As most of my friends know, at weddings, I love to dance. Last night, after Gareth and Jenny’s wedding, the music started and after G&J danced, everyone went out on the floor to join in. Well, for one number, then all of G’s buddies (design and filmmakers from UCLA), went the opposite side of the room to take pictures. The wedding photographer had set up a “take your picture” arrangement where people could press a button, wait 7 seconds, and then have their picture taken. I was disappointed that none of them wanted to dance: they just wanted to take silly pictures for G&J.
Then I realized that these people are all visual people. They celebrate visually, not musically. There were “dancing” in their own way. I sighed, and returned to the dance floor and danced with strangers: wives, single women, and other dancing fools in attendance. Mike Horowitz teased that at weddings, the first hour was “the Roger hour” where I lit up the dance floor.
Sigh. Everyone is different, and that is a good thing. Right?
I mentioned that we are in Auburn, CA for Gareth and Jenny’s wedding. Who is Gareth you ask? Gareth Smith is one of the founders of Shadowplay Studio and an old classmate of Daniel. Of course you remember the Possum Death Spree series with music by yours truly:
Possum Death Spree I
Possum Death Spree II
[Possum Death Spree III has some scenes not appropriate to all ages, so go to Atomfilms.com or YouTube to see that one.]
Gareth was one of the directors of that. He also did some famous opening credits you will likely remember:
And of course the opening title credits for THANK YOU FOR SMOKING.
Last night, sitting around on the porch shooting the breeze with Gareth’s dad (Gareth and Jenny are getting married today), he spoke of his love for the blues scene in London in the late 60s. I told him that I had just taught the 12-bar blues form to my students this week. He continued to wax nostalgic about how Brits really “got” the blues — Americans would come over and try to do the blues but failed. I responded: “I’ve never been a blues guy. Blues is for straight guys. And I say that because I’ve never met a gay man that liked the blues: its’ a straight guy thing. And being a composer, I love harmony, and in the blues, there are only 3 chords — BORING. Yes, I understand that the blues is a perfect venue for improvising, but I am just not interested.” He looked mildly surprised but smiled and acknowledged our difference.
Today we looked at the various components of a [popular] song, as espoused by Wikipedia. We picked our way through the relevant appellations and critiqued the language, spelling, and content. They encouraged me to go in and change it right now, but I declined.
I gave them an assignment to analyze a popular song using one of the three methods they will be taught over these two weeks.
I shared a few of my own analyses of Rufus Wainwright music last week.
Today, we looked at Alan Pollack’s entertaining analyses of Beatles music — “When I’m 64″ is the one I chose. It’s interesting in that it doesn’t have a chorus. Only a hook/refrain at the end of the verse (”Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?”).
Here is the song in a clip from YELLOW SUBMARINE.
On Thursday, after studying resolutions of embellishing diminshed chords, we will hear from Robert Fink, who will discuss analyzing popular music, using Motown as examples. Should be interesting.
Back to the class, we then watched “Hound Dog” [see below] and discussed 12-bar blues structure. My finger was the bouncing ball as we followed the prescribed chords accurately listed in Wikipedia, while listening to sexy Elvis.
Students brought in more good examples of falling bass music, and the most fun was “Hit the Road Jack.”
Elvis is so NAUGHTY here. I love the pelvic thrusts, and the girls’ squeals of delight. The instrumentation is an interesting half electric/half acoustic trio: drums, upright bass, and a hollow-bodied archtop [thanks PK] electric guitar with F-holes. Elvis is solo. HE was a no-effects music video all by himself, without any direction. (”Music video” in the sense that some people often prefer music videos to video-less songs — seeing the music, rather than only hearing it.)
This song is less than 2 minutes long and is an excellent example of the 12-bar blues.
In 3rd grade, I accompanied some older kids from church on an inner tube adventure up in the Sandia mountains outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was on a big inner tube with three high schoolers, we pushed ourselves down the snowy slope and away we went. Then, my right leg got caught under the tube. We couldn’t stop; and I went all the way down the mountain. I could barely walk for three weeks. I ended up being a good athlete, runner, bicyclist and walker, so it turned out alright. Or so I thought.
Over the past 5 years I’ve been having horrible pains in my right hip on long car rides.
Last night, Mitchell Morris, Mark Carlson and I went to an open rehearsal of DIE WALKURE by the LA OPERA at the Music Center. We had an early dinner at Kendalls and waddled up to the opera. I’m not about to give you a review of the production: Swed can do that. Half way through the second act, I started getting sharp bolts of pain in my right hip. Mitchell befriended someone at intermission who let us take their seats, having overheard my horror story. I was able to get through the last act with minimal pain, along with a shot of gin.
I am not a Wagnerite. I don’t know his music terrible well, except for all the greatest hits that most musicians know. For my money, the Ride of the Valkyries is the best music. The rest just goes and goes and goes and DAMNed if Wagner doesn’t seem to know the meaning of STOP or a cadence or sustained slience. It’s relentless. But Mitchell pointed out that people get addicted to the feeling one gets when sitting through Wagner operas. A kind of opiate I’d imagine. The piece doesn’t seem to be sticky. I’ll keep my mind open. I still feel high from it.
At intermission, I realized how famous my good buds are: Mitchell was stopped by endless people who gushed over his terrific pre-concert and opera club talks about The Ring. He has become one of the alpha Wagner scholars in LA. Mark is connected to the chamber and orchestral music world, not to mention the myriad of students he’s had over his many years of teaching. Like Mitchell, he seemed to be constantly being pulled over and chatted with by some opera patron. A fun night.
For the first week of my music theory course, we have focused on songs with falling bass lines.
Today, we started with the so-called air on a G string by J.S. Bach. As an amusement, I quizzed what a G string was in context of a strip club, and Marcos correctly answered that it referred to a slim garment etc. I thought is odd that actually the thinnest string on a violin is an E string, so why don’t they call them E strings?
J.S. Bach: Air on a G string
When I grew up, the almost cartoon-like figure of a black-cloaked man with wild white hair as conductor was most likely created by Leopold Stokowsky, who conducts in Disney’s FANTASIA. Listen to the bass line that repeats over and over. That is what a passacaglia is: it is a variation form. The composer composes the bass line and jams over it. This orchestration is by Leopold himself, here rather elderly.
JS Bach/Stokowski: Passacagila and Fugue (Passacaglia only)
There are famous falling bass songs from the 1960s that people my age know, and you may hear from time to time on oldies radio stations. The most famous are:
Because my class is full of so many students of different backgrounds, their first assignment may be in any style for any instrumentation. But it must feature a falling bass line.
Today I introduced the ground bass. While I listened to this next performance by Jessye Norman, my t-shirt was wet from tears. I pulled it together to play it for my class, and let many of them cry instead.
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