It was "One hit wonder day" at the local radio station. It's a classic rock station, so the selections skewed mostly towards hair band and hard rock of the 1980s and 90s, but they also played a few selections from the 1970s. The music of the 70s is a varied lot. Much of it is silly (Disco Duck, anyone?), danceable (more disco, sans ducks), wonderfully weird (Hocus Pocus, by Focus!), or ABBA. At least it was, until punk music came crashing in.
But there are a few songs from that decade that are just depressing. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1972), by Bobby Russell (sung by his then-wife Vicki Lawrence) tells a sad story about a sister who kills the cheating wife of her brother, but her brother gets hanged for the crime. In a way, it's a commentary on the occasional injustice of the justice system. Another song by David Geddes, called Run Joey Run (1975), tells the tragic tale of a father killing his daughter. Told from the perspective of the daughter's boyfriend, who had come to her house after she and her father had a fight over what I presume to be a pregnancy by the narrator. Ah, it's the classic story of girl meets boy, boy impregnates girl, father finds out, father beats up girl, boy tries to come to girl's rescue, but girl takes the bullet intended for boy.
Then, to make you even more depressed, there is the 1975 song by Gordon Lightfoot that describes the sinking and death of all 29 crew of the bulk freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald (The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald). The freighter went down in bad weather on Lake Superior the night of November 10, 1975. And, if by now you don't already feel like burying your head in your pillow and sobbing, you can pop in a recording of Don McLean's ode to three freshly dead musicians: American Pie (1971). The three dead musicians in question were, of course, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper.
So, who needs a drink?
Friday, September 21, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
These keys are made for sharping
I keep thinking about something a bassoon teacher once said: keys are on (woodwind) instruments to raise a pitch, not to lower it.
Think about that for a moment.
I don't mean the pads or levers that close and cover the tone holes, as they are clearly meant to lower the pitch of the tube (sequentially cover all of the tone holes on a clarinet, and the pitch goes down); long tubes make lower pitches. Basic physics kind of stuff.
But the keys that don't cover the main tone holes are where they are to allow the player to play all of those chromatic notes that the basic instrument could not play if it only had the tone holes. For example: the Eb key on the right hand side of a clarinet (and operated by the right hand first finger) is used to raise the already fingered note D one half step. We refer to the key as an Eb (E flat) key, but in reality, it is raising the D to a D# (D sharp).
It's the same story an octave up (still on a clarinet) to the Eb/D# key on the right hand (operated by the right hand pinkie finger). To play the note, the clarinetist must cover the tone holes for D, they open the Eb key to raise the pitch by one half step: to D#.
This is profoundly simple, but I think it isn't recognized right away because we often refer to those keys in their enharmonic flat names. There are a few anomalies, like the G# keys on saxophones and flutes, but their half-step-raising-D mechanisms are still usually referred to as Eb keys.
Think about that for a moment.
I don't mean the pads or levers that close and cover the tone holes, as they are clearly meant to lower the pitch of the tube (sequentially cover all of the tone holes on a clarinet, and the pitch goes down); long tubes make lower pitches. Basic physics kind of stuff.
But the keys that don't cover the main tone holes are where they are to allow the player to play all of those chromatic notes that the basic instrument could not play if it only had the tone holes. For example: the Eb key on the right hand side of a clarinet (and operated by the right hand first finger) is used to raise the already fingered note D one half step. We refer to the key as an Eb (E flat) key, but in reality, it is raising the D to a D# (D sharp).
It's the same story an octave up (still on a clarinet) to the Eb/D# key on the right hand (operated by the right hand pinkie finger). To play the note, the clarinetist must cover the tone holes for D, they open the Eb key to raise the pitch by one half step: to D#.
This is profoundly simple, but I think it isn't recognized right away because we often refer to those keys in their enharmonic flat names. There are a few anomalies, like the G# keys on saxophones and flutes, but their half-step-raising-D mechanisms are still usually referred to as Eb keys.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Off the Shelf: Bob Dylan
Sorry for the hiatus. My non-blogging life got a bit out of hand. But I'm back with a long overdue Off the Shelf installment: Bob Dylan (told you it was a chewy one).
I randomly selected from Ye Olde CD Shelfe The Best of Bob Dylan, a disc I picked up while going through a mild Bob Dylan phase (actually I picked up at least 3 Dylan discs during that time). I've touched on the genius of Dylan already; very briefly in one of the Billy Joel/We Didn't Start the Fire variations, but I think I can give you a bit more.
The Best of disc features many of the greatest hits (as you would expect from something with "best of" in the title) from Dylan over the course of his career. The liner notes are quick to tell us that it's impossible to put all of Dylan's greatest songs onto one single disc, which is true, but this one is still a good representation his work, starting with Blowin' in the Wind, passing through All Along the Watchtower, and briefly into his more recent work.
Dylan made waves with a stream-of-consciousness, politically charged, confessional style of folk music. One the songs that really caught my attention was Hurricane, co-written with Jacques Levy in 1975. The song describes, in true folk-song narration, the accusation, trial, and imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was a friend of Dylan. Carter was accused of robbery and murder, in accomplice with two other accused men. The initial trial gave him a guilty sentence, but Dylan, among other supporters, felt that the trial was racially charged, and so, in protest to what he felt was an unfair trial and sentence, wrote the song. He was forced to re-record it to avoid potential lawsuits concerning the details about the actions of the other two men in the trial. The song eventually stirred things up enough to get Carter a second trial. In 1988, all charges against Carter were dropped.
I couldn't help but notice how many Dylan songs end up as hit cover songs by other artists. Watchtower has been covered countless times, from the "definitive" cover by Jimi Hendrix to my favourite cover by the Dave Matthews Band. Knockin' on Heaven's Door was covered most notably by Eric Clapton, but also by Guns N' Roses, Booker T and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Blowin' in the Wind was made a hit by Peter, Paul & Mary (not to mention all the renditions sung around campfires, by church groups, and by protesters protesting anything.)
Truthfully, this entry will not be as complete as I'd like it to be. The story of Bob Dylan is just too big for me to take in right now. But I'll keep turning it over in my brain, like a rolling stone.
I randomly selected from Ye Olde CD Shelfe The Best of Bob Dylan, a disc I picked up while going through a mild Bob Dylan phase (actually I picked up at least 3 Dylan discs during that time). I've touched on the genius of Dylan already; very briefly in one of the Billy Joel/We Didn't Start the Fire variations, but I think I can give you a bit more.
The Best of disc features many of the greatest hits (as you would expect from something with "best of" in the title) from Dylan over the course of his career. The liner notes are quick to tell us that it's impossible to put all of Dylan's greatest songs onto one single disc, which is true, but this one is still a good representation his work, starting with Blowin' in the Wind, passing through All Along the Watchtower, and briefly into his more recent work.
Dylan made waves with a stream-of-consciousness, politically charged, confessional style of folk music. One the songs that really caught my attention was Hurricane, co-written with Jacques Levy in 1975. The song describes, in true folk-song narration, the accusation, trial, and imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was a friend of Dylan. Carter was accused of robbery and murder, in accomplice with two other accused men. The initial trial gave him a guilty sentence, but Dylan, among other supporters, felt that the trial was racially charged, and so, in protest to what he felt was an unfair trial and sentence, wrote the song. He was forced to re-record it to avoid potential lawsuits concerning the details about the actions of the other two men in the trial. The song eventually stirred things up enough to get Carter a second trial. In 1988, all charges against Carter were dropped.
I couldn't help but notice how many Dylan songs end up as hit cover songs by other artists. Watchtower has been covered countless times, from the "definitive" cover by Jimi Hendrix to my favourite cover by the Dave Matthews Band. Knockin' on Heaven's Door was covered most notably by Eric Clapton, but also by Guns N' Roses, Booker T and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Blowin' in the Wind was made a hit by Peter, Paul & Mary (not to mention all the renditions sung around campfires, by church groups, and by protesters protesting anything.)
Truthfully, this entry will not be as complete as I'd like it to be. The story of Bob Dylan is just too big for me to take in right now. But I'll keep turning it over in my brain, like a rolling stone.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Team Elphaba
I have finally gotten around to reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. As usual, I'm about 6 years (more or less) behind the trend. The book is a "parallel novel", written by Gregory Maguire, that tells the story about the events in the land of Oz, from the point of the view of the Wicked Witch of the West. It uses many references from the Baum books and from the 1939 film.
In the L. Frank Baum novels, the Witch isn't given much development, beyond being the antagonist of the story, chasing Dorothy or terrorizing the civilians of Ozland. In fact, she isn't even given a name. In Maguire's telling of the times of the Witch, she is given the name Elphaba (a phonetic derivation of L. Frank Baum's initials), and one is led to reconsider what it means to be "wicked" or "good." Is being wicked really an absolute quality, or do circumstances and outside forces play a larger role? If anything, the reader is led to be more sympathetic to the Wicked Witch of the West. I'm certainly looking at the storyline of the film a little differently now. Anyway, the 1995 book was reworked into a Broadway musical.
Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, (book written by Winnie Holzman, and music lyrics by Stephen Schwartz) changes several details from the book, but remains a convoluted story about the friendship between Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. The book explains how both characters become what they become, in a really elegant way, actually.
Stephen Schwartz has composed many acclaimed musicals. He wrote the music for Godspell, Pippin (one of my favourite musicals and one he started writing music for while still in college), Children of Eden, and The Magic Show. He is one of only four composers to have a three musicals run over 1000 performances on Broadway (Wicked, Pippin, and The Magic Show). The other 3 composers are Andrew Lloyd Weber, Jerry Herman, and Richard Rodgers.
You can also hear his work in movies. He collaborated with Alan Menken to write songs for Disney's Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and wrote music for The Prince of Egypt. Again with Menken, he wrote lyrics for Disney's Enchanted, resulting in 3 songs from that production earning nominations from the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Schwartz certainly defies gravity.
In the L. Frank Baum novels, the Witch isn't given much development, beyond being the antagonist of the story, chasing Dorothy or terrorizing the civilians of Ozland. In fact, she isn't even given a name. In Maguire's telling of the times of the Witch, she is given the name Elphaba (a phonetic derivation of L. Frank Baum's initials), and one is led to reconsider what it means to be "wicked" or "good." Is being wicked really an absolute quality, or do circumstances and outside forces play a larger role? If anything, the reader is led to be more sympathetic to the Wicked Witch of the West. I'm certainly looking at the storyline of the film a little differently now. Anyway, the 1995 book was reworked into a Broadway musical.
Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, (book written by Winnie Holzman, and music lyrics by Stephen Schwartz) changes several details from the book, but remains a convoluted story about the friendship between Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. The book explains how both characters become what they become, in a really elegant way, actually.
Stephen Schwartz has composed many acclaimed musicals. He wrote the music for Godspell, Pippin (one of my favourite musicals and one he started writing music for while still in college), Children of Eden, and The Magic Show. He is one of only four composers to have a three musicals run over 1000 performances on Broadway (Wicked, Pippin, and The Magic Show). The other 3 composers are Andrew Lloyd Weber, Jerry Herman, and Richard Rodgers.
You can also hear his work in movies. He collaborated with Alan Menken to write songs for Disney's Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and wrote music for The Prince of Egypt. Again with Menken, he wrote lyrics for Disney's Enchanted, resulting in 3 songs from that production earning nominations from the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Schwartz certainly defies gravity.
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