Well I have a profoundly wild and crazy theory. "Balladic Rule of Thirds". Each third stanza, third line, third word, breaks the pattern established by the first two units, and these transformative emphases both tickle the mind and reinforce hierarchical structure. The two most famous pieces in the Book of Odes c. 500BC (collected by Confucius) do this. Renaissance popular music especially English music c.1600 do this. The so-called sonata form in classical music does this. And 20th Century ballads do this.
As for meter and rhythm, Renaissance Italy out of nowhere created a very short form called frittole that is reminiscent of old Chinese meters. (I first had to reconstruct the Chinese metrical rules and prove them statistically.)
So I ended up with a crazy hypothesis, Tang and Song Dynasty lyric poetry were transmitted to Renaissance Europe by merchants and slave girls in the form of popular songs (typically pentatonic-major scale which was not a Western tradition) and were re-made as Greensleeves, Three Ravens Sat on a Tree, Willow Song, John Dowland pieces, and many more. (I've translated ~90 lyric poems and set many of them to fitting Western tunes.)
Then c.1850-60s several hundred thousand Chinese laborers brought pentatonic to the U.S. and possibly influencd folk songs like Beautiful Dreamer and the further development of American Music. Dvorak c.1890 famously remarked American native music was just like Scottish and music from the Orient (they are all pentatonic-major). His symphony From the New World is actually pretty "Chinesy".
Anyway, my two loves Chinese poetry and Western Early Music come together thusly, through my language specialty and bi-lingual background. (I wrote one of the first-generation search engines, using the compound phrase as basic unit -- a Chinese search engine for English.)
As for meter and rhythm, Renaissance Italy out of nowhere created a very short form called frittole that is reminiscent of old Chinese meters. (I first had to reconstruct the Chinese metrical rules and prove them statistically.)
So I ended up with a crazy hypothesis, Tang and Song Dynasty lyric poetry were transmitted to Renaissance Europe by merchants and slave girls in the form of popular songs (typically pentatonic-major scale which was not a Western tradition) and were re-made as Greensleeves, Three Ravens Sat on a Tree, Willow Song, John Dowland pieces, and many more. (I've translated ~90 lyric poems and set many of them to fitting Western tunes.)
Then c.1850-60s several hundred thousand Chinese laborers brought pentatonic to the U.S. and possibly influencd folk songs like Beautiful Dreamer and the further development of American Music. Dvorak c.1890 famously remarked American native music was just like Scottish and music from the Orient (they are all pentatonic-major). His symphony From the New World is actually pretty "Chinesy".
Anyway, my two loves Chinese poetry and Western Early Music come together thusly, through my language specialty and bi-lingual background. (I wrote one of the first-generation search engines, using the compound phrase as basic unit -- a Chinese search engine for English.)
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I envy sanely all those that can make music easily. As a joke here says "I am out of tune until ringing the bell".
I do have to get my TT going, i have a huge collection of Zappa. The Grand Wazoo my “you can only have 1 song…”
dave
Just because it's how we're wired up. My mum at best tolerated music, at worst she'd not stay in the same room with it. For her it was all noise. Which was a shame because my dad loved music and I've inherited his love. My brother, not so much, take it or leave it.
Dr. Johnson was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up the divisions and subdivisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. "Difficult do you call it, Sir?" replied the Doctor; "I wish it were impossible."
Anecdotes by William Seward, in Johnsonian Miscellanies, edited by G. B. Hill
Dr. Johnson was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up the divisions and subdivisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. "Difficult do you call it, Sir?" replied the Doctor; "I wish it were impossible."
Anecdotes by William Seward, in Johnsonian Miscellanies, edited by G. B. Hill
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
Our real ponchos saved our bacon when we got stuck under a summer storm hiking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Moving to Montana soon to become a dental floss tycoon.
Ran into some guys, my age, loading a truck at Costco with Montana plates. Asked them if they were dental floss tycoons, they started laughting... they KNEW.. ;-D
I just got my new, super duper, Pearl 2 preamp with full adjustability... custom rear panel with load (capacitance, resistance) and gain adjustments. It sounds fantastic. True black between the notes.
It's just because the musicians got old. In the meantime all the young dudes were carrying the news.
They were worth the money through the Depression. The crowds at Goodman and also Bob Wills shows, week after week, were TicketMaster busting.
High-strung drums and electric amplifiers could make as much sound in far fewer players, so under-bid the big bands. (This was not instantly obvious: Wills' band grew to 23 members including electrics.) Wills was filling 4,300 seat halls on weekdays, outgrossing Goodman, Dorseys, etc. This without today's wall-of-sound PA systems. Just accidentally-hired brass and a lot of 6V6.
Musical taste also changed of course. The rise of the 'popular beat combo'...
I've only ever been to one big band gig, Syd Lawrence with a full band at a company do of my then partner. It was amazing, all that music I'd grown up listening to on my dads 78's and LPs there, live and LOUD. Honestly, I can't express how wonderful it was. I can't dance, but for the first (and more or less only) time in my life I wanted to. It was astonishing. I was forced to leave early because my then partner didn't like the music. It was the very beginning of the end of our relationship....
There are parts of Vaughn Williams Job: A Masque For Dancing that still make me cry when I hear them. I have no idea why. I heard it first on the radio, when I was 19. It was a weird, emotional and unsettling experience that I've never had before or since. It was like I'd known the music for my whole life while, simultaneously never having heard it before. Auditory cognitive dissonance or something...
I've only ever been to one big band gig, Syd Lawrence with a full band at a company do of my then partner. It was amazing, all that music I'd grown up listening to on my dads 78's and LPs there, live and LOUD. Honestly, I can't express how wonderful it was. I can't dance, but for the first (and more or less only) time in my life I wanted to. It was astonishing. I was forced to leave early because my then partner didn't like the music. It was the very beginning of the end of our relationship....
There are parts of Vaughn Williams Job: A Masque For Dancing that still make me cry when I hear them. I have no idea why. I heard it first on the radio, when I was 19. It was a weird, emotional and unsettling experience that I've never had before or since. It was like I'd known the music for my whole life while, simultaneously never having heard it before. Auditory cognitive dissonance or something...
So many...
The evil corrupter of youth is going to take him from Step One, which is a mere high-school diploma stuffed with a gym sock, to Step Two, which is a college-degree stuffed with absolutely nothing at all. Smoke that and it'll really get you out there!
No no, the college-degree is stuffed with absolutely nothing at all, you get... you get nothing with your college-degree...
Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Roxy and Elsewhere.
Not too many years ago I was digging through my records.. and lo and behold I found a brand new, still sealed copy of this LP. I must have bought it in the early 80s and never got around to playing it.
Obviously, Zappa never got a Physics degree, huh? Mine was stuffed with a coupon of loan payments. 🙂
Exactly: arts and especially music can give you the experience that there is more than our material world...
My view: maths.
Personally I love drum beats and chanting, and "rap".
Ha... made me think of this:
Personally I love drum beats and chanting, and "rap".
How come when I read all these Zappa quotes I hear them - clearly - in his voice in my head? Quite an imprint...
