Grandpa Vinny

Me: Vinny, who are we going to see tomorrow?
Vinny: Grandma Marvis and Grandpa!!
Me: That's right -- Grandma Marvis and Grandpa John!
Vinny: Who's Grandpa John?
Me: You know, Grandpa! His name is John. Like Vinny. In fact, when you're really old, someday, you'll be Grandpa Vinny!
Vinny: Grandpa Vinny?!?! Hahahahahaha!!!!!

Music I Like: Mille Regretz by Josquin Des Prez

Josquin Des Prez was a composer from the late 1400s/early 1500s, who is often referred to as "The Beethoven of the Renaissance." This is because Josquin was not only prolific but also had a great influence on the way that music evolved. Josquin is my favorite Renaissance composer, and I plan to share another piece by him in this series at some point.

His most famous composition is "Mille Regretz" -- the lament of one thousand regrets at abandoning one's beloved. It was a popular tune at the time -- you can tell because many people used it in writing church masses, which was the thing to do with popular music at the time. Listen to this recording by the King's Singers:



I chose this recording because it is the most beautiful interpretation of Mille Regretz that I have ever heard. Every time I hear it, I feel those thousand regrets. I love both the melody and the harmony. The rise and fall of the melody evoke the same emotional turmoil as the words do.

The King's Singers have modernized it somewhat -- the dynamics, such as the big crescendo at 0:42 (Jay si grand dueil...), and the phrasing, such as the short pause at 1:25 and the rallentando (slowing down) of the last phrases are additions by the King's Singers. But I really think this goes to show how timeless this piece of music is -- it's still accessible 500 years after it was composed. Josquin was a masterful composer.

Travel Plans

It's that time of year again -- conference time! Once again I am in charge of signage at this conference with 10,000+ attendees. And once again Jeff is going to go along with me. And once again we're leaving Vinny with Grandpa and Grandma for over a week. I think he's going to have a blast. Or at least I hope so.

This year we'll be in Portland, Oregon. We'll head to my dad and bonus mom's place on Wednesday, and Jeff and I fly out early Thursday morning. We'll come back the following Saturday.

Did I mention that next year, I'm just going to attend the conference? Because I am. Remind me of that before I go and volunteer for another job.

Proof Positive that He Loves Me

Jeff bought me a gigantic book of KenKen puzzles and a book of Kakuro puzzles.

Music I Like: Pachelbel's Canon (Sort of)

So, I've been ragging on Pachelbel's Canon all week. And in fact, I do hate Pachelbel's Canon. I'm lucky to now be in my mid-30's, and therefore beyond the age when my friends are having church weddings, so I'm not often forced to endure another performance of that dreadful piece of music.

But, truthfully, there are some really cool things about Pachelbel's Canon. Okay actually, there's only one cool thing about Pachelbel's Canon, and that's its chord progression. The cool thing is that it's a harmonization of a descending major scale. In other words, if you start on the right note, and sing a major scale downward for an octave (i.e., the D two octaves above middle C down to the D just above middle C), your pitches are harmonized by Pachelbel's Canon.

If you listen to the radio, it's just a matter of time before you hear a song that follows the same chord progression as Pachelbel's Canon. In fact, serendipitously, I heard one just last night as I was composing this post in my head! It's Don't Pull Your Love Out on Me, Baby, which was sung by Elvis (both on the radio last night and in the link). Other songs you may have heard that follow this chord progression (with slight variations) include "A Lighter Shade of Pale" and "When a Man Loves a Woman."

But my favorite song that follows this chord progression is one that you've undoubtedly heard but never realized that it was so similar to Pachelbel's Canon. In part this is because this piece descends a minor scale rather than a major scale. (Okay, maybe it's also because you never suspected that Pachelbel's Canon was so pervasive!)

The song I'm talking about is Hotel California.

If you transposed Pachelbel's Canon into a minor key, you could harmonize the verses in Hotel California with it. (The chorus is different.) Try singing the transposed-to-minor cello part along with the Eagles in this video:



I picked the above video because it's the Eagles performing Hotel California live, and I enjoyed watching them have such a great time playing. Listen to their somewhat improvisational introduction, and see when you can recognize that it's Hotel California. Admittedly, knowing the title of the video put me at an advantage, but I recognized it long before the audience caught on.

Music I like: Beethoven's 5th Symphony

I picked Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to share first because everybody knows the first movement. Yes, the first movement is waaay overplayed, but I like it because, well, there's not much music that can stand up to being that overplayed and still be so compelling that I regularly listen to it of my own volition. So hats off to Ludwig van Beethoven for composing such an excellent piece!

What do I like about it? Well, it's not the melody, I can promise you that. I mean, "be-be-be-baaah"... what kind of a melody is that? Not a good one.

In fact, something I really love about Beethoven is that he can take these crappy, almost non-melodies, and just do something amazing with them!

In each movement of a symphony, there's a primary theme and a secondary theme. Here, the primary theme is what opens the movement, and the secondary theme begins at about the 0:49 mark. I've already dissed the primary theme, but to its credit, the secondary theme is a little more melodious. What is Beethoven going to do with these two themes?

He modulates them, changes keys and modes, and generally mixes each one up. At 2:55, the primary theme appears again, this time changed to a slightly different interval. And the secondary theme pops up again too. But the thing he does to combine them is what keeps me coming back for another listen.

At 5:12, he uses the primary theme as a fanfare introduction to the reprise of the secondary theme. He modulates the second theme from C major through a minor key, and beginning at about 5:32 the cellos and basses start playing in the rhythm of the primary theme. And gradually, the second theme takes on more and more characteristics of the primary theme until before we know it, we're back to the primary theme!

I actually like the third and fourth movements of this symphony the best (although I like my scherzo and allegro substantially slower than the videos I've linked to). When I listen to the fourth movement, I feel like I could do anything -- it's just so triumphant and powerful! I love the reprise of the C-minor scherzo theme in the middle of it (at roughly 5:20) -- it's like you have this triumphant feeling, then you see this potential problem, but you know you can overcome it and end on a positive note -- 29 bars of fortissimo C-major chords, to be exact. There's no better ending than that!

Music and Performers

My sister Rachel, in an effort to ruin my life, comments on my previous post:

Seeing the word "composer" there toward the end has me wondering: do you ever like a piece of music because of the performer, more than the composer? People who are really into opera, for example, are often quite picky about which performers they want to hear interpret which pieces. Vivaldi's 4 Seasons is pretty blah to me UNLESS it's Perlman playing it (that's the one we grew up with, I guess, and I prefer his interpretation).

When you get into popular music, the question becomes even more difficult to untangle, I guess. You get people performing their own music, covering each other's music, performing music by professional songwriters, performing traditional songs. There's much more scope for individual interpretation there, and again, a song that may be so-so may get a lift from someone else's touch (or may not - I can't think of a single Beatles cover I like better than the original).

A long way toward saying: sometimes it's not the music that's most awesome, it's the performance.

Sure, a performer can make or break a piece of music, I'll grant you that. Perlman playing a piece is going to sound a lot better than me playing it, because even assuming that it's within my skill level, his interpretation is going to be more nuanced and his execution is going to be better.

There are plenty of cases where the individual(s) performing the piece completely ruins it. For example, I abhor Rod Stewart because his voice makes me want to forcibly remove my eardrums. The Mommas and the Papas have some pretty good songs, but when I listen to their poor intonation I want to reach through the radio and change the record to something else.

Likewise, a good performer can make anything sound good. If I had to listen to Pachelbel's Canon, I'd want to hear it played by somebody good like Perlman, because it would be the best Pachelbel's Canon that it could be.

An example of the cover being better than the original would have to be anything by Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is proof positive that the American Dream is true -- anyone, if they work hard enough, can succeed. Because, lemme tell you, I don't know how else he got to be such a well-known performer. His voice is just miserable -- an unpleasant tone, poor intonation -- he's just terrible! But, he writes really good songs, and for example, Joan Baez singing "Blowing in the Wind" is great (and a huge improvement over him singing it!). Simon and Garfunkel also did a cover of "The Times Are A-Changin" which was far superior to the original.

I could hear the song immediately, but it took me another 20 minutes to remember enough of the lyrics to reconstruct that last title, which brings me to another point that I should have made in yesterday's post: I mostly ignore song lyrics.

It is profoundly difficult for me to remember the lyrics to a song. I'm lucky to remember how to sing the alphabet song with Vinny -- it almost seems like the only reason I can remember it is because I know the alphabet. I enjoy singing to him every night, but I have an extremely limited repertoire of "real" songs that I can sing, because while I know thousands of tunes, I cannot for the life of me remember more than a dozen lyrics. It's kind of embarrassing to admit to this.

To me, the voice is just another instrument. This explains why it's easy for an atheist such as myself can listen to so much medieval and Renaissance music,* which was really centered on Jesus. And why I enjoyed playing gospel music during my workplace's annual black history celebrations. The lyrics hardly register.

That being said, there are some songs with lyrics that have made their way past my incomprehension, which I cannot bear to hear. Those songs include "Hard-Headed Woman" (Elvis' tribute to misogyny), "Under My Thumb" (The Rolling Stones' foray into controlling abuse), and this certain song by some asshole from the 60's in which the lyrics make him sound like a creepy pedophile. And for that last one, since all his songs sound alike, any time he's on the radio I have to change the damn station, because I get the dry heaves every time I hear his voice.

Anyhow, now that I have all that out of the way, next time I promise to actually talk about a piece of music that I like.

* Yeah, it's mostly in Latin, but it's simple enough to translate.