[Rhodes22-list] One of My Favorites

Sun Jun 5 20:52:22 EDT 2011

Rick, fascinating. I know very little about African language/melody. But I
do know it's very pentatonic.  I once saw Lady Smith Mbaso (Sp?) live and
every song was in the same key!  Drove me crazy.

Slimbaboa

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Rick <sloopblueheron at gmail.com> wrote:

> Slim,
>
> The affect of language on melody is profound.  I lived in a traditional
> West
> African community inhabited by two tribal groups, both with tonal
> languages.
>
> The majority tribe has a language of hunters useful for long distance
> communication.  Every syllable begins with a hard consonant with a lot of
> "desert", "dessert" situations.  And their numbering system is base five.
> So their music is very rhythmic with lots of syncopation using an augmented
> pentatonic scale.
>
> The language of the minority group sounds almost like Italian.  And their
> music sounds like arias.  The melody of Amazing Grace is commonly
> attributed
> to people of this tribe.
>
> The thing is, dual speakers never use the words of one language to the
> melodies of the other.  That would be a song of gibberish.
>
> Rick
>
> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 5:30 PM, Slim Chance <slimsails at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello, Lee.  It's hard to imagine and silly to think about Foxworthy
> taking
> > anything so seriously as playing the flute in the orchestra, but he's all
> I
> > could think about while watching that guy.  So 70s!
> >
> > Re Tchaikovsky, The Russians tried not to like him because his
> compositions
> > were so Germanic -- sort of like Beethoven -- and not at all Russian.
>  They
> > saw him as something of a turncoat.  In fact he spurred a movement of
> other
> > Russian composers, e.g., Rimsky-Korsekov, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev
> > and
> > Qui to form what became know as the "Mighty Five" who undertook to write
> > specifically Russian music.  Nevertheless Tchaikovsky continued to win
> over
> > the hearts of people with his wonderful sense of melody, imagination,
> > orchestration, etc. and the nation was rocked by his death at age 53.  A
> > controversy to this day, some say he died of Cholera and others say
> suicide
> > because of his admitted homosexuality.  But, yeah, I love his stuff too!
> >
> > A little tidbit on typical Russian melody:  The Russian language has no
> > articles -- "a" or "the" -- so when we say "The cup is on a table" they
> > would say "Cup is on table."   Western European melodies, both folk
> > melodies
> > and formal classical melodies we often use "pick-up" notes. For example
> in
> > "Happy Birthday"  the "Happy" is a pick-up and "Birth" comes in on beat
> > one.  Or in "Amazing Grace" the "A" is a pick-up and "Maz" is beat one.
> > Still with me?  The technical musical term for this is called an
> anacrusis.
> > When we say "The cup is on a table" the '"the" is like a pick-up and
> > "table"
> > is beat one.  Russian melodies rarely use pick-up notes in their melodies
> > and most often begin right on beat one so that  parallels their language
> as
> > it should.  In "Cup is on table"  "Cup" is beat one.  Tchaikovsky's
> > melodies
> > are filled with pick-ups therfore very un-Russian.
> >
> > Class dismissed.
> >
> > Slimsky Slimsnakovskya  8-)
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Leland <LKUHN at cnmc.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Slim,
> > >
> > > Excellent--thanks for sharing.  "You may be a redneck" if you associate
> > > Foxworthy with Bernstein, although the resemblance is uncanny.
> > >
> > > We had two classes in school where they would take a picture of each
> > class
> > > and if someone was in your seat every time you received an "A" and for
> > each
> > > class you missed you could make it up with a short paper.  The classes
> > were
> > > Theater Appreciation and Music Listen Lab.  Unfortunately I mistakenly
> > > enrolled in Music Appreciation which was absolutely one of the most
> > > difficult and time-consuming classes I ever took.  In retrospect it may
> > > have
> > > been the most useful class because I've spent far more time listening
> to
> > > classical music than using anything else I learned in college.  I still
> > > love
> > > Rock-n-Roll but it's tough to beat Tchaikovsky's greatest hits.
> > >
> > > Lee
> > > 1986 Rhodes22  AT EASE
> > > Kent Island, MD
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Slim Chance wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Some of you remember me as a rocker but I grew up with a classical
> > > > background.  Back in the the 60s There was a weekly TV program called
> > > > Leonard Bernstein's Young Peoples' Concert which I never missed.  I
> > > > believe
> > > > LB to be arguably the greatest American musician of all.  Maybe Louis
> > > > Armstrong, Bernstein, Armstrong, Bernstein Armstrong.  Obviously for
> > > > different reasons.  But check this out and please also watch the
> second
> > > > part
> > > > where he conducts the reprise with his face alone.  This video also
> > > > features
> > > > Jeff Foxworthy on flute!
> > > >
> > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlURvraEmeY
> > > > __________________________________________________
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> archives
> > go
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> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > View this message in context:
> > > http://old.nabble.com/One-of-My-Favorites-tp31772916p31777889.html
> > > Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> > >
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