Hello, darlings!!
Currently, I am playing the in the pit of a great musical, Cabaret. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cabaret was one of my favorite musicals when I was younger. I also mentioned how I was obviously oblivious to the neutron star level gravity of the plot.
Cabaret, the Broadway show, was based on a collection of short stories in a book called The Berlin Stories, written by Christopher Isherwood in 1945. The stories also made their way into a stage play called I Am a Camera, in 1951. The Broadway show was first produced in 1966, featuring the brilliant score and lyrics from John Kander and Fred Ebb. You remember Kander and Ebb from Chicago? Of course, you do.
The film version, directed by the irrepressible Bob Fosse, was released in 1972. It starred Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Michael York. There are differences between the original Broadway production, the film and the 1999 Broadway re-production. For the film, three new songs were written, one of which, Maybe This Time, sounds an awful lot like Funny Honey from Chicago. Of the new songs, Money, Money was later worked into future stage performances due to its popularity. Such is the power of marketing...and it is a catchy tune.
The rise of Nazi party in 1930s Berlin is a dark and disturbing theme that winds itself around the plots of the stage shows and the film. As most anyone with half a brain and pulse can tell you the horrific results of the National Socialist movement, seeing history foreshadowed in the film and in the stage show is sincerely chilling. Cabaret is also a musical that dares to portray bisexuality, homosexuality, abortion, senseless violence, and the seedy underbelly of life in a nightclub. It is a non-typical, PG-13 (at least), bawdy stage spectacle that provokes thought and reflection. That is truly great art.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd...
Well, it's spring. The time of year when people start tiptoeing through the tulips, taking a walk on the wild side, riding bicycles, and listening to the robins rockin' out in the tree tops. Also, I recently read Moneyball by Michael Lewis and baseball season has started. So, baseball it is.
Baseball is the kind of game I always like playing more than watching. I played softball growing up; pitching, third base, and some outfield. I always enjoyed being at bat though. I have a fond memory of hitting a line drive right at my coach's stomach one day at softball practice. (He was fine.) Lots of people love baseball, in their own way. So, naturally, the "great American pastime" has inspired some to write songs about the game.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game is the most obvious. It was written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer in 1908. These guys, surprisingly, weren't even baseball fans, and hadn't even seen a game until several years after the song was written. There is more to the tune that most people are aware of --typically only singing the choruse. In the song, a young lady is asked out on a date, but refuses to go unless her beau takes her to a baseball game. Take Me Out is traditionally sung during the seventh-inning stretch. The seventh-inning stretch is the break taken between the top and bottom of the seventh inning of the game. People stand up, stretch, maybe take a short walk or get a snack. When needed, the song also makes a dandy waltz!
Another popular song that captures the atmosphere of the game is John Fogerty's 1985 Centerfield. Put me in, coach! The opening guitar riff is instantly recognizable, and the hand claps have made their way into baseball tradition. They can be heard often throughout a game. The song makes reference to many baseball legends: Joe DiMaggio, Ty Cobb, and Willie Mays. In the second verse, Fogerty references the poem Casey at the Bat, written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer.
PLAY BALL!!
Baseball is the kind of game I always like playing more than watching. I played softball growing up; pitching, third base, and some outfield. I always enjoyed being at bat though. I have a fond memory of hitting a line drive right at my coach's stomach one day at softball practice. (He was fine.) Lots of people love baseball, in their own way. So, naturally, the "great American pastime" has inspired some to write songs about the game.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game is the most obvious. It was written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer in 1908. These guys, surprisingly, weren't even baseball fans, and hadn't even seen a game until several years after the song was written. There is more to the tune that most people are aware of --typically only singing the choruse. In the song, a young lady is asked out on a date, but refuses to go unless her beau takes her to a baseball game. Take Me Out is traditionally sung during the seventh-inning stretch. The seventh-inning stretch is the break taken between the top and bottom of the seventh inning of the game. People stand up, stretch, maybe take a short walk or get a snack. When needed, the song also makes a dandy waltz!
Another popular song that captures the atmosphere of the game is John Fogerty's 1985 Centerfield. Put me in, coach! The opening guitar riff is instantly recognizable, and the hand claps have made their way into baseball tradition. They can be heard often throughout a game. The song makes reference to many baseball legends: Joe DiMaggio, Ty Cobb, and Willie Mays. In the second verse, Fogerty references the poem Casey at the Bat, written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer.
PLAY BALL!!
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Mobius Music
I just finished a fascinating book by Clifford Pickover about the Mobius strip. A Mobius strip is a loop that has only one side. They are really easy to make: simply tape together the two ends of a strip of paper, after first giving it a half twist. The two-sided-ness of the paper disappears and you are left with a one-sided object. You can test this by coloring the paper. Try to color one side green and the other red. It can't be done on a Mobius strip, because there is only one side to color.
The Mobius strip was discovered by August Mobius in 1858, and it's remarkable that it wasn't discovered sooner. Studying the strip is a great introduction to topology, the study of surfaces and spatial relationships.
Topology doesn't really have anything to do with music, but it is possible to write music that can be adhered to a Mobius strip. Music played on such a strip will result in music that can be played forwards and backwards, and upside down and right-side up. Our good man J. S. Bach wrote something like this, called the Crab Canon from the Musical Offering. This piece can be performed forward, then the musician can turn the page upside down and play it again. Plus, the musician can read the music backwards to produce a different melody. Then, using both hands, the player can perform the piece as a two-handed duet, with the canon flipped over and reversed in one hand and right-side up and forward in the other hand.
Bach wasn't the only musical genius to experiment with these musical puzzles. Arnold Schoenberg (I've talked about him recently. Remember Schoenberg?) also wrote canons, that he called "mirror canons" that could be flipped over and turned around. Schoenberg was also interested in "twelve-tone music", which uses the same one-sided idea as the Mobius strip. With the 12-tone rows, the composers would assemble all 12 pitches in a row, sometimes at random, but only using each pitch once within the row. From here, they can reverse the pitches, invert them, and invert and reverse them. The result can be applied to atonal music.
I know. Just accept the fact that you are going to learn more about atonal music than you thought you wanted to this year.
:-)
The Mobius strip was discovered by August Mobius in 1858, and it's remarkable that it wasn't discovered sooner. Studying the strip is a great introduction to topology, the study of surfaces and spatial relationships.
Topology doesn't really have anything to do with music, but it is possible to write music that can be adhered to a Mobius strip. Music played on such a strip will result in music that can be played forwards and backwards, and upside down and right-side up. Our good man J. S. Bach wrote something like this, called the Crab Canon from the Musical Offering. This piece can be performed forward, then the musician can turn the page upside down and play it again. Plus, the musician can read the music backwards to produce a different melody. Then, using both hands, the player can perform the piece as a two-handed duet, with the canon flipped over and reversed in one hand and right-side up and forward in the other hand.
Bach wasn't the only musical genius to experiment with these musical puzzles. Arnold Schoenberg (I've talked about him recently. Remember Schoenberg?) also wrote canons, that he called "mirror canons" that could be flipped over and turned around. Schoenberg was also interested in "twelve-tone music", which uses the same one-sided idea as the Mobius strip. With the 12-tone rows, the composers would assemble all 12 pitches in a row, sometimes at random, but only using each pitch once within the row. From here, they can reverse the pitches, invert them, and invert and reverse them. The result can be applied to atonal music.
I know. Just accept the fact that you are going to learn more about atonal music than you thought you wanted to this year.
:-)
Thursday, March 14, 2013
H2O
I'm around water a lot now (with the new job. It's going well, BTW). So, it isn't too much of a leap to start thinking about music and songs about water. After some thought, I realized that there are less songs about water than there are about songs about activities on or in the water. Let's dive right in, shall we?
Starting on the west coast: try Surfin' USA with the Beach Boys. Or, if you aren't a very good surfer, you can Wipe Out with the Surfaris. If are prefer to stay on dry land, you could just practice the different swimming strokes to Bobby Freeman's C'Mon and Swim (1964).
But why stay out of the water, landlubber? Join Ariel the mermaid and her aquatic friends in a cheerful Caribbean calypso rendition of Under the Sea. This song was featured in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid, in which Sebastian the crab tries to convince the finned girl to stay in the sea where she belongs instead of trying to sprout legs and run off with some land prince she just met and barely knows.
Water music isn't such a new thing, though. Just ask England's King George in 1717. He wasn't doing so well in the popularity polls, so his advisers suggested to him that he throw a boating party on the Thames River. The King's composer, George Frideric Handel, was given the task of writing the music for the party (all good parties need music). When Handel's Water Music was ready for performance, the King and his buddies listened from one barge, while the musicians performed from another. It was a huge success, and Handel's watery suites are still recognizable and popular today.
At the end of a long day of swimming, surfing, and boating the Thames, you can relax with Otis Redding, just (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay (1967), wasting time. Watching the boats cruise in and out of the harbour and hearing the seagulls shriek. Redding wrote the song while literally sitting on the dock of a bay (well, maybe a houseboat). I've read that the whistling at the end was an impromptu addition at the recording session; apparently, there was some time to fill. Sadly, Redding died in a plane crash in Lake Monoma, (near Madison, WI) shortly after the song's release. He never saw his song become a hit.
And with that, I'll leave you to swim around in your own thoughts.
Starting on the west coast: try Surfin' USA with the Beach Boys. Or, if you aren't a very good surfer, you can Wipe Out with the Surfaris. If are prefer to stay on dry land, you could just practice the different swimming strokes to Bobby Freeman's C'Mon and Swim (1964).
But why stay out of the water, landlubber? Join Ariel the mermaid and her aquatic friends in a cheerful Caribbean calypso rendition of Under the Sea. This song was featured in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid, in which Sebastian the crab tries to convince the finned girl to stay in the sea where she belongs instead of trying to sprout legs and run off with some land prince she just met and barely knows.
Water music isn't such a new thing, though. Just ask England's King George in 1717. He wasn't doing so well in the popularity polls, so his advisers suggested to him that he throw a boating party on the Thames River. The King's composer, George Frideric Handel, was given the task of writing the music for the party (all good parties need music). When Handel's Water Music was ready for performance, the King and his buddies listened from one barge, while the musicians performed from another. It was a huge success, and Handel's watery suites are still recognizable and popular today.
At the end of a long day of swimming, surfing, and boating the Thames, you can relax with Otis Redding, just (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay (1967), wasting time. Watching the boats cruise in and out of the harbour and hearing the seagulls shriek. Redding wrote the song while literally sitting on the dock of a bay (well, maybe a houseboat). I've read that the whistling at the end was an impromptu addition at the recording session; apparently, there was some time to fill. Sadly, Redding died in a plane crash in Lake Monoma, (near Madison, WI) shortly after the song's release. He never saw his song become a hit.
And with that, I'll leave you to swim around in your own thoughts.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Nuts and Bolts
Wow. Do you ever go back and re-read stuff you wrote a long time ago? Kind of embarrassing. It probably means nothing to you, my loyal Zombielets, but I have updated/edited/made less dumb-sounding the "About this Blog" and "What is a Music Zombie" pages.
I feel better now. Until I read them again in a year.
Writing is hard.
Haha!
:-)
I had better include something musical though, so your time reading this won't be completely lost.
Here ya go:
Beethoven composed 32 piano sonatas.
What do you mean "Is that all?" How many piano sonatas have you written?!
I feel better now. Until I read them again in a year.
Writing is hard.
Haha!
:-)
I had better include something musical though, so your time reading this won't be completely lost.
Here ya go:
Beethoven composed 32 piano sonatas.
What do you mean "Is that all?" How many piano sonatas have you written?!
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