fact produced plenty of disturbing content over the years, and so that inspired the creation of this little playlist which might also be appropriate for Halloween. </p><hr />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?si=ScW3sclZmoXohsmA&list=PLVvTyIoBtGoxSObiQEXF_9NRmnDVGYXSL" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe>
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And in fact, though I did show Schubert's original <i>Erlkönig</i> to some lucky 8th Grade music classes today, I think they probably should be a little older before they hear it in major.MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-3810145019534920372023-09-24T21:40:00.003-04:002023-11-30T23:01:24.437-05:00A stranger's just a friend you haven't met<p>This is really just an update to the previous <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/09/changes-both-major-and-minor.html" target="_blank">post</a>. Having "translated" the music of Schubert's <i>Erlkönig</i> from G Minor to G Major, I was bothered that the text displayed was still Goethe's dark and tragic German. Although I'm not capable of re-writing the German, I decided I would translate the original into English. </p><p>As it happens, the connections between transcription and translation have been of interest to me since I started the blog, as can be seen <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/07/translationtranscriptiontransimpson.html" target="_blank">here</a> among many other posts. (A <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/search?q=hofstadter" target="_blank">search of the name "Hofstadter"</a> on the blog will turn up lots more!) But most importantly, this will work better when you inevitably feel led to sing along.</p><p>So, here we have an updated version of the story. No more "stranger danger" or creepy dancing daughters. (See Goethe's original <a href="https://oxfordsong.org/song/erlk%C3%B6nig-2" target="_blank">here</a>.) Because I'm insane, I did try to adhere pretty closely to the stanza structure of Goethe's poem, but with, for example, appropriate switches from a late night ride in the cold wind to an early ride at dawn in the breeze. Notice that, just as my "transcription" of the original Schubert song into a major key is a distortion which is nevertheless defined by the original musical structure, this new "translation" also aims to be a distortion which is nevertheless defined by the original text. </p><p>I think I've said enough:</p><hr /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FeHokX-Guw4?si=HsbjHNocjdGLRrJS" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe>
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But wait! There's <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/10/it-talks.html" target="_blank">more</a>!MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-74212216240829036622023-09-22T21:14:00.009-04:002023-09-25T07:40:26.027-04:00Changes both major and minor<p> Recently, the following image made its way around on social media:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqKBFfrUfCxZDTYSlVXBdYvGGhUlB9E4zn7ICninqy95XZkh6hxpWZjvm7nM_WmKvfmDYXGbdyLIIU-H4Julzw5PLZVlG7HUbksBiuWApTFBaReGIg1eWZ49dZAlPSlNscfRb58jXVqEtSoPY5FDNhQ1GppRHI497L7R20sY873FHobcPlpv9XUslfXzA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqKBFfrUfCxZDTYSlVXBdYvGGhUlB9E4zn7ICninqy95XZkh6hxpWZjvm7nM_WmKvfmDYXGbdyLIIU-H4Julzw5PLZVlG7HUbksBiuWApTFBaReGIg1eWZ49dZAlPSlNscfRb58jXVqEtSoPY5FDNhQ1GppRHI497L7R20sY873FHobcPlpv9XUslfXzA=w314-h320" width="314" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Schubert's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiUWinnXN1E" target="_blank">Erlkönig </a></i>is one of the most iconic works in the classical canon, helped a good bit by the fact that it shows up in many anthologies for music history/appreciation classes. Although Schubert is rightly celebrated for his hundreds of songs, it's a little unusual that this is often the standard-bearer since he didn't really write anything else quite like it, but it packs an incredible dramatic punch. The mercilessly cruel piano part might seem to be a disadvantage for getting the song performed, but the notoriety it adds has only helped to amplify the legend. (I once expressed this in <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2008/12/for-that-special-masochist-in-your-life.html" target="_blank">J. Peterman form</a>.) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As it happens, I spent extra time with this song while leading a piano seminar at a chamber music camp this past summer. I wanted to expose the pianists - some of whom were playing pretty advanced stuff by Liszt, Chopin, etc. - to the crazy technical challenge this "accompaniment" represents. My idea was that, because its relentless repetition is what makes it so difficult, I'd have pianists trade off playing the repeating octaves/chords bar by bar, so it was also meant to be a sightreading challenge. In my "arrangement" for four pianists and two pianos, two students traded triplets while one played the left hand part and another played the vocal melody up an octave or two. This allowed for different levels of skill among those sightreading as well. I won't say we ever made great music out of it, but it was fun and right in my wheelhouse.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIIHeCmYSnr4iPprZAzZ1Bn4K1Stchbmg93wc6svorJmCh6qezE5XoJlBtrCqURFgQYH7oThITjgbjrt0leGK2EGK6zMhPYvMngHV5KGgBnx7XUt2poCYBQL57hOxk-j_ZZHpMHdn_9dFIr9G95Creo93MvCiREbv1WCgo2uQl4Mkm-iJiYJ0nLmq0Qc/s2211/erlkonig4hands.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="2211" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIIHeCmYSnr4iPprZAzZ1Bn4K1Stchbmg93wc6svorJmCh6qezE5XoJlBtrCqURFgQYH7oThITjgbjrt0leGK2EGK6zMhPYvMngHV5KGgBnx7XUt2poCYBQL57hOxk-j_ZZHpMHdn_9dFIr9G95Creo93MvCiREbv1WCgo2uQl4Mkm-iJiYJ0nLmq0Qc/w400-h199/erlkonig4hands.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Speaking of my wheelhouse, I knew almost as soon as I read the posting above that I'd need to create a version of this song in G Major. To be clear, though <i>Erlkönig</i> is published in a variety of keys, they are all obviously minor keys, so the request for a major key is worth a chuckle, especially considering how that might alter its tragic ending. My best guess is that the requester wanted a version in E Minor, and asked for G Major because that has the same key signature, but what if someone <i>really </i>wants this music in a major key?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Well, it turns out to be less straightforward than one might imagine. There's a kind of casual way in which many think of major and minor as opposites. They are indeed used in opposition to each other often, but without going into detail, it's just not a pure binary distinction - especially if the music modulates, which Schubert's does often in this case. It's one thing to turn a simple melody like that of "Happy Birthday" into a satisfying minor key version which can seem like a kind of opposite, but once there are modulations, lots of things get murky. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is actually an entire cottage industry of well-known pop tunes in which major/minor has been reversed, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGflu3TbREo" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVehv_LDWaE" target="_blank">here</a> (more <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGoxtfCSEJnILzQEgooR-IH68" target="_blank">here</a>), but modulation is generally not a big issue in such contexts. Once I started tweaking Schubert, I knew I was going to have to make some tricky decisions, but what fun! Schubert is particularly known for loving to switch back and forth between major and minor, sometimes turning on a dime, so he is an interesting subject for this experiment. My basic concept was to switch the primary minor sections to major while also converting the contrasting major-key sections (when the evil Elf King is sweet-talking his prey) into minor keys. There are some odd gear shifts that Schubert would certainly have never used, and a few chords (especially m.47 and m.49) that he simply would never have imagined, but part of the fun is to be surprised by these funhouse reflections.<br /><br />I've long been intrigued by the idea of creating something out of the negative space defined by an existing work, and I hope to return to the idea if I find time this fall. In the meantime, enjoy the upbeat, frolicsome soundworld that exists somewhere on the periphery of Schubert's haunted house.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><p></p><hr /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MO4g7evzwgo?si=8sgZ3lhKqZaW0gdk" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe><br /><hr /><br />Just remembered this song also come up in this <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2015/09/adding-words-to-songs-without-words.html" target="_blank">blog post</a>.<div><br /></div><div>UPDATE: New <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-strangers-just-friend-you-havent-met.html" target="_blank">version with English lyrics</a> now available!</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-10031745595514696432023-09-01T20:54:00.006-04:002023-09-28T13:37:54.001-04:00A Canon for Kim<p>I don't post personal stuff too much here on the blog. Early on, I <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/05/joy-joy-joy.html" target="_blank">posted </a>about the birth of my third child, a son who's now mowing down the Elgar <i>Cello Concerto</i>, so that was some time ago. But today happens to be the birthday of a very special person, my sister-in-law Kim. When she married my older brother almost forty years ago, she became part of my own large, tight-knit family - my fifth sister, as it were - and she's been a role model in countless ways.</p><p>She was perhaps the first piano major I really knew, some years ahead of my college days, and she also preceded me as a pianist-turned-organist (although she took real lessons!), a church choir director (again, she had legit training), and piano teacher. She also has done all sorts of things I could never imagine, including designing her own house and significantly re-designing another, running a school, homeschooling two daughters who have both grown into brilliant musicians and remarkable young women, and being an incredibly gifted cook who can graciously host small gatherings and large-scale events unbelievably well. She's done all this after surviving a terrifying encounter with cancer as a young mother.</p><p>The ongoing effects of radiation from way back have caused new problems which made us fear Kim would not make it to this birthday, but she's still fighting and inspiring many, many people. She is not the type to look for praise or lots of attention and I won't go into too much detail, though prayers for her are certainly appreciated! She is facing uphill battles, but with courage and hope - and surrounded by a lot of love.</p><p>We were able to visit her a few weekends ago, and with a few lazy summer days left afterwards, I decided to write a canon for her. To canon-ize her as a saint among us, one might say. I've actually never written a canon before, though I've <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGox2SE0XzScKN4OF3U2f7EW2" target="_blank">written a lot of fugues</a> and I've <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGoxIPaUZpfOwzZDAyrOkCoxr" target="_blank">visualized Bach canons</a>. This summer I learned that Greg Hayes, the longtime singing director at the <a href="https://www.greenwoodmusiccamp.org/" target="_blank">chamber music camp</a> my kids have attended for more than ten years, has often encouraged students to write canons. Upon his retirement from the camp this summer, we got to hear a few canons written and sung in his honor, and this idea stuck with me. So upon our return from that weekend visit, I spent a Sunday afternoon pushing notes around and then did a bit more finagling in the days that followed. </p><p>The fascinating thing about a canon is that everything for an entire composition is encoded in just a small part of it. A little like a fractal, perhaps, although different in significant ways. This of course means that every little decision made about a note change here or there has implications elsewhere. I gave myself some leeway in not being obsessed with perfect voice-leading or rigorous harmonic definition, and I was happy with the result. (In fact, it was a goal from the outset to avoid having too clear a sense of a recurring progression.)<br /><br />What interested me the most was creating a melodic fragment which contained all the information needed to produce a satisfying musical structure - not just parts that sound OK together, but the sense of beginning, building, and ending. Of course, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoBtTG56OiI" target="_blank">most famous and perhaps greatest of all canons</a>* is really a set of variations on a ground bass which is satisfying not because the melody is only a small kernel, but because the variations develop slowly in complexity and richness. I genuinely love Pachelbel's ingenious creation, but, repetitive ground bass aside, its canonic melody is actually quite long. (Nevertheless, I find it brilliant how a single violin part can be used to produce such engaging counterpoint with itself.)<br /><br />My choice was to write a sixteen-bar, four-phrase melody, which could simply be sung as a four-part round (Kim and her family of four love to sing). While rounding it into shape, I came up with the idea of adding two simpler phrases as a sort of interlude leading to the return of the first four. So there's a resulting ternary structure like so (with EF representing the two interlude phrases): ABCD EF ABCD. Because the interlude component is half as long as the primary melody, this means almost every section from beginning to end is a unique combination of segments. We get the following, with voice parts listed left to right:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>A _ _ _<br /></b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>B A _ _</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>C B A _</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>D C B A</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>E </i>D C B</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b><i>F E </i>D C</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>A <i>F E </i>D</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>B A <i>F E</i></b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>C B A <i>F</i></b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>D C B A</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>_ D C B</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>_ _ D C</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>_ _ _ D</b></span></li></ul><p></p><p>If you look closely, you'll see that only the DCBA combination occurs twice, with its second occurrence at an appropriately climactic moment. I also used two other little cheats in working with the tune. 1) The last two bars of the canon begin with an upward leap of a 7th, reaching to the highest note in the whole thing, an admittedly unusual way to end a melody. When setting for SATB chorus, I worried this leap would be awkwardly high for altos and basses, but the melody also works with those final two bars down an octave. Dramatic Upward 7th becomes Perfectly Logical Stepwise Descent. So that end of the tune can function both climactically and as tension-release resolution. 2) The other cheat was to let each finished part sustain parts of a final chord to create a pedal effect at the conclusion. </p><p>Here is the primary four-phrase tune:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/kanon4kim.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://www.thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/kanon4kim_smaller.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The text comes from the final two verses of Proverbs 31, the end of a section beginning with the well-known verse: "A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels." Kim is a truly good wife and certainly more precious than jewels.<br /><br />I haven't had a chance to record this properly, but I do have two recordings to offer. The first is simply played on piano, the second uses synthy orchestra sounds that make me wince a bit at first but eventually settle into a nice kind of grandeur. (When dealing with fake instruments, it's hard to resist the lure of reverb.) These notes won't end the suffering Kim is enduring, but they do pay meager tribute to the wonderful person she is. Happy Birthday, Kim!<br /><br /></div><hr /><center>
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<hr />* The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoBtTG56OiI" target="_blank">recording</a> of Pachelbel's Canon linked above, with all parts played by friend Albano Berberi, is far and away the best recording of this piece I've ever heard. And I would add that Pachelbel's strongest competition for "best canon ever" is the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMi9ZUjB_dk" target="_blank">finale of Franck's violin sonata</a>, although Franck is able to provide lots of variety by adding harmonies around the two-part canon, and he uses multiple non-canonic interludes with the canon returning in rondo style each time. MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-63323558321644435772023-02-24T23:23:00.004-05:002023-02-24T23:48:33.978-05:00I am sixteen, going on seventeen<p>It's been a slow start to 2023 here at MMmusing, but I couldn't let my sixteenth blogiversary pass by without acknowledgement. I've had a blog topic in mind for awhile, but haven't gotten around to word conversion, so I'll just offer a slight anniversary-related teaser for today since there is less than an hour to go this February 24.</p><p>Back in 2022, on my birthday, a Facebook friend offered the cryptic greeting "CCDCFE" on my wall. As I could not comprehend what hidden message these letters might portend, I chose to convert them B-A-C-H-style into a musical theme. Thus was born this tiny little dysfunctional birthday fanfare, which I think is rather charming and suitable for my blog's birthday.</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><hr />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_hjK1aCW-Uk" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe></div><hr />more to come soon...about function, dysfunction, and the ways in which they can relate and define each other.MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-44375217579635067922022-11-16T21:08:00.006-05:002022-11-17T14:24:24.077-05:00Muppet of the Night<p>I don't know that I need to offer too many words to present this bit of silliness, but I do like tracing a journey that ends so unexpectedly. Indeed, a few days ago I had no reason to imagine any of this would happen.</p><p>Our story begins this past summer when 1) I twice heard a legendary piece of music performed and I became somewhat obsessed with it. I won't reveal the piece in question now, but I will say that 2) I've devised a situation in which my violinist daughter will be performing this music. It has some tricky, high-flying passages, and she was playfully complaining about one by 3) singing it in a high, silly voice that sounded like Elmo from <i>Sesame Street</i>. 4) I mentioned this in an online chat with some friends and expressed my regret that I had not recorded the Elmo-style violin singing. 5) One of the friends, knowing me all too well, then suggested that I could probably generate my own Elmo-style singing.</p><p>6) Of course, this set off all sorts of ideas in my brain, and soon I was sampling the world of sampling (fairly new to me) and had created a little set-up which "sings" MIDI notation a la Elmo. 7) When I played this for my daughter, she suggested Elmo should sing the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuBeBjqKSGQ" target="_blank">"Queen of the Night" aria</a>, and that just about brings us up to date because 8) of course I couldn't resist that challenge. 9) Once the audio was generated, I also started thinking about creating an animation to go along with it. 10) Using some techniques I'd developed with this <i><a href="https://youtu.be/eCxYMgI5te4" target="_blank">Barber Violin Concerto</a> </i>project, I found a way to convert the MIDI data (basically, information about pitches and durations) to be used as variables to control a crudely animated Singing Elmo.</p><p>And that's pretty much it, but I'll just add a few quick comments. I actually think Mozart's original is rather ridiculous and he might be amused that we take it so seriously. It is effective within the also ridiculous story it inhabits, but I don't think it's so far from the spirit of this music to present it this way. That alone is hardly reason enough to have done this, but the project enabled me to "play" both with the concept of sampling audio to make a virtual instrument and to use math and coding to marry animation to music notation. As with many of my projects, I'm presenting this more or less at the "proof of concept" phase as all elements could be significantly improved if I were willing to put in exponentially more work. But I think this does the job.</p>
<hr />NOTE: Better synced version uploaded on 11/17.<br><br>
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</center>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-90332792778470825522022-10-10T17:27:00.009-04:002022-10-11T17:58:21.213-04:00Some Little Knights Music<p>One never knows when and how a musical work might cross one's path.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A few years ago, some back and forth with friends about music in quintuple meter <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-one-about-other-guy-having-250th.html" target="_blank">led me</a> to a virtual obsession with a little fugue by the little-known Anton Reicha.</li><li>Last year, encounters with an unusual hymn from the 1970s by another little-known composer turned into a <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2021/01/all-is-bright.html" target="_blank">series of experiments in creating</a> virtual performances of a <a href="https://youtu.be/coryZAGFUZA" target="_blank">hazy hymn tune</a>.</li><li>Eleven years ago, I walked into a hall to hear a young chamber orchestra rehearsing and <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2011/05/youth-and-beauty.html" target="_blank">fell in love </a>with four minutes of a string symphony by a 12-year-old Mendelssohn, leading to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBvS47CC3A" target="_blank">extended analysis</a>.</li><li>More than twenty years ago, a snowstorm cancelled a rehearsal which led me to create some synthesized practice materials<a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2019/05/impossible-peace-impossible-piece.html" target="_blank"> which I later converted</a> into thirty minutes of slo-mo Schoenberg.</li></ul>You never know.<p></p><p>Now if, out of the blue, you'd told me the Italian/American composer Gian Carlo Menotti had written a dramatic cantata about a bishop lamenting the loss of children in an ill-fated crusade...I'm pretty sure I'd have had no interest in the matter. I know and have played some of Menotti's better-known opera arias (<a href="https://youtu.be/bGpWamToLUc" target="_blank">this is an all-timer</a>), and I have no objection to his music, but I'm not a big fan of dramatic cantatas or obscure historical fables...and I just would have had little incentive to invest in getting to know this mostly forgotten music.</p><p>However, it turns out that the major recording of this work, <i>The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi</i>, was made by my hometown Boston Symphony Orchestra featuring a children's choir from Catholic Memorial, the boys prep school where I've been teaching the past five years. I just learned of <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/12533574-Boston-Symphony-Erich-Leinsdorf-Menotti-The-Death-Of-The-Bishop-Of-Brindisi" target="_blank">this 1965 LP</a> a few weeks ago and am still sorting out some of its history. The most extraordinary part is that my school was only founded in 1957. Within a year of that founding, an organist named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berj_Zamkochian" target="_blank">Berj Zamkochian</a> had started a glee club which somehow provided half of the children's voices for this major recording less than a decade later. (The other children's choir members came from another school where Zamkochian taught. I'm wondering if that school was co-ed, because Catholic Memorial was a 9-12 school, which makes me wonder how many treble voices they would have had.)</p><p>Zamkochian is a rather remarkable figure who served as the BSO's organist from 1957-2004, making highly regarded recordings of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPB3pjX_UU" target="_blank">Saint-Saens "Organ" Symphony</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIRSnSybClg" target="_blank">Poulenc Organ Concerto</a> with Charles Munch. Obviously, he had an "in" at Symphony Hall, but it's still impressive that he was able to have students trained at this level in so little time. </p><p>The chorus of townspeople on this LP is sung by The New England Conservatory Chorus, led by the legendary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorna_Cooke_deVaron" target="_blank">Lorna Cooke deVaron</a>. I had the honor of working as an accompanist with deVaron during her retirement years when she was still very active leading a few ambitious community choirs. So this recording features a chorus from my alma mater, conducted by someone I knew and worked under, and featuring a children's choir from the school where I now teach. Reason enough to give Menotti's cantata a second look!</p><p>And as it turns out, I've now listened to the thirty-minute cantata at least ten times and have gotten to know it pretty well. While it's definitely odd and has some features I don't love, I find it strangely compelling, and I especially enjoy the way the children's choir is used. Maybe this isn't so surprising since Menotti is best-known for an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amahl_and_the_Night_Visitors" target="_blank">opera about a child</a>. Although the central character is clearly The Bishop, I find him a bit tiresome for reasons I'll discuss, but the children's choir serves as the heart of the show. </p><p>The cantata concerns a legendary "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade" target="_blank">Children's Crusade</a>" from the year 1212, based on true (at least in part) stories of young people inspired by a child's vision to go reclaim the Holy Land peacefully. Menotti's cantata is focused on a dying bishop who is haunted by his memories of having blessed this doomed crusade. The cantata plays out like some combination of a deathbed confession and waking fever dream with "The Bishop" questioning his leadership and the very foundations of his faith as he relives his fateful choices. The only other character in the present is "The Nun" who tries in vain to bring him back to reality and to offer consolation. As the drama unfolds, we experience in flashback the first hopeful and later terrified voices of children and the mobbed voices of townspeople who, transfixed by the children's visions, beg the bishop to bless the journey and then later curse him for the outcome. (You can read much more detail about the historical background <a href="https://www.bruceburroughs.com/Bishop.html" target="_blank">here </a>in a write-up by bass-baritone Bruce Burroughs who has sung the part of the bishop.)</p><p>The cantata proceeds as an uninterrupted flow of music, about thirty minutes with no separate arias or movements. The music for The Bishop and The Nun is in a declamatory, parlando style almost throughout, with orchestra supplying psychological backup. The two choruses generally sing more obviously tuneful material, bringing the bishop's memories to life.</p><p>Here is a basic outline of the overall structure:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>INTRODUCTION (1 minute): A one-minute orchestral introduction features a dark, foreboding tune we'll later hear as the first tune sung by the children setting off on their journey. The modal melody is first played by low woodwinds and horns in a manner which suggests the distant past. It is then played again by more passionate strings which adds a more expansive and emotional tone to set up the bishop's entrance. </li><li>BISHOP & NUN (5.5 minutes): The bishop begins singing about how the onset of night makes it impossible to shield his "unraveled mind" as "mem'ries unlock their secret dungeons." As he hears voices and asks for the doors to be locked, the nun tries to assure him no one is there and that he only hears the sea. Their dialogue leads to him recounting the moment he first encountered the children on the shore.</li><li>START OF MISSION (10 minutes): In succession, we hear the children announce their mission, the townspeople marveling at them, the bishop begging to be freed from these memories, the nun assuring him he tried to stop the children, the townspeople begging for his blessing, and the bishop again wondering why he gave in. (Notably, we don't experience the blessing itself, just his regret.)</li><li>DEPARTURE & STORM (4 minutes): At precisely halfway through the cantata, the beatific children's chorus sets out, singing "I shall kiss our Lord's tomb, I shall free the Holy Land." Immediately, the bishop describes a storm, and we soon hear the children crying for help and subsequently drowning, with the bishop (in the present) despairing that he can't help.</li><li>BISHOP & TOWNSPEOPLE (4 minutes): The bishop twice sings more or less the same music of regret, framing an outburst from the townspeople in which they curse him.</li><li>BISHOP & NUN (3.5 minutes): The nun continues to console the bishop, first asking him to "fret not" and then singing a short requiem for him as he continues his anguished questioning.</li><li>ALL (3 minutes): The assembled voices sing words of comfort and assurance that these existential questions are not in vain. Chilling death knells in the orchestra bring the curtain down.</li></ul><div>Importantly from a dramatic perspective, the bishop always remains in the present, experiencing the memories at times as if the children and townspeople are in the present as well. Though he is alternately desperate and philosophical, we never experience him in a settled state. The nun's role as consoling voice is virtually unchanged throughout. The children are presented (presumably according to the bishop's perspective) as innocent and idealistic throughout. They do cry out to him and their parents during the storm, but then sing a dignified <i>Jesu Deus noster, miserere nobis</i> as they disappear into the sea. The townspeople represent human fallibility and mob mentality, singing with great passion and purpose throughout but without wisdom or self-reflection. </div><div><br /></div><div>First performed in 1963, it's hard not to hear in this music some connection to the events unfolding in Vietnam; the cantata mostly focuses on the doubts felt by a leader sending young people off to risk their lives under questionable circumstances. Just read this series of words from the bishop (from various sections of the cantata), who questions himself, the prospect of leading the innocent, his faith, and God:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>“Beware, beware of pleading children, for where are we to guide them if not within the maze where our own perdition lies.”</li><li>“And was it not my love which led them to their doom?”</li><li>“I fear the voice of innocence, for he who loves the helpless must mistrust his love.”</li><li>“O God, you gave me a ring, you gave me a staff and called me shepherd. If I must guide your flock, why did you leave me unguided?”</li><li>“I do not mind leading a man who knows that I know not, but can I tell the innocent: "Do not seek my hand for I, too, am lost"?”</li><li>“Do not call for help, my children. Love has no wings and faith is fallible.”</li><li>“Was it God's will or my own folly? Who was I to know if it was God or Satan who blinded them with secret splendor?”</li><li>“But then our soul is deeper than we are, and who can trace and kill the Minotaur who haunts the labyrinth of our hearts?”</li><li>“What love, what faith can justify the man who makes himself the arbiter of other people's lives?”</li><li>“What man can call himself a leader if God will mock his strategy?"</li><li>“Many are the innocents who call for help, but God has made Pilates of us all.”</li></ul></div><div>These words are clear and powerful in their expressions of a crumbling faith. That said, probably my biggest objection to the cantata from a musical/dramatic perspective is that it is so focused on the bishop's unrelenting grief and regret. We don't see or hear him experience much range of emotions or change in character. His music, though consistently anguished, has a certain sameness and, because it so declamatory in style, there aren't many satisfying or memorable melodic hooks. I realize that Menotti's dramatic focus is on this haunted deathbed moment, and that the variety is provided by the other voices, but it makes for a strange leading role. There's no big aria or particularly striking moment that stands out. The one "bishop motif" that sticks with me is a wailing, ascending half-step in the orchestra which occurs at multiple intervals as shown in this quick demo:</div>
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Another issue with the words above has to do with Menotti the librettist. Often the language he uses doesn't flow in the most singable way (notice how many of the lines look more like poetry or even prose than lyrics) and I can't imagine an audience following all of these phrases easily without a printed libretto. At one point the Townspeople cry out, "While the Cathar sews his heresy in Languedoc, the Tartar hordes advance in pagan splendor." I'd love to know what listener could follow that easily on the fly. Earlier on, The Nun sings, "Now that your death is near, rescue you must the heart from the wreckage of your past, and steer your floundering soul toward the emerging haven." <div><br /></div><div>Speaking of The Nun, her role is the most disappointing for me as it simply doesn't offer much in the way of vocal rewards for the singer or standout moments for the audience. The idea of her singing a requiem alongside the bishop's words towards the end is lovely, but she only gets to sing six words (<i>Requiem aeternam. Dona eis Domine. Amen</i>.) on one mid-register pitch! She has one semi-vivid moment with "Do not fret, my brother..." starting around 24:38 (see video at end of post), culminating with a high G and leading into the little requiem, but she is basically a one-note character.</div><div><br /></div><div>Against all of that, though, the innocent children grab our attention every time they appear (I suppose on some level, this might be Menotti's point - the dead are the ones we hear as alive.). Here you can hear that opening of the cantata with their melody-to-be in the low winds followed by a skip to their first entrance:</div>
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<hr />A small notable feature of this modal melody is how the second half of the first bar outlines a minor subdominant (iv) triad which gives the music an old-fashioned plagal feeling with its implied i-iv-i. <div><br /></div><div>The children's music, in general, provides a simplicity and directness which helps bring the story to life, even if the cantata isn't really so much about storytelling. The townspeople also offer vivid interjections, though I've already mentioned that their language comes across as too literary in places. For example: "The coward Christian knight waiting his chance to plunder his unwary neighbor hides in his towers." The Townspeople do feature in perhaps the most stirring music with their Cecil B. Demille climax on the words: "What burning vision in their sunken eyes gave them such lasting strength?" [occurs at 11:30 in the full recording at end of this post.]</div>
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<hr />The most dramatic music in the work occurs with the wildly orchestrated storm which begins just past the half-way point at 17:02. This music is effective, probably even more so in a concert hall, but a bit generic, and each lead-in to the children singing is odd in a way I'll let you evaluate for yourself. (It almost seems like Menotti wanted to be sure the children don't miss these entrances.) The drowning of the voices is the musical highlight here. Listen starting at 19:45 to how these words are reflected in all that's going on around them in the orchestra:<blockquote><div><div>In a windy, wat'ry abyss we are flung.</div><div>I can no longer hear my own voice. Ah-Ah...</div><div>Can you hear me, mother?</div><div><i>Jesu Deus noster</i>, <i>miserere nobis</i>. Ah-Ah...</div></div></blockquote><p>According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/02/21/choral-arts-societys-powerful-bishop/48ae18f6-01f1-4e08-8fa3-e186347b3532/" target="_blank">this article</a>, Menotti loved the final "Sleep, sleep in peace" chorus (sung by all, including the children) so much that he "asked to have it sung at his own funeral." (I don't know if he got his wish.) The Bishop has ended his time with us despairing that he can find no rest:</p><blockquote>For all that I have suffered, for all that I have sought,<br />let me, if for an instant only, behold the eternal truth.<br />Give me the answer!<br />No forgiveness can wash my guilt away<br />for without knowledge absolute there can be no paradise for me.<br />No gates of Heaven shall I enter unless it be revealed to me why,<br />why I, who loved so purely, was cursed with such destructive love.</blockquote>That final chorus includes this somewhat enigmatic (and again, more literary than lyrical) answer, and perhaps Menotti found that enigma satisfying. It certainly provides us with an ending, while also leaving us with much to question:<blockquote><div><div>Nothing is purposeless, nothing.</div><div>Then why should God have given you in life a questioning mind</div><div>if not to hand to you in death the blinding answer?</div></div></blockquote><p>You might be questioning why I've spent so much time thinking and writing about a work which isn't entirely satisfying, but I suppose it confirms that I do find the music gripping and powerful. It strikes me very much as a product of its mid-century, middlebrow time when there was a cultural hunger for art which combines general accessibility (it is tonal and sounds like movie music at times) with intellectual ambition (it is philosophical and poetic). Speaking of Menotti's musical approach, the 1964 <i>New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/22/archives/music-new-choral-work-by-menotti-bishop-of-brindisi-at-philharmonic.html" target="_blank">review </a>of a performance by the same forces at Philharmonic Hall was perhaps too harsh, a sign of <i>The Times</i> when inaccessible modernity was all the rage:</p><blockquote><p>The score is typical Menotti — craftsmanlike, well orchestrated, highly conservative, and undistinguished in its musical ideas. Basically it is good background music. There is storm music, and religious music, and in general the music illustrates the text. The melodic content, though, is far from striking. What this bland, slick score lacks is nourishment.</p></blockquote><p>Obviously I agree about the melodic content, but I don't find the score bland, and I do think it gives the listener an opportunity to experience both the fervor of the children and townspeople and the regret which they led to for the bishop. And all in thirty minutes.</p><p>So, I'll leave you with the recommendation that you find thirty minutes to listen to this unusual work. I've created two versions of the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/12533574-Boston-Symphony-Erich-Leinsdorf-Menotti-The-Death-Of-The-Bishop-Of-Brindisi" target="_blank">complete RCA recording</a>, which is also available as individual tracks in a playlist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGozYMojzp3ViORisRnUIVlrN" target="_blank">here</a>. Both of my versions include easy-to-access chapter links which allow you to move about within the score. The <a href="https://youtu.be/B--4eUN8S9g" target="_blank">first one</a> I made simply includes the text in easy-to-read size, and in a way that makes it possible to ponder the more serpentine phrases. The <a href="https://youtu.be/MXbPAAReLOs" target="_blank">second version</a> includes the full score, which is admittedly hard to read in detail, but which shows more the orchestral shape of things; the libretto is also repeated in running captions at the bottom. This video is directly embedded below as well. And if you'd like to study Menotti's libretto on its own, you may find that <a href="http://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/bishop/libretto.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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<hr /><div><br /></div><div>For further reading/exploration:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The 1964 BSO <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/bso_1964_week04.pdf" target="_blank">program booklet</a>. These programs are super fun to read with all their historic ads. This booklet also heralds the debut concert of what is now the legendary Boston Symphony Chamber Players. Program notes for Menotti begin on p.28 of this PDF (numbered as p.222 in the booklet pages).</li><li>Bruce Burroughs' <a href="https://www.bruceburroughs.com/Bishop.html" target="_blank">reflections</a> on performing the part of The Bishop, with more historical detail about the Children's Crusades. </li><li>There are also at least three live performances available on YouTube via this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVvTyIoBtGoyeflHYd0hTgJIs8pATOQkD" target="_blank">playlist</a>. </li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>P.S. The title of this post is a play not only on the young Crusaders of the story, but the fact that our Catholic Memorial students are known on the field as Knights. Thus, it's especially fun to hear the townspeople sing the following about these 60's C.M. students: "Behold the singing children, God's own little knights." And the children themselves later sing: "Do not cry, dear mother, for your little knight."</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-46025063101023174952022-09-27T21:57:00.006-04:002022-09-28T14:43:47.206-04:00OFF the BEATen path<p>I was recently researching various musical settings of William Blake's poem <i>The Lamb</i>. One of my favorites is by the great American song composer Lee Hoiby, and I came across this recording of Hoiby himself accompanying the song.</p>
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<hr />It's a fine recording of a song which is successful in part because of its simplicity and directness, but there's something un-simple right at the start. Having accompanied and coached this song many times, I know well that Hoiby has laid a subtle trap for the singer (and pianist) in the one-bar piano introduction. As you can see below in bar 2, the left hand is syncopated one sixteenth note off from the right hand melody and vocal line, but Hoiby chose to begin the song with that left hand figure syncopated against...well, against nothing. Or, more specifically, against some unheard downbeat felt by the pianist and perhaps by the singer - but inaudible. So, if the notation is followed precisely, it will likely sound like the singer comes in early. We hear four eighth notes (suggesting something steady) but the voice enters halfway through the final one.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHHIS32mImktnRyR1DSNW6NHfVMP_onMrYDBDJjBfohFOXQ4KylYELcZFnfXHS290sAhMSswrv6EDTFkthR0tNoD4_n9bXeNZF1MhYTcppjESpRNkiE9MTPLDjmrRHK5PLztZyLUpUXqXZTHq1SeLkIhpEYYhm6B6K8V_Ohx1i8YapvzQzzL34cRaE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="895" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHHIS32mImktnRyR1DSNW6NHfVMP_onMrYDBDJjBfohFOXQ4KylYELcZFnfXHS290sAhMSswrv6EDTFkthR0tNoD4_n9bXeNZF1MhYTcppjESpRNkiE9MTPLDjmrRHK5PLztZyLUpUXqXZTHq1SeLkIhpEYYhm6B6K8V_Ohx1i8YapvzQzzL34cRaE=w400-h189" width="400" /></a></div><br />The curious thing about the recording above - with the composer at the piano - is that the singer basically comes in after four full eighth notes as if it had been notated this way:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH23G5OTjvpbBnBYpyZ8EVdFyM0CN2XPzc6tq3sQhqm1cQzw1D3lfzERxT68JgxucEkYJgJuOCyndaYdzHAfv2JC9WEgGu_jfjmhEcbbT1GZN6fUD3H3dfYMtEdvBrzAcvTPpiI_GQKKyIzcG5hpFE6T93cbB9TcfhEBTtv9qfszWDjgYTsZgL2ea5/s2370/hoiby%20lamb%20alt-page1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="2370" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH23G5OTjvpbBnBYpyZ8EVdFyM0CN2XPzc6tq3sQhqm1cQzw1D3lfzERxT68JgxucEkYJgJuOCyndaYdzHAfv2JC9WEgGu_jfjmhEcbbT1GZN6fUD3H3dfYMtEdvBrzAcvTPpiI_GQKKyIzcG5hpFE6T93cbB9TcfhEBTtv9qfszWDjgYTsZgL2ea5/w400-h153/hoiby%20lamb%20alt-page1.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">It would be tempting to say that the performers are mis-reading the pianist's own music. In fact, that is literally true, but in a broader sense, this is a nice example of how notation can be both limiting and - maybe - freeing. Although one could plausibly interpret this situation as the composer simply changing his mind about how the song should start, one could also think of the syncopated notation as more suggestive than literal. I love the idea of suggestive notation. So what is Hoiby suggesting?<br /><br />When I see something like this with a <i>missing </i>downbeat, it somehow communicates that the music should be a bit off the ground. It suggests a <i>floating </i>sensation which probably means my wrists will come up as the fingers go down. This is as opposed to a <i>grounded </i>sensation in which I'd let my arm weight sink into the keys more. What difference does that make? Well, pianists have been arguing for ages about how touch and weight affect sound, and I don't want to get into the physics of whether any variable other than velocity is in play. But I do think the imagination of this floating sensation can have an effect on how the music comes out...somehow.<br /><br />It's possible Hoiby also wants a sense that the sound doesn't really have a strong beginning; we're just tuning into a figure which has been going on imperceptibly until it sneaks in <i>pianissimo</i>. Unfortunately, Hoiby's performance, at least as it comes across in recording, doesn't quite fulfill that ideal as the low E-flat is actually quite rich and present. <a href="https://youtu.be/7_-9qfZyAnI" target="_blank">This recording</a>, also featuring the composer at the piano, achieves this <i>gently tuning in </i>effect a bit better, though in this case I hear Hoiby's rhythm as closer to this (it's an important reality that performances of clearly notated music won't and shouldn't always come out mathematically precise):</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tOWD7TIEjT-n43Mjfl6VdtKCxp5o_KntMENMDLj1EZERA-Z7q5BaDkB_4jTuV6w2GelcI9ECX7wxg2RerL8uZ9qTp80suGt_EKOB0U8J9oW9McFhzo5igkBNBBCuI1rdaUpFb0UrFedBkAY1gya7eyKohMkPJDqxV4UMxIFhd4sZxDEtEId5hTlf/s2370/hoiby%20lamb%20alt02-page1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="2370" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tOWD7TIEjT-n43Mjfl6VdtKCxp5o_KntMENMDLj1EZERA-Z7q5BaDkB_4jTuV6w2GelcI9ECX7wxg2RerL8uZ9qTp80suGt_EKOB0U8J9oW9McFhzo5igkBNBBCuI1rdaUpFb0UrFedBkAY1gya7eyKohMkPJDqxV4UMxIFhd4sZxDEtEId5hTlf/s320/hoiby%20lamb%20alt02-page1.png" width="320" /></a></div>That version also feels different because it is transposed a full major 3rd lower, which makes a big difference in this low piano register. The intro bar here is also simply slower than what follows so it has an <i>out of time</i> feeling, which perhaps is what Hoiby hoped to suggest? Or, more realistically, what he came to want. A very important consideration here is that sometimes composers don't know exactly what they want - or what they want changes after going to press.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I suppose Hoiby might be astonished that I've spent even this much time thinking about it, but he's asking for....something... with this kind of notation. I've now spent too many years thinking about that unmoored syncopation to be satisfied with something that doesn't approximate the rhythm shown. For me, it should suggest a very gentle rocking motion over which a melody comes floating in from above. <span style="color: #666666;">[In addition to rocking, which fits with the lullaby character, another image that comes to mind is of a shepherd lightly plucking harp strings nonchalantly against a melody; this image goes well with the pastoral character of Blake's poem.]</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The fact that the melody and rocking motion are out of sync should not create tension but rather <i>suggest</i> an equilibrium between two complementary gestures. Below is a recording I made years ago of my arrangement for solo piano. While I can't say definitively that the first low E-flat doesn't sound like a downbeat, I do like the continuity of that figure into the more obviously offbeat left-hand as the song continues:</div>
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I also couldn't resist doing a little audioshopping of the first Hoiby recording posted above. Here, I've compressed the space (by about a sixteenth) right before the singer enters, and I prefer it to Hoiby's unaltered performance. So for all my speculation about Hoiby wanting something less literal than he wrote, I still want something less pedestrian than what he settled on. I wonder if he simply found that the ideal of an imagined downbeat works better for the performer than the listener.<div>
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<hr />Of course I'm always interested in the connections this kind of situation sparks in my memory. In this case, as I thought about the notation, I had a strong sense I'd experienced a similar rhythmic challenge in another well-known art song. I kept thinking it was probably something by Schumann because...well, because that was my intuition and I know that Schumann loved to write in suggestive ways. But I also wondered if I was remembering something by Fauré or Debussy. It took a good night's sleep and a good hour's more thinking about it before I finally remembered the opening to this little song from Schumann's Op. 39 <i>Liederkreis</i>:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxo-g0izYpG-ff5kH0uEuGLtI2aX4mg7iQ0YG2FxVIAz5NCRrXmduOTto31O1tvAuR8CutLyWnYp2xReu8UIQRYKQvOIBtU83C8mJ3j8VzgNmszlSJn_gouWv5OiksxAZFXfwuduV0z_LzhZ2d2xb2QVsQpbnnZO29fgPOr6233wjoYwjNU-BmTXxG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="1162" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxo-g0izYpG-ff5kH0uEuGLtI2aX4mg7iQ0YG2FxVIAz5NCRrXmduOTto31O1tvAuR8CutLyWnYp2xReu8UIQRYKQvOIBtU83C8mJ3j8VzgNmszlSJn_gouWv5OiksxAZFXfwuduV0z_LzhZ2d2xb2QVsQpbnnZO29fgPOr6233wjoYwjNU-BmTXxG=w400-h127" width="400" /></a></div><br />You may hear it sung <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YurcVaB7uvI" target="_blank">here</a>. I would not say this is one of my favorite Schumann songs, but there's no missing that suspended gesture in the very short intro. I'm sure my mind made this Hoiby <span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;">→</span> Schumann association because coaching a singer to find the downbeat in one is closely analogous to the other. The Schumann intro is ultimately easier and more natural both because 1) the notes aren't jumping around and 2) coming in on an upbeat doesn't feel quite so off-kilter as the out-of-the-blue downbeat in Hoiby. (The Schumann has still bewildered more than a few students.) Hoiby's choice to begin with such a low note also makes it sound more like a downbeat to begin with than Schumann's mid-range, second inversion harmonies. But I can't help wonder if Hoiby had Schumann's accompaniment in mind (consciously or not) and if he hoped to achieve a similar effect. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, I think Schumann was in a class by himself when it comes to this sort of <i>floating above ground</i> rhythmic/metrical gesture. The opening song and final postlude of <i>Dichterliebe </i>achieve this beautifully, even if downbeats are easy enough to find. You can hear the first song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Lw2KI9KRk" target="_blank">here</a> and the impossibly beautiful postlude (see below) beginning <a href="https://youtu.be/A7Lw2KI9KRk?t=1774" target="_blank">here at 29:34</a>. Charles Rosen <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674779341&content=toc" target="_blank">wrote</a> memorably about Schumann's love for the fragment. Beginning a song with no clear center of gravity is a wonderful expression of that Romantic impulse to break away from rigid frames.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG35FRcTQDNxM-2vDfHnykdjBhSrWgwWRpt62BS99jDtgNsiUzFjyYnNpKvvg4unpk_lsN8v_R39cS40cGndc5Dpui_lNLWUH7OIE1oDv_lkuepnmW9SG5L1LBNyu_NGz2LjzVoeIySJK3G69FHQwP42TzG2Co0qThW9ePLrGKtis-pa5CNPt09wux" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="1186" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG35FRcTQDNxM-2vDfHnykdjBhSrWgwWRpt62BS99jDtgNsiUzFjyYnNpKvvg4unpk_lsN8v_R39cS40cGndc5Dpui_lNLWUH7OIE1oDv_lkuepnmW9SG5L1LBNyu_NGz2LjzVoeIySJK3G69FHQwP42TzG2Co0qThW9ePLrGKtis-pa5CNPt09wux=w400-h130" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div>This final example from Schumann doesn't cause any ensemble problems for the performers, but the way the incandescent third movement of his <i>Piano Quartet </i>begins with an accented diminished chord on beat 2 achieves the same <i>suspended</i> effect. Steady downbeats soon follow, but after the gorgeous main tune has been explored, the piano right hand begins a wandering melody at 1:40 which is gently syncopated against the left hand. Soon it's not clear what's a beat and what's an offbeat and we are simply floating. </div><hr />
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As a sort of postscript, I'll mention one other song which came to mind when I was doing a mental search for what turned out to be Schumann. The opening of Hugo Wolf's <i>Ich hab' in Penna </i>has confused many singers-in-training for similar reasons as Schumann and Hoiby, though it is quite different in character. Here, the frantic piano part begins with constant eighth notes starting on the "and of 1" and the singer should begin on the "and of 1" in the next bar. Though this isn't really a syncopation because there's no rhythmic stress on an offbeat, the absence of an initial downbeat helps propel the song's headlong energy. However, some singers can't help but hear the first note as a downbeat (even when the pianist tries to put a subtle accent on beat 3) so this misleads them into starting one eighth note too late. It's not so hard for the prepared pianist to right the ship but that makes for an uncomfortable mental gear shift! Hear <a href="https://youtu.be/c7Ix2XxhqZM" target="_blank">here</a>. (No pianist needs the stress of an unsettled start knowing that terrifying postlude is just around the corner.)<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtehq0kxFpM_g373_8PwOFyAcBx9A18TYiid7XMHnyZladAwo-jclNf7BPUEVZDZy90E9EmOec_-pKfy5wiT92VhrbA0xUbhGPZCUI5o4Y2QArqyg2v7IPmh-m85BR4B28D-A5QygebqkqkCopo40CJoD-9L_9BsSvM_7cpk4nWFxHGbO6PrJOeL6J" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="962" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtehq0kxFpM_g373_8PwOFyAcBx9A18TYiid7XMHnyZladAwo-jclNf7BPUEVZDZy90E9EmOec_-pKfy5wiT92VhrbA0xUbhGPZCUI5o4Y2QArqyg2v7IPmh-m85BR4B28D-A5QygebqkqkCopo40CJoD-9L_9BsSvM_7cpk4nWFxHGbO6PrJOeL6J=w400-h131" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-8116198285939115662022-09-13T20:45:00.004-04:002022-09-14T06:51:40.185-04:00Smiles of a Sondheim Night<p>The subject of today's post is definitely on the trivial side of things, and I debated whether it merited a blog post. Then I remember that this sort of triviality is one of the things I care about the most, and the blog exists to document just this sort of thing. A blog devoted to the intersection of "music and the mind" should certainly have time for situations when the mind uncovers some unexpected musical connection. Quite the opposite of some scholar digging out connections from painstaking research, the magic is that I did <i>not </i>seek them. They found me using all those strange musical circuits our brains assemble to...well, to do whatever it is we're doing when we do music. This isn't just words about music - it's neuroscience!</p><p>First some quick background, because the swirling worlds and words of social media often play a big part in how these pathways take shape. On Friday, Facebook reminded me of a favorite memory from eight years ago. Here's what I wrote about my then teenage daughter:</p><blockquote><p>[My daughter] just blew my mind. I'd (playfully, of course) told her if she sang "I'm so fancy" one more time, I wouldn't drop her off at home before I went to pick up her siblings. She defiantly starts in wordlessly intoning the first four notes and then, on the fly, switches to "For All the Saints" which, improbably, starts with the same four notes. I was in equal measures appalled and so proud. (Sol, mi re, do...)</p></blockquote><p>If you don't know the past-its-prime Iggy Azalea song or the Ralph Vaughan Williams hymn tune, you may hear both in this little audio illustration I created:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhycrKhMQFSGiP3cYStrpECGcmIjQfRQ6UDCiUFGd6ottPBm20SJ-roSl3C9xzZ0oP50Ejukx-VmbyHDv-mv1FrraHNAzEhDrxJOVcoT2Ii0UT54QwnTXG1T7kaVryxcWyaC1Gnn00EWW9UpXF2vHD3LvqxhANUddj5CWQbiF66kkMrKtN1xFQlF4z/s1800/5321_compare.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1800" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhycrKhMQFSGiP3cYStrpECGcmIjQfRQ6UDCiUFGd6ottPBm20SJ-roSl3C9xzZ0oP50Ejukx-VmbyHDv-mv1FrraHNAzEhDrxJOVcoT2Ii0UT54QwnTXG1T7kaVryxcWyaC1Gnn00EWW9UpXF2vHD3LvqxhANUddj5CWQbiF66kkMrKtN1xFQlF4z/w400-h134/5321_compare.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<p>With some help from a Facebook friend, I realized that this admittedly simple melodic formula - a descending 5-3-2-1 - has been used to begin many a famous melody. For example:</p>
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<p>Although my friend pointed out the Tchaikovsky connection as one she noticed, it's worth noting that I only found the other tunes by searching on <a href="http://www.themefinder.org/cgi-bin/themeresults?session=11552654&page=1" target="_blank">Themefinder.org.</a> </p><p>This in turn reminded me of Leonard Bernstein's wonderful "Infinite Variety of Music" lecture in which he explores melodies beginning with an ascending 5-1-2-3, which he refers to as the "How dry I am" motif. I once posted my own annotated version of that lecture audio to YouTube. The "How dry I am" part begins around nine minutes in:</p>
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<p>As Bernstein says, some of these melodies (whether his 5-1-2-3 family or my 5-3-2-1 family) sound remarkably different due to rhythmic/metric/harmonic factors. I've gone decades never noticing the connections between the 5-3-2-1 tunes in that first set I just posted. Thus, I still believe there's something special going on when someone like my daughter intuits such a link.</p><p>So it is that we come to my favorite recent connection, even though it is quite ephemeral and only deals with three little notes. Of course, with some effort, one could easily find a Bernsteinian infinite number of ways in which a three-note motif like this next one occurs in various contexts, but this thematic connection is a bit more magical because of the linked contexts.</p><p>For various reasons, I found myself watching and listening to a few different versions of Sondheim's <i>A Little Night Music</i> late last week. This led me to watch <i>Smiles of a Summer Night</i>, the 1955 Bergman film on which Sondheim's 1973 musical is based. The Bergman film is not a musical, though it has an attractive <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkAUJkbhd-Rjinoq4hOdbZtSHgXSzVNQm" target="_blank">soundtrack</a> by Erik Nordgren. But I'll admit I wasn't paying close attention to the score.</p><p>Lo and behold, at a particularly pivotal moment when the young Henrik storms out of a momentous dinner party, my ears were drawn to a little motif in the orchestra. I just made a mental note in the moment, but when I went back to check later, it confirmed what I'd heard. The first three notes of Sondheim's iconic "<a href="https://youtu.be/POfbu06YKJw?t=11" target="_blank">Night Waltz</a>" theme are played quietly but emphatically at the end of a restless minor key phrase. In a minor key, the notes would be <span style="font-size: 20px;">♭</span>3-2-1, though in Sondheim's major-key waltz melody, the scale degrees would be 5-#4-3.</p><p>Never mind the analysis, I think the connection can pretty easily be heard, and it's no big surprise that it found me because Sondheim uses that motive over and over. I'd surely heard it dozens of times in the days leading up to hearing Nordgren's otherwise quite different music. I'm not suggesting that Sondheim borrowed this idea from Nordgren, though it's not inconceivable that it had somehow stuck in his head. But I enjoyed thinking about this odd little portal from 1955 to 1973.</p><p>In this first video, you may see the short original scene. Just as Henrik turns to face the table (with back to us), Nordgren's orchestra plays the motif. We hear it even more intensely as Henrik runs out of the room, this time in a <span style="font-size: 20px;">♭</span>3-<span style="font-size: 20px;">♭</span>2-1 version. (A flat 2 is a particularly intense way to approach the first scale degree.) </p>
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<p>In the following, I've tried to incorporate the Sondheim theme. Mostly I did this because I enjoy this sort of challenge (which involves adjusting keys, tempi, etc.) It doesn't fit perfectly into the original context because Sondheim's theme is too elegant and charming for this particular high-stakes moment, but I still enjoy the collage. Having written in my <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/09/composing-on-camera.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> about appreciating when directors aren't afraid of soundtrack silence, I'll admit I'm undercutting Bergman's original conception. In his film, the score fades to silence as Anne calls after Henrik and seems as if she might faint. The silence underscores the awkwardness for those left behind.</p><p>My new Sondheimed version seems a little out of place at first (though one could hear the waltz's gentility as underscoring Henrik's "forgive me"), but as Anne falters, the lilting waltz theme takes on a new meaning when her husband and maid come to her side. I think that part actually works, first to accompany her dizziness with the dizzying sweep of the waltz theme and then arriving at a climax as her husband and maid arrive to check on her. The theme then flutters away as she exits, leaving her husband to question many things.</p>
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<p>I have often thought of such connections as portals - ways in which our own powers of perception can lead from thinking about one musical work to another. My favorites of the portals I've investigated in the past include:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>oddly similar "<a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2009/11/name-that-bassoon.html" target="_blank">held bassoon note</a>" moments in two otherwise completely different works by Mendelssohn and Copland. </li><li>the ways in which works by Beethoven and R. Strauss <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2011/06/somewhere-between-beethoven-and-strauss.html" target="_blank">combine </a>into Bernstein's "Somewhere."</li><ul><li>(that portal from Beethoven to Strauss is effected by knowledge of Bernstein's tune!)</li></ul><li>the seemingly endless connections between Mozart's <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2011/06/mozart-mashup-decoded.html" target="_blank">three most famous violin concerti</a></li></ul><div>I don't think I'll ever lose interest in this sort of thing, but I can't tell you when I'll post the next one because I won't be looking for it!<br /><br />=====================<br /><br />P.S. As you might imagine, I've watched that one-minute Bergman clip <i>many </i>times in the past few days. The intentional framing of the scene is pretty clear, first with the vivid table arrangement of all the guests seated opposite Madame Armfeldt and with how Henrik is framed facing the table (the priest-to be standing as if facing an altar), back to us - but it wasn't until after many viewings that I noticed Bergman flips the room perspective immediately after Henrik leaves. It's odd because it almost seems as if Anne is going the wrong way when she gets up to follow Henrik - he's just left the scene by running away from us, and now she runs towards us. I'm not sure what this means, but it's interesting!</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-41492605471546853572022-09-05T20:08:00.004-04:002022-09-05T20:45:33.076-04:00Composing on Camera<p><span style="color: #444444;">[bit of meandering post here...I don't get to my main topic until the tenth paragraph]</span></p><p>I've been thinking about music in movies recently on a variety of fronts. I recently re-watched the 2012 film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Late_Quartet" target="_blank"><i>A Late Quartet</i>,</a> which is a pretty rare example of a mainstream movie set almost entirely within the world of classical music.* Although Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing as the insecure second violinist, Christopher Walken is fun to watch as a soft-spoken aging cellist, and the story explores some interesting themes (not just musical ones), my main issue here is with the music - not with the late Beethoven quartet which is a main "character," but with the soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLQj7gt60xvpQhyf2r0tPzFHTlYBlDm_aPhIo9l7OrduTrXGTp369_XX9bcKxtebcGEKfIxiwzsn2n9zyplSKbrzUf_HvixCAAZGJ-QwjW2hg6czelzh2k16t3TYss_-_itLf9QZIZ6sCV3_QNLxqzG4hDuJwT2WL_aDtUsSAUyR1PUI1X-vYUNeaP" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLQj7gt60xvpQhyf2r0tPzFHTlYBlDm_aPhIo9l7OrduTrXGTp369_XX9bcKxtebcGEKfIxiwzsn2n9zyplSKbrzUf_HvixCAAZGJ-QwjW2hg6czelzh2k16t3TYss_-_itLf9QZIZ6sCV3_QNLxqzG4hDuJwT2WL_aDtUsSAUyR1PUI1X-vYUNeaP=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>This is not intended as a slight against Badalamenti's skills, but his music has an overtly emotional "here's what you should be feeling" tone which, while suitably autumnal (since the film focuses on a character's journey with age), simply feels too intrusive and sentimental. If they'd asked me (they didn't!), I'd have suggested that the Beethoven quartet featured (Op. 131) would stand out better if the dramatic scenes were allowed to play with little or no music - except for Beethoven. As it is, the drama tends towards a "soap opera" level of melodrama, and Badalamenti's score leans into that very strongly. (You may hear it for yourself <a href="https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_khAQmmEHc0r8EF88d9DhhtGr7xrybrd6Q&feature=share" target="_blank">here</a>. Basically a late Romantic, Elgar/Delius sort of sound dominated by warm strings and warm woodwinds, especially clarinet. Weeping melodies, poignant harmonies...nothing offensive, but somehow so pointedly emotional as to sound generic. Conventional in a way that is the opposite of late Beethoven.)</p><p>Again, this is not to judge the composer too harshly. In <a href="https://moviemom.com/interview-composer-angelo-badalamenti/" target="_blank">this interview</a>, he so much as says his goal was to underline the emotion: "<i>Yaron [the director] and I agreed that the score should emote passion and pain. The characters are beset with a series of hardships which are all very personal. We needed to feel this.</i>" But did we need his music in order to feel this? What's been curious for me to realize over the years is that, as much as I love music, I don't love having music tell me what to feel in scenes which are supposed to feel genuine. (Opera and musical theater are something else, of course.) A good script and good acting should be enough, and I wish directors were less afraid of silence. (My own feelings may be colored in part by the fact that my ears are too easily drawn to music, so even background music can be distracting.)</p><p>A re-watch of 1967's<i> The Graduate</i> a few weeks ago confirmed this for me. As iconic as the Simon and Garfunkel songs are, they are used only intermittently and quite purposefully, not as window dressing. Yes, it's ironic that its most famous song is <i>The Sound of Silence</i>, but the sound of silence is genuinely important in many scenes, especially some of the most uncomfortable ones. Many of the best, most intense scenes play out with no music.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCKzDUPgx9gNn6Ral64rCITGE_L1WiTS97mY1xQ68d2TOQ1HG1-3RIahN-u_Upn9eeAZ_WFAwDbv_IEuLeG8civGDirh5xgW0nmV9-DDmXXk8yn8DPOaygPEbYRzUhbC156xAeYV0BDteobsa5c5UG-11pnoP0-mu8Go2IOm4ZvJnKM1a31T4cTJuU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="299" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCKzDUPgx9gNn6Ral64rCITGE_L1WiTS97mY1xQ68d2TOQ1HG1-3RIahN-u_Upn9eeAZ_WFAwDbv_IEuLeG8civGDirh5xgW0nmV9-DDmXXk8yn8DPOaygPEbYRzUhbC156xAeYV0BDteobsa5c5UG-11pnoP0-mu8Go2IOm4ZvJnKM1a31T4cTJuU" width="239" /></a></div><p>In the case of <i>A Late Quartet</i>, I believe that letting Beethoven's music be the only music would have better underlined the otherworldly power of late Beethoven. There's something odd for me about being pulled back and forth between two musical worlds in one film, and though Badalamenti is not trying to be Beethoven, I can't help but feel that his music suffers by comparison. (In fairness, it may have been difficult enough to get a movie made about a string quartet, so perhaps they thought it helpful to portray these characters as regular people by using regular film music.)</p><p>As it happens, my favorite movie I saw this summer is a tiny little French film, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Petite-Maman-Jos%C3%A9phine-Sanz/dp/B09T2SPH4G/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=petite+maman&qid=1662409261&s=instant-video&sprefix=petite+%2Cinstant-video%2C168&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Petite Maman</a></i>, which boldly uses almost no music, allowing quiet scenes to play out with silence as a powerful frame for the subtleties of the story. About an hour into the 73-minute runtime, two young girls briefly discuss music while taking turns listening through headphones - we see them listen, but we hear nothing. Suddenly, an entire scene plays out scored by a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOSVpQprNA" target="_blank">bright, Europop song </a>which....well, it's not really my cup of tea, but it still packs an incredible dramatic punch because of what has preceded. In this case, the music is very emotional and absolutely helps us understand an emotional breakthrough, but its power comes from the fact that there has been so much quiet before this moment.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh01blAY2OqK1TbB8Ek6c0mzaUueicPhtMom9LkxS-jtNMnZA2V6y0NWKU-acqrBHwF2xhWSiynlakEaDxoedDC2GlT_51aic3XTF7Puok_FfCUXe-psGNDCGALOlMTGRfTOnVbGNm17Fuod7N_2Aqss2JzPN7CbUIN6o0MEf-GhwasScLYBKBKXZhD" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="620" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh01blAY2OqK1TbB8Ek6c0mzaUueicPhtMom9LkxS-jtNMnZA2V6y0NWKU-acqrBHwF2xhWSiynlakEaDxoedDC2GlT_51aic3XTF7Puok_FfCUXe-psGNDCGALOlMTGRfTOnVbGNm17Fuod7N_2Aqss2JzPN7CbUIN6o0MEf-GhwasScLYBKBKXZhD" width="320" /></a></div><br />Of course, there are movies in which wall-to-wall music makes sense. I rewatched the original <i>Star Wars </i>trilogy this summer, and John Williams' space opera score works wonders there. Just try watching these <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaS_0oVJvio2" target="_blank">deleted scenes</a> which have no underscoring (or sound effects or significant editing, to be fair) and one can see how much this film would not work if it relied on its screenplay and acting.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibQ0Cxs2G1KhXtdUpFYny1eMzfqdeFrlnNsuyC4ugXx_LSTsT8pqjjwKEbS3rrLHexJE0oarDcT4uAJcwdgubI6PJpo8BTfwwVlbXJJlGUFJ2N68vUlAl-53fgWQEownM3jCYjtSSM99HYWbkX89xJiEEZUb3jIllpvoRWVydm7wuS0HRWsVc0LyUA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibQ0Cxs2G1KhXtdUpFYny1eMzfqdeFrlnNsuyC4ugXx_LSTsT8pqjjwKEbS3rrLHexJE0oarDcT4uAJcwdgubI6PJpo8BTfwwVlbXJJlGUFJ2N68vUlAl-53fgWQEownM3jCYjtSSM99HYWbkX89xJiEEZUb3jIllpvoRWVydm7wuS0HRWsVc0LyUA" width="320" /></a></div><br /><i>A Late Quartet </i>also offers an opportunity to think about the contrast between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diegetic_music" target="_blank">diegetic music</a> (music actually experienced as music by characters on screen) and any other type of music which is added for the viewer's benefit (?). I'll take this opportunity and any opportunity I can to observe that Christopher Guest's <i>A Mighty Wind </i>is the best example I know of a movie which relies almost entirely on diegetic music - the performances of the three folk groups created for this story, with the original songs sung by the actors, are the key to its magic. The songs are fun and sometimes poignant, and we feel how closely connected they are to the characters.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5xFBtueSjgFUIM0xPy2X2R640G1MabuPngRNks2CIkMfwOgqzRv_vtCJkP_Fd1bpndskbqjV8eIYyiRqE6gbFRlWQBWpEwHdVXTJvBJd5Dsp5_EEJ-Bh1QotSRkMm08IyG8Py3s7GA60DeiBONEKPD2VaCqJ-iQWaKIyAQFcYmgfNmZ8k9365AKXx" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5xFBtueSjgFUIM0xPy2X2R640G1MabuPngRNks2CIkMfwOgqzRv_vtCJkP_Fd1bpndskbqjV8eIYyiRqE6gbFRlWQBWpEwHdVXTJvBJd5Dsp5_EEJ-Bh1QotSRkMm08IyG8Py3s7GA60DeiBONEKPD2VaCqJ-iQWaKIyAQFcYmgfNmZ8k9365AKXx" width="320" /></a></div><br />Of course, the structural simplicity and brevity of folk songs make it much easier to incorporate them in full than it would be with a 40-minute string quartet. It would also be far too much to ask the actors from <i>A Late Quartet</i> to play Beethoven for real, though they do an admirable enough job faking it, and the Brentano String Quartet's actual playing is fantastic. Nonetheless, I wish the director/producers had been brave enough to let the music speak for itself a bit more. Imagine using this frenetic <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIotwcGXkUM" target="_blank">Presto</a></i> instead of the generic <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMUTZ46L_t0" target="_blank">Jogging</a></i> music Badalamenti wrote. Imagine letting us feel the cold New York scenery in which these lost characters live with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdN-TfCtsNY" target="_blank">this</a> instead of <a href="https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_khAQmmEHc0r8EF88d9DhhtGr7xrybrd6Q" target="_blank">this</a>. As it is, the only really complete Beethoven we get is when the closing scene performance of Op. 131's finale continues all the way through the credits. <p></p><p>================== </p>
<p>Now to shift gears to the main thing I wanted to write about: characters writing music on screen. There's a very special subset of diegetic music which occurs when we get to see/hear a composer write the music as part of the story. It requires a good bit of hubris to think that film can really take us inside this mysterious process which, after all, probably happens most often inside a composer's head, but it's surely the kind of thing that interests people. We all would like to look inside that creative process. <br /><br />I'm going to cite three favorite examples, though I'd be curious to know if you know of others. First up, I'll steal a scene cited in a memorable sequence from <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_Entertainment,_Part_II" target="_blank">That's Entertainment, Part 2</a>. </i>As absurd and over-the-top as it is, this <a href="https://youtu.be/k1C5-vznVks" target="_blank">imaginary carriage ride</a> in which Johan Strauss II writes <i>Tales from the Vienna Woods</i> is kind of brilliant, and it's ridiculously fun to watch. I particularly appreciate how slowly it develops and that we get to see brief moments of the composer feeling stuck and unsatisfied, though these blocks are quickly removed. </p><hr />
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<hr />The second scene I have in mind is probably the most famous and acclaimed of its type. Although I have mixed feelings about the overall success of <i>Amadeus</i> as a film (mostly due to some of the acting, and a few stage-y scenes which don't play as well for me on screen), it's hard to resist the drama of a dying Mozart dictating the <i>Confutatis maledictus </i>to his awestruck rival, Salieri. Though Peter Shaffer's original play was enormously successful, this best scene from the film was newly written by Shaffer for the film. The playwright later admitted to regretting a few overly simplistic details (like Salieri being confused by simple tonic/dominant harmonies), but this is a great example of how diegetic music can work both as subject matter and as emotional/dramatic framing. (Also a reminder of how effective it can be to stick with the music of a composer subject for all of the soundtrack as Mozart's music is absolutely the MVP of <i>Amadeus</i>.) <hr />
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<hr /><p>Now, having gone from the ridiculous to the sublime, it might seem like I'm lazily settling back into the ridiculous, but this final scene is actually the most successful composition scene I can think of, and it comes not from stage or the big screen but from a 1970's sitcom. Somehow, in about three minutes, the brilliant Tony Randall convincingly writes an entire song. A very stupid, silly song, yes, and with more emphasis on the development of the lyrics, but a song nonetheless, with references to leitmotif, melodic direction, and word painting along the way. I, of course, have no business posting this video but I couldn't find it elsewhere and so far YouTube has only notified me that copyrighted content is recognized - it's not taking it down. The songwriting begins around 1:58, although I've included part of the opening scene for context - especially as it lets us hear a sample of Felix's previous songwriting prowess.</p><p>
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<br />Now that's a strange line-up: Cartoonish Johann Strauss, Melodramatic Mozart, and giddy Tony Randall, but I think it shows an interesting variety of ways in which the composing process can be shown to viewers. Let me know what I've missed!<br /><p>====================</p><p>* P.S. There are a few high-profile classical music movies on the horizon. <span style="color: #0000ee;"><i><u>Tár</u></i></span>, starring Cate Blanchett as a fictional composer/conductor is coming out soon and <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(2023_film)" target="_blank">Maestro</a></i>, Bradley Cooper's biopic about Leonard Bernstein, is set to arrive in 2023.</p><p>P.P.S. Another famous movie/theater song supposedly written on the spot is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnBMAEA3AM" target="_blank"><i>Do-Re-Mi</i>,</a> though it arrives too fully formed to seem like something in process. (Although maybe with more time Maria could have done better than "LA, a note to follow SO," which seems lazy and also messes up the solfège since in this case SO is sung on TI.) </p><p>P.P.P.S. One could make the case that this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QtCxjyuA08" target="_blank">documentary scene </a>shows a new song, <i>Get back</i>, coming to life before our eyes. Of course, this vernacular style lends itself more naturally to "writing out loud" than do many other styles of music. </p><p>P.P.P.P.S. I once wrote <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/03/music-at-movies.html" target="_blank">here</a> about my then Top 13 Movie list with brief discussion on the role of music in each. </p><p><br /></p><p></p>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-74220364356433022272022-08-06T09:02:00.003-04:002022-08-24T10:36:57.226-04:00An Aug 6 for Aug 6 in an August 6tet<p>Once again, Aug 6 has snuck up on me and I didn't get you anything. Well, at least not anything new or original, but I'll see if I can reignite the blog with a couple of observations. First of all, it happened to dawn on me that today is August 6 not long after dawn while on a long morning walk. And quite by coincidence, I had already listened to perhaps my favorite-ever Augmented 6th (Aug 6) chord while walking as I'd been revisiting a recording from last summer of the first movement of Brahms' <i>Sextet No. 1 in B-flat</i>. I even re-listened to the marvelous Aug 6 moment a couple of times while unaware that today is Aug 6.</p><p>Actually, let's back up and remember that I <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2012/08/happy-augmented-sixth-day.html" target="_blank">first "discovered" Augmented Sixth Day exactly ten years ago today</a> when I saw that a student's harmonic analysis entered into an Excel spreadsheet had the abbreviation "Aug 6" automatically converted by Excel's internal logic to "8/6/12." The fact that this discovery happened on August 6 still blows my mind. This also reminds me of a clever bit of memery I saw just this past week online:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidGxl0yMMQ25UkNxL9Nly5wG5oIJuoIQABy-trH5OcVeXqStUgBv9C1JZuzw6v7RWwsi09_gXnFkN8owuzuwtXW35K2DiWtX2k3-P0eqNjY_MD_IAoQZPC-eoFrebDfCuwAn4L9-B782fO10yXKso8dALMQ4_pmHRuCSBgEePi3NpAXRcevepTQvWz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="478" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidGxl0yMMQ25UkNxL9Nly5wG5oIJuoIQABy-trH5OcVeXqStUgBv9C1JZuzw6v7RWwsi09_gXnFkN8owuzuwtXW35K2DiWtX2k3-P0eqNjY_MD_IAoQZPC-eoFrebDfCuwAn4L9-B782fO10yXKso8dALMQ4_pmHRuCSBgEePi3NpAXRcevepTQvWz" width="210" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yes, Excel will interpret anything it can get its hands on as a date, and this can actually be quite annoying at times, but it's worth it to know about Augmented Sixth Day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Since I'm short on time here, I'll just quote from this <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2021/10/augmented-reality.html" target="_blank">post </a>from last October about Aug 6th Chords in Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Haydn. Have a great Augmented Sixth Chord Day!</div><br />==========================<p></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;">from the post <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2021/10/augmented-reality.html" target="_blank">Augmented Reality,</a> 10/16/21, beginning after a discussion of an Augmented Sixth chord in an early Mendelssohn string symphony:</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">...S</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">o it was that a few weeks after starting my re-exploration of Mendelssohn's augmented-sixth-based modulation in this <i>Andante</i>, I heard my 14-year-old cellist son play the extraordinary first movement of Brahms' <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEiVqMLFt94" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">first sextet</a> at chamber music camp. (To be honest, this music was a bit over the heads of these campers musically and instrumentally, but they did a great job with the challenge, and managed to present it with confidence and a convincing overall shape.) It's music I've heard often enough, but didn't know super well, yet as the Recapitulation approached, I remembered that something special was going to happen. (Side Note: this kind of musical memory-based recognition/anticipation is one of the most satisfying things about listening to familiar music; this is surely one reason people who love classical music enjoy returning to old favorites.)</span></p><p style="background-color: white; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As the dramatic texture unfolded and suddenly the opening theme returned in a harmonically arresting way, it occurred to me that this sounded a lot like what happens in Mendelssohn's <i>Andante</i>. The two musical passages (Mendelssohn and Brahms) are different in so many ways, but that makes the analogical connection all the more meaningful. (I've been <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/03/hyperspace.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">writing</a> about my love for and fascination with analogical thinking since the blog began.) Hopefully I'll get around to writing about the Brahms sextet more in a future post as there is SO much to say, but for now just listen to the way the music moves from G-flat Major to the home key of B-flat Major. These are not closely related keys (they only share three common pitches), but Brahms uses a German Sixth chord as a sneaky way to get from one key to the next. The video below should begin at 6:35, where the <i>cresc.</i> is marked in the score.</span></p><hr style="background-color: white;" /><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oEiVqMLFt94?start=395" style="background-color: white;" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></p><hr style="background-color: white;" /><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The most important thing to listen for is that, in m.233, the first violin (highest instrument) goes from E-natural to F (up a half-step) at the same moment the 2nd cello (lowest instrument) goes from G-flat to F (down a half-step). G-flat and E-natural are an augmented sixth apart - not an interval that shows up if sticking to one key - and the resolution of those distant notes outward to an octave is the fundamental thing about how augmented sixth chords work. (There's something else unusual going on in this case which I'll get to in a later post.) </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rPzXq0ESxaM/YWsjqnF9LuI/AAAAAAAA5j0/sFz_n5-lKEwrSzgO_UzcFSsw_eUSWNbeACLcBGAsYHQ/s1063/brahms%2Bsextet%2BAUG%2B6.png" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="1063" height="160" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rPzXq0ESxaM/YWsjqnF9LuI/AAAAAAAA5j0/sFz_n5-lKEwrSzgO_UzcFSsw_eUSWNbeACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/brahms%2Bsextet%2BAUG%2B6.png" style="border: 0px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>
<hr /><br />Back here in 2022, I'll leave you with this glorious recording, and of course I recommend listening to the whole sextet, but the BIG MOMENT starts at around the 10:38 mark.<div><br /><hr />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/voBSDathCD8?start=638" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-90193232348346356942022-03-20T21:12:00.007-04:002022-03-21T07:04:37.157-04:00Slicing Pi<p>It's highly likely I'm the only one who's been bothered by this, but my <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/03/minuet-in.html" target="_blank">3/14 post</a> stretching a familiar 3/4 minuet into <b>3.14/4</b> time has stayed on my mind since the notation system I devised was a bit sneaky. I knew each 3/4 bar needed 0.14 extra beats, and I found a way within <a href="http://lilypond.org/" target="_blank">Lilypond</a> to multiply note values in a way that achieved that (at least for playback purposes). But I cheated with the time signature. I just made my own time signature sign that showed a 3.14 over a 4 and then used Lilypond's "cadenza" function, which allows the user to place barlines wherever one wants. Essentially, this means the internal calculations act as if there is no time signature, so as long as the various parts line up rhythmically, the musical output will sound right, even though the barlines aren't generated by time signature calculations.</p><p>During idle moments this week, I tried to imagine a way to create a time signature which is precisely three beats plus 0.14 beats long. At some point, the old use of 22/7 as a fraction which approximates Pi came to mind, and that helped me to think about this a different way. After flirting a little with the idea of an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Irrational_meters" target="_blank">irrational time signature</a> like....well, 22/7, I realized that what I really need to do was add a single septuplet note to the three quarter notes in each 3/4 bar. </p><p>It's a curious and sometimes forgotten (by me, at least) fact that our names for note values are really just ways of dividing a whole note. So a quarter note means nothing more specific than that it is 1/4 the duration value of a whole note. I finally realized that dividing four quarter notes into septuplets means that it would take 28 septuplet notes to equal one whole note, so a septuplet value could also be called a 28th note.* One doesn't see a lot of 28th notes out in the wild, though curiously the name sounds a lot like a 128th note, which is a thing. (There are 32 128th notes in a quarter note.) But that's basically just a coincidence. </p><p>For my initial "Minuet in Pi" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7l_km-gLCA" target="_blank">video</a>, I used a special notehead with a pi symbol inside to indicate values which need to be stretched. It's now clearer to me this symbol could be defined as meaning the basic note value is stretched by 1/7. (This is similar to how a dotted note value extends the duration by 1/2.) This makes the notation pretty simple, but that's because I invented a sign to smooth things out.</p><p>Anyway, I finally realized that using Lilypond's wonderfully logical design, I could create a composite time signature of 3/4 + 1/28. Since each quarter note beat contains seven 28th notes, the signature could also be written as 22/28, but that doesn't show the additive process as clearly. Of course, one could notate more or less the same thing using 22/16 time, but that wouldn't allow the use of quarter notes to show simple beat values. Using 28 as denominator allows the use of quarter notes more or less as they'd be used in 3/4 time except on the third beat which requires stretching. (I don't think there's a truly elegant way to handle the ties required for that stretched beat.)</p><p>Is this all a little more than you want to think about? That would be fair, but I have found this a good challenge to help me think more clearly about how time signatures work. The two videos below are thus more precise than what I posted last week, though also a little less elegant. The first one is probably a little more proper, though the second one is maybe a little easier to read as it preserves more of a 3/4 look. [UPDATE (3/21): See also important footnote version in 22/7 below!]</p><p style="text-align: center;"><u>Minuet in 3/4 + 1/28 Time, version 1</u></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><u>Minuet in 3/4 + 1/28 Time, version 2</u></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><hr />
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* If you're like me and have flirted occasionally with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Irrational_meters" target="_blank">irrational time signatures</a> (which basically have denominators that aren't multiples of 2), you might be tempted to think a time signature with 7 on the bottom is the way to use septuplets as a primary division; but remember that a 7 would just mean a whole note is divided into 7, so that would provide a pulse which would be notated as quarter note septuplet. This would not fix my problem of needing a nice way to show standard quarter note beats which look like the way this minuet is usually notated. I needed a septuplet division of the quarter note itself, which is how we end up with 4 x 7 = 28. <br /><br />In other words, although a 22/7 time signature would look cool, it would only work if the primary beats in each bar were indicated as whole notes like below. And, whaddya know? Having added this as a "day after" footnote, I now think this is my favorite way of notating this meter!
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<p style="text-align: center;"><u>Minuet in 22/7 Time</u></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><hr />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z4ooxMOhzBo" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe><p></p>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-2165906047393111942022-03-14T21:07:00.004-04:002022-03-15T06:51:58.902-04:00Minuet in π<p>Somehow, I only realized mid-day that today is Pi Day (3/14). Soon after, I had the idea of a dance in 3.14/4 time, but not so much time to work on it. However, I didn't want to wait a year! So I did get something roughed out in time to post it here, unvarnished as it is.</p><p>If you're a clumsy dancer like me, you might find that 3.14 beats per measure is just what you need. That extra 0.14 beats give you time to think about what comes next. I invented a quick notational symbol in which the pi-noteheads indicate notes that are stretched out to extend the third beat of each bar by 0.14 beats. And that's all I have time to say today!</p><p>[Quick research confirms as I expected that others have had this kind of idea, although I like how easy it is to hear here.]</p><hr />
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UPDATE (on boring ol' 3/15): If you'd like to hear this with the downbeat stretched, this was my first effort. However, I found that this sounds too much like simple downbeat emphasis since 0.14 of a beat is not very much. I ended up preferring the idea of 3/4 time with the 0.14 essentially added at the end, although a case could be made that I should only have lengthened the final 8th note of such bars rather than the final two 8th notes.
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</center>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-83009496473366862732022-02-27T21:47:00.007-05:002022-02-27T23:21:41.162-05:00Epiphany Fugue 8/8: The Lasst one<p>This post will be brief after a busy weekend, but I did meet my <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/01/dont-you-fughetta-bout-me.html" target="_blank">goal</a> of writing eight new fugues for each Sunday of Epiphany. This is the last Sunday Alleluias are sung until Easter, so I had the tune <i>Lasst uns erfreuen</i> on my radar for a while as it is associated with multiple hymn texts ending in Alleluias. A few weeks back, I’d considered the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02LN08_FW60" target="_blank">Old 113th</a> (known to Lutherans as <i>O mensch, bewein</i>) as a fugue subject, and it happens to begin with the same opening phrase as <i>Lasst uns erfreuen</i>. Thus, one could theoretically write a fugue which serves equally well for each tune, though I decided to allude to the latter’s Alleluias in the countersubject here.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaF4mDS2iI5BJU4TE00DIKawT4bXFkBaQqSf5rex6ezgX57vIgQVy1ggzADroneMnI_TC-9Azh5-EcejjZpJGDBQU8UWFWvDegX28rsth2c2DlAnS2XQeoqpqPROQqLOCtsRGIbgL3Qoe0SdGD9RnBpcWFA-9AzyojVlbOL9YkSjD-4O5CdpRYRaV0=s1816" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1816" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaF4mDS2iI5BJU4TE00DIKawT4bXFkBaQqSf5rex6ezgX57vIgQVy1ggzADroneMnI_TC-9Azh5-EcejjZpJGDBQU8UWFWvDegX28rsth2c2DlAnS2XQeoqpqPROQqLOCtsRGIbgL3Qoe0SdGD9RnBpcWFA-9AzyojVlbOL9YkSjD-4O5CdpRYRaV0=w400-h169" width="400" /></a></div><p>(I also realized while working on a diminution of the subject that the opening phrase is the same as that of <i>Simple Gifts</i> minus its pickup notes.)</p><p>I wanted to end the series with a grand postlude style suitable for organ, so this achieves that, although it’s pretty short. I ran into that curious composer problem where I’d written a good bit of a fugue early in the week and tacked on a temporary ending. The temporary ending grew on me, I was short on time, so it became more or less the ending. (It's amazing how powerful repetition is as a means of making something sound 'right.')</p><p>Perhaps later I’ll come back and write more about this fugue set. One of the ongoing challenges was to deal with the tension of not wanting to write the same fugue every week while also wanting to develop some consistency of style. Among others things, I realized after a few weeks that I wanted to avoid always using the same opening formulas. This week, the fugue answer comes in at the Dominant (very normal), but in minor (not normal). The most common procedure would then be to have the next voice back in Tonic, but I have it enter in the Submediant (which is naturally in minor, meaning the two middle entries of this major key fugue are minor) so that the entry of the bass voice in tonic has a strong sense of arrival. Thus, the entries are in: D Major, A Minor, B Minor, D Major.</p>
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<a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/fugues/" target="_blank">THE HYMN FUGUE ARCHIVE</a>
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(25 total / 8 new in '22)
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</center>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-82346307302243489542022-02-24T17:40:00.007-05:002022-02-24T18:20:03.361-05:0015What a boring blog post title! Today is indeed the <a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/02/hatto.html" target="_blank">fifteenth anniversary</a> of MMmusing, but I haven't come up with a clever angle on this. I've realized that 15, though roundish, is actually a pretty uninteresting number. I thought of posting a list of Top 15 Posts or Top 15 Videos or whatever, but 15 seems like too many for a well-curated list. <div><br /></div><div>So, here's just a quick "State of the Blog" spiel. Let's see...2007 was a pretty long time ago, so I guess I've been doing this a while. The past year was relatively slow after a strong January/February start to 2021, but I've had another busy start to 2022 with seven (soon to be eight) <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/fugues/" target="_blank">new fugues,</a> some syncopated loops, and some general rambling. The future is bright.</div><div><br /></div><div>Though it still may not be totally clear why I keep doing this in fits and starts for a fairly small audience, I am grateful to have so many half-baked thoughts and unique proof-of-concept videos and webpages archived. It's been long enough and I'm now old enough that I can find posts I'd completely forgotten about. I think that's the main reason I do this. I walk (drive, sit) around a lot thinking about these sorts of things - might as well preserve those ephemeral thoughts in....whatever this is.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was thinking this week about a competition that took place around 2011 or 2012 for "best classical music blog." Blogs were still a good bit more hip and relevant then, but I remember being struck by two things (for what admittedly was a pretty gimmicky contest). Because the judging was to be based on a series of writing challenges, 1) the competition was stuck with the idea that a blog is just like an informal version of writing for print (newspaper, magazines) and thus fundamentally about words, and 2) the competition was really only about a limited series of exercises, not the building of a unique, long-term brand. </div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, I as I've said and emphasized way too many times but will say again, the attraction of a digital platform for me is not just the free, unedited publishing (though I enjoy not being edited as evidenced by parenthetical diversions like this), but rather the idea that writing about music can be seamlessly integrated with audio and other multimedia illustrations. I love to read and can even enjoy the imagination required to look at printed musical examples or read a description of some musical process. But <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE0BhtkkPwo" target="_blank">here</a>'s an example of a video I'd forgotten about which makes several complex points quickly and efficiently; I'd rarely want to be stuck merely with words, even though I love words. I absolutely did not set out to create a multimedia-themed blog, but that's the shape things have taken, and I've done so many cool things I'd never have imagined without taking that first step.</div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose one of the many reasons blogs have lost a lot of influence is that talking-head videos are now the preferred, more likely viral medium for this kind of work. Adam Neely gets millions of views for his very well-conceived and multimedia-rich videos. He's a very sharp thinker who zeroes in on topics really well, so I'm not suggesting I could match his abilities if I tried. I have thought of trying my hand at the talking head thing (though I hate hearing my own voice), but generally I still prefer the asynchronous experience which reading allows, with links and multimedia provided to let the reader explore as needed. Though this is clearly not the best way to get views, I'm content to continue documenting whatever I'm thinking about at the pace it naturally happens with good ol' old-fashioned Blogger as my home base.</div><div><br /></div><div>As always, you're encouraged to try the <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/machine.html" target="_blank">Magical Multimedia Musing Machine</a> to see where the winds take you. Hope to be back here next year when I can title the post: "I am sixteen, going on seventeen."</div><div><br /></div><div>And, ok, after all of that, here is a quick list of fifteen - not necessarily the Top 15, but a post from every year featuring a fairly wide variety of things. Compositions, Arrangements, Mashups, Performances, Programming, Animations, Words, etc. I intentionally tried to avoid some of the things I've already promoted over and over. (Some of these, like the first five listed, involved a <i>lot </i>of work, so as lighthearted as the tone here generally is, I'm proud of the investment of time and problem-solving that goes into projects like these.)<br /><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-birth-of-coulenc.html" target="_blank">The Birth of Coulenc</a> (2021)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2020/03/bach-day-11-chaconne-at-glance.html" target="_blank">Chaconne at a glance</a> (2020)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2019/02/surprise.html" target="_blank">Haydn a Surprise</a> (2019)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2018/03/at-barbershop-closing-time.html" target="_blank">Barber: Guitar Concerto</a> (2018)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2017/02/10-years.html" target="_blank">Alternative Facts</a> (2017)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2016/09/sundays-at-improv.html" target="_blank">Sundays at the Improv</a> (2016)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2015/11/what-if-great-composers-wrote-music-for.html" target="_blank">What it the great composers wrote the music for the closing credits of 80's TV shows, Part I</a> (2015)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/search?q=luigis" target="_blank">The Luigi Rag</a> (2014)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2013/10/recital-revisited-i-moonlight-mashup.html" target="_blank">Moonlight Mashup</a> (2013)</li><li><a href="https://michaelmonroe.blogspot.com/search/label/balladearchive" target="_blank">Ballade Blogging</a> (2012)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2011/06/atonality-on-ice.html" target="_blank">Atonality on Ice</a> (2011)</li><li><a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2010/02/reflections-on-2-part-invention.html" target="_blank">Reflections on a Two-Part Invention</a> (2010)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2009/11/name-that-bassoon.html" target="_blank">Name that bassoon</a> (2009)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2008/04/ambigramania.html" target="_blank">Ambigramania</a> (2008)</li><li><a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/03/hyperspace.html" target="_blank">Hyperspace</a> (2007)</li></ol></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-49720276211261180352022-02-23T18:02:00.003-05:002022-02-23T18:22:53.979-05:00Parody ParadeThis Sunday, my daughter's youth orchestra will be playing a big <a href="https://www.bostonphil.org/concerts/2021-2022/bpyo2-ravel-elgar-shostakovich" target="_blank">program </a>which begins with Ravel's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoeE1dn0Jk4" target="_blank">La valse</a></i>. I've been thinking about my unusual affection for that piece, an orchestral showstopper which I love best as played by....pianist Glenn Gould. This preference is unusual both because this work is known for Ravel's brilliant, colorful orchestration and because Gould is decidedly not known for playing French or Impressionistic music in general. It strikes me that my attraction to his particular recording reveals several layers of distance from the origins of this music - and I like investigating such layers. <div><br /></div><div>Let's back up a little and note that pretty much ALL music gets part of its communicative and imaginative power by building on music that already exists. This is obvious enough, but ignored a lot as well. No waltz is an island, one might say.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it is that one can trace many subterranean layers beneath Gould's version of Ravel's piano transcription of Ravel's own work originally conceived as ballet (the rejection of which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_valse#Creation_and_meaning" target="_blank">almost led to a duel</a> between Ravel and Diaghilev!*). I suppose one could go back to the earliest example of humans dancing, follow that trail to the evolution of formal dances like the waltz, then observe the way in which composers like Chopin and Strauss turned waltzes into concert pieces which inspired Ravel to write a nostalgic evocation of nineteenth-century ballroom waltzing. Ravel's work is thus a parody* of an older style, but the way in which Ravel and Gould re-imagine the colorful orchestral timbres in black-and-white piano context has elements of parody as well, even if not intended to be humorous. (Worth noting that, going back to the Renaissance, a parody just meant basing a work, like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody_mass" target="_blank">mass</a>, on a pre-existing work; doesn't have to be funny.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I have always loved piano transcriptions, but will admit there's something a bit silly about having one piano re-create <i>La valse</i>. (There was a time when Ravel's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2DxxblM_Es" target="_blank">two-piano version</a> was the acknowledged best option, but the solo version seems to be becoming more popular as a vehicle for transcendent technique.) What I love about Gould's approach is that he seems to relish that absurdity. Rather than try to sound like a smoothly blended orchestra, Gould is happy for certain details to receive a new and unexpected spotlighting. This is most obvious at the very beginning where - speaking of subterranean! - Ravel has all sorts of primordial goings on submerged in the bass. (By the way, I <i>only </i>just noticed that the two pitches Ravel alternates, E and F, are the same two featured at the beginning of some famous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzdlLciHneA" target="_blank">below-the-surface music</a> by John Williams.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Whereas Ravel's opening is all muted, <i>pianissimo </i>rumblings, Gould sets his own tone right away.</div><div><br /></div>
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<div>It's comically different from Ravel's original, and the funny thing is that the piano can do this kind of blurry/submerged thing really well as demonstrated by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7uKKkow0CM" target="_blank">plenty</a> of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1S_PAxCP_Q" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I01MrvmBSkQ" target="_blank">pianists</a>. Gould, ever the iconoclast, seems to be clearing the air right from the outset with a <i>mezzo-forte-plus</i> Bartók sound. THIS IS A PIANO, NOT AN ORCHESTRA! So, although Gould's version does not fit the literal definition of a parody, it has that feeling, and yet I find it thrilling and colorful in its own way. Because it's all played by two hands (assuming Gould didn't do too much cheating in studio), it's more exhilarating listening for me than the almost-too-much orchestral original (though I'm very much looking forward to hearing the orchestra play it live in the great Symphony Hall).</div><div><br /></div><div>The other thing that interests me here is that I'm not a big fan of the types of waltzes (Strauss, etc.) that Ravel is parodying, but I DO like his parody of them. I've found that dynamic at work in many contexts. For example, I love Fritz Kreisler's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiCk_VlDnrs" target="_blank">Praeludium and Allegro</a></i>, which is an early 20th century parody of early 18th century style, and I find the Kreisler more compelling than a lot of music from the early 18th century. Kreisler here trades on a lot of the expressive devices of Baroque style while adding in a Romantic virtuoso mindset. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvMYJmO5lrE" target="_blank">Vitali <i>Chaconne</i></a> is a similar sort of piece - probably not by Vitali! - though I find it a bit more tiresome than Kreisler's work. I could also happily go the rest of my days without ever again hearing Grieg's <i>From Holberg's Time </i>(in piano or orchestra dress), so I'm not always an easy mark for cross-century parody.<br /><br />Another more modernist parody I enjoy is Stravinsky's <i>Pulcinella</i>, supposedly based on music by Pergolesi. Worth noting that just as Stravinsky adds dimension to these old tunes, their inspiration brings out something new in his own voice. I'm especially fond of the violin/piano <i><a href="https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nKPup3czJSiLrU6LNliHQeeCOdZQ9OYSs" target="_blank">Suite italienne</a> </i>drawn from this ballet, so again it's a transcription of a parody that hits the sweet spot. Maybe I am predictable?</div><div><br /></div><div>My attitude about this is probably not the most mainstream, but my fascination with mashups and other distortions suggests how much I'm intrigued by off-center re-imaginings, whether of specific works (<i>La valse</i>) or general styles (Baroque). In this way, parodies (and mashups) are a kind of conversation. They are not just music - they are <i>about </i>music. (Which, again, is true of all music to some degree, but it's true in a special way with a parody.) I also have special affection for some of the Romanticized piano parts in the notorious <i><a href="https://halleonard-coverimages.s3.amazonaws.com/wl/50261140-wl.jpg" target="_blank">24 Italian Songs and Arias</a></i> book, used by countless voice students, and I've always been disappointed by efforts to provide these 17th and 18th century songs with more authentic accompaniments. The piano-vocal versions that have come down to us are parodies of a sort (many by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Parisotti" target="_blank">Parisotti</a>), but none the weaker for that as they take advantage of sonorities natural to the piano. As with the works I've mentioned by Kreisler and Stravinsky, music from the past is viewed through the prism of intervening centuries, and that kind of mixing can be really rich and satisfying because there are so many layers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Recently, I watched a video called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hD8YtO5HI" target="_blank">"How Allegri's Miserere should really sound</a>." You can watch the whole thing for yourself, but the basics are as follows: 1) Allegri's original work from the early 1600's is already meant as an homage to an older style, so it began life as a parody. 2) Various performance traditions evolved over centuries as the work acquired legendary status connected to its use in the Sistine Chapel and Mozart's supposed copying down of the work from memory. 3) Somewhere along the way, a part was mis-copied a fourth too high in a way that leads to a very memorable high C which, in my experience, is THE most famous thing about this music, but it's the creation of a much later nineteenth century point-of-view. When I hear mention of this piece, I immediately hear the part you may hear <a href="https://youtu.be/h6hD8YtO5HI?t=730" target="_blank">here (at 12:10)</a>. This is an unintentional parody, but though the video seems to want to say, "let's go back to Allegri's original vision," my temptation is to say that the distorted tradition is more interesting. (Of course, this kind of distortion happens in all sorts of contexts, and I'm not saying it's always a good thing.)</div><div><br />Popping over to another genre, I've never really felt any attachment to 60's folk music, but I simply adore just about all the music written for <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJrxv-Uoy2jhLbArHHgtPaxD4yluzDGqr" target="_blank">A Mighty Wind</a></i>, which is just one affectionate parody after another. In that case it is partly the humorous aspect, but the creators and performers of those songs achieved something magical that transcends parody, and I'm forced to give some credit to a musical tradition which otherwise doesn't interest me. So the power of parody means there might be hope for...who knows what? In the meantime, my apologies for the parody in the footnote below.<br /><br />=======================<br />* Perhaps worth mentioning as well that I love Ravel's dance even though I'm not such a big fan of dancing. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Diaghilev" target="_blank">Serge Diaghilev</a> also seemed to agree that this dance music is better for listening than dancing, which I guess led to his almost dueling with Ravel. Unfortunately, I then found it impossible not to imagine this Diaghologue:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRc00LLa4MIRxGGjeUndq2MVR8O-HLIRdPkxi7W5vJNjJdpbDdXt-0ZP5FSmLMhEn8QsR4m1W0PPyC1nqYdJUstqCGp_B-NwPc9WJ1rZpPmdYydBlCUOwPZyInoxGZGsc541dWnlr3F2JwSIglfdyh2Evz494iouOJYj4m6C1CqVNbYF7gyYtCxA7V=s2100" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2100" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRc00LLa4MIRxGGjeUndq2MVR8O-HLIRdPkxi7W5vJNjJdpbDdXt-0ZP5FSmLMhEn8QsR4m1W0PPyC1nqYdJUstqCGp_B-NwPc9WJ1rZpPmdYydBlCUOwPZyInoxGZGsc541dWnlr3F2JwSIglfdyh2Evz494iouOJYj4m6C1CqVNbYF7gyYtCxA7V=w400-h286" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">You should be able to click on it to enlarge, if you dare. For comparison, the original is <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/burr.png" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-23053571788182911322022-02-20T14:51:00.008-05:002022-02-21T14:02:44.888-05:00Epiphany Fugue 7/8<p>
So, if you're keeping score at home,
<a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/epiphany-fugue-58.html" target="_blank">Epiphany Fugue 5/8</a>
was <i>not </i>in 5/8 time,
<a href="https://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/epiphany-fugue-68-in-58.html" target="_blank">Epiphany Fugue 6/8</a>
<i>was </i>in 5/8 time, but today's Epiphany Fugue 7/8 is just in boring 3/4
time. One irregular meter out of eight seemed like plenty.
</p>
<p>
I guess I don't have a lot more to say about this week's fugue. Last
week I couldn't wait to get started and finished most of the work days ahead of time. This week it took more effort to get
myself going, and I'm not sure I feel like this one is really finished, but it
got the job done. Unlike a lot of these, I feel this one works better on organ, but I don't have a great recording yet, and I've been archiving all of these as piano fugues anyway. (UPDATE: Not great, sloppy organ recording available <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/michaelmonroe/mm_slane_fugue_2022.mp3" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p><p>This happens to be a hymn tune around which I've already
written two other non-fugues (a <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/michaelmonroe/mm_slane_1997.mp3" target="_blank">prelude</a> and a <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/michaelmonroe/mm_slane_2016.mp3" target="_blank">postlude</a>), so maybe it didn't
have anything new to say to me. Or maybe starting school vacation dulled my
senses rather than enlivened them. Or perhaps I spent too much time
re-syncopating
<a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/just-how-reliable-is-nathan-detroit.html" target="_blank">Nathan Detroit</a>
and
<a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/trips-along-softly-on-tongue-this-way.html" target="_blank">Gary, Indiana</a>.
</p>
<p>
Whatever, I'm just one fugue from my <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/01/dont-you-fughetta-bout-me.html" target="_blank">goal</a>. Then I can confess all of my
part-writing sins during Lent....
</p>
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<center><br /></center><center><a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/fugues/" target="_blank">THE HYMN FUGUE ARCHIVE</a></center><center>(24 total / 7 new in '22)
</center>
<br /><br />MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367173689821897070.post-2914837933047273272022-02-19T11:11:00.003-05:002022-02-19T21:29:13.360-05:00Trips along softly on the tongue this way...<p>As always, one odd blog project (bloject?) breeds another. So it is that only days after thinking about the elegant syncopations in "Why it's good old reliable NAAAthan, NAthan, NAthan, <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/just-how-reliable-is-nathan-detroit.html" target="_blank">NAthan Detroit</a>," my middle school music class had made it to the "Gary, Indiana" scene in <i>The Music Man</i>. </p><p>Well, just as Frank Loesser delights in placing "Nathan" on various parts of the meter, Meredith Wilson literally describes his own metrical play as a series of "elegant syncopations" within the lyrics themselves. The idea is the same, though at a gentler pace. </p><p>Here's how I distorted <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/02/just-how-reliable-is-nathan-detroit.html" target="_blank">Nathan</a>, with Nathan starting in four different places within the 2/4 meter:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQSa6bEJ3YGJOpBLA0L31POuiIVMDsvzb4lyZSyksgQS_UT8FSOIPtIP9w6F-5TSpu9XLJWh-ZeyyVOvp-8Np1jOEuxXMxW6lmREaVJo3TPxaeOEeWvTCfjnfFrPtKmFqOBzJs3fBZsGjZxnyCML8HrSKwHpgptNfn5qp-rbtqW8jniCJmr1fk-85k=s450" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="450" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQSa6bEJ3YGJOpBLA0L31POuiIVMDsvzb4lyZSyksgQS_UT8FSOIPtIP9w6F-5TSpu9XLJWh-ZeyyVOvp-8Np1jOEuxXMxW6lmREaVJo3TPxaeOEeWvTCfjnfFrPtKmFqOBzJs3fBZsGjZxnyCML8HrSKwHpgptNfn5qp-rbtqW8jniCJmr1fk-85k=w400-h178" width="400" /></a></div><p>In the middle of "Gary, Indiana," (a part not included here), Harold Hill sings: "If you'd like to have a logical explanation / how I happened on this elegant syncopation." You can see the syncopations below. The first "Gary" is on beat 1, the second on beat 4, and the third on beat 3. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEXwqW1vZFcK9SXPh6gSzm2M2ETdul8WGDpeD-bkPATUaaozoN9N3rjR2WuJtHt-KSjbO59yxA3AqXKGITAov_9IotRKOzVaRcsbnDKj7MK4lLOFEmAkf_rLVTdlAB3c-4yslUk8tW9eFgs6FtcgH7kcdQZWAMEeRTDNFFeh8ePqy8bhHjN08tjnBS=s700" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="700" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEXwqW1vZFcK9SXPh6gSzm2M2ETdul8WGDpeD-bkPATUaaozoN9N3rjR2WuJtHt-KSjbO59yxA3AqXKGITAov_9IotRKOzVaRcsbnDKj7MK4lLOFEmAkf_rLVTdlAB3c-4yslUk8tW9eFgs6FtcgH7kcdQZWAMEeRTDNFFeh8ePqy8bhHjN08tjnBS=w400-h138" width="400" /></a></div><p>The logical, elegant extension of this idea would be to add one more "Gary, Indiana" starting on beat 2, and then the cycle can repeat itself for as long as desired. (My new little melodic phrase is shown in red. Would be nice to end it on A-sharp to keep everything stepwise, but that was trickier than I'd hoped.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj1_APFaFneHiushMmiupPouJELwrPreTSgSed0UAz9V7MVFYQAkIgjIHCismUfviq0O9AH_7nFSsZEJzFaqZ97NC7HWyS6lfNSD9GJ1wAcb4FYxFD2whDL6HbNpfMEY9Mcq2ey8y2PwRZepcF3yahTW2Qhx1u0unzz0F84upW8uyT84xnlmE05oKv=s700" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="700" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj1_APFaFneHiushMmiupPouJELwrPreTSgSed0UAz9V7MVFYQAkIgjIHCismUfviq0O9AH_7nFSsZEJzFaqZ97NC7HWyS6lfNSD9GJ1wAcb4FYxFD2whDL6HbNpfMEY9Mcq2ey8y2PwRZepcF3yahTW2Qhx1u0unzz0F84upW8uyT84xnlmE05oKv=w400-h183" width="400" /></a></div><p>As with the "Nathan Detroit" post before, a lot of the appeal of projects like this is finding a way to re-mix the original multimedia. In this case, I found that Harold doesn't sing many of the notes in red on the correct pitches, so a little pitch-shifting wizardry was required (partly why the A-sharp was tricky to achieve), and then loop/syncing the video is its own challenge. Unlike the <a href="https://thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/detroits.html" target="_blank">unpredictable Nathans</a>, in this case I simply prepared one long video for your enjoyment:</p>
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Incidentally, because I needed to have a version of the video going backwards, I ended up with this odd half-Scandanavian version of the song - which also happens to bring out the "rag" in "Gary":<hr />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e2mohXk06WU" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Still haven't finished (or started!) <a href="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2022/01/dont-you-fughetta-bout-me.html" target="_blank">this week's fugue</a> though, so enough about this.</div>MICHAEL MONROEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16392848296427560715noreply@blogger.com0