Interesting that you mention nursery rhymes, as this genre is something I refer to when teaching 6/8 time - Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep, Here we go round the Mulberry Bush, Hickory Dickory Dock, Girls and Boys Come Out to Play, Hey Diddle Diddle...
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A very fair point. Apparently, they use 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 6/8. 15 year olds might require something less sophisticated.Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
The waltz is important. Here are a hundred pop songs in 3/4 -
You might have noticed that I often write on this forum in four sentence sections. This occurred in my 30s, first materialising on the page in front of me, and only then did I notice it. Since then, I have consciously applied it. I have asked myself why but have never found a satisfactory answer. Among the many possibilities are that it feels like a logical approach to presenting logical arguments and that it plays to an instinct in me for order. That is, not in terms of ordering about but placing things tidily and appropriately. Somehow other styles can feel haphazard or incomplete. It doesn't mean that those things don't have merits too.
I am sure a part of it involves contrast with an external day to day that is often quite the opposite. There is a lot of disorder - for everyone in the way that life is led and also for me now in terms of daily time structure. I am also different in my approaches to things away from paper. While I keep paper records as a librarian would do, I have never been particularly tidy in other matters. Not that I am untidy. It is just that I am often incredibly muddled when it comes to where I put a cup of tea or a jacket and I can't paint a wall to save my life. Much as Seamus Heaney suggests in the poem 'Digging', those who are impractical build to some extent in writing as only they know how. He saw it as a lesser thing but I am not as critical of the range of abilities people display.
I think these things have something of a bearing on the 4/4 time signature in pop music. Pop music comes and goes. It reflects the fleeting aspects of life but it is also required to be an identifiable, solid, orderly, and connective reference point. In that sense, it is a building or a town that is familiar to us all, even if we don't all have knowledge of the recent material. At the same time, it hasn't come and gone as many people expected. The BBC binned many episodes of TOTP in the 1960s believing that there would be no interest in them in future decades. Its longevity might be linked both to that 4/4 time signature and the need for symbolic anchors. Classical music serves a similar purpose across centuries but in the media age a common view of history is 'in our own lifetimes'.Last edited by Guest; 22-01-13, 14:35.Comment
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Oh goodOriginally posted by Mr Pee View PostI apologise for my ill-tempered reaction to Mr. GG's earlier comment, but it was a personal attack- again- that I thought was wholly unwarranted. He seems to resort to this tactic time and time again and it is deeply tiresome, to put it mildly.
Anyway, to preserve my blood pressure and in order not to inflame matters further I shall confine my attention to other threads.
If anything was a "personal attack" it was your message #15
but back On Task ......
The point about being bipeds is importantComment
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Can I just add one further idea? It is that music in 'the' common form, 4/4, might suggest a greater awareness of receipt by an audience whereas that in other forms may place the accent on self-expression. There could also be a distinction between mass audience and a specialist audience in a musician's selection of time signature. It is not that an accent on self-expression finds no connection with an audience - far from it - but it does require an audience which is prepared to meet the artist on his/her terms.
Of all the musical styles, I am probably thinking of jazz here.Comment
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Not sure I follow you entirely, Lat, but, almost on thread, here's the great Wilko Johnson (on the left) and co. connecting with their audience - I see from today's Times that he is dying from cancer and is undertaking a few farewell gigs.Comment
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The simplified shuffle 2/2 tum-to-tum-to-tum blues-based railroad beat has been built on, basically, by cultural importations, amended, exported back to countries in which what we call complex rhythms have for as long as is known been the norm, and re-imported re-amended to western cultures in various degrees of camouflage, most noticeable of which possibly being the domineering backbeat. It is largely a matter of western industrial interests refracting through neocultural imperialism by way of the music industry. To what extent music is capable of changing history, a dream of some in the 60s and 70s, will I think be seen in the extent to which the demise of mass reproduction music retail outlets frees creativity from the clutches of its erstwhile control, allowing musicians to do what they want. But for that to eventuate will require openess to musical influences beyond those the existence of which most if not all have little knowledge. Who, then, will be able to claim this, rather than that, elitist?Comment
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Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View PostI think it is a bit like sales and profits of music are based on the number of vehicles you can get on a motorway. 100 people want instructions on how to get from A to B. You know that over 90 of them want the quickest, easiest and most identifiable route and that fortunately means the motorway. You provide instructions to them accordingly - that is probably your 4/4 pop record.Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
You are also aware of some rural routes that a few might prefer if they knew about them. They would have to forget about some of their pre-conceived ideas. For example, you tell them that the terms are that they will need a map and it will take a bit more time. They accept the idea on the terms - your terms - because they can see the benefits. That isn't your 4/4 pop record.Comment
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Time is money.
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This got a bit lost among squabbles so I'm shamelessly repeating it! If you try nothing else, do listen to the Radiohead "Subterranean Homesick Alien", one of the most beautiful songs in any genre. (12/8, I think).Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostComment
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Jayne - Thank you for being interested in this part of the forum. I often read your reviews on classical CDs which are exceptionally good. Your post taught me quite a lot. I was not surprised by the inclusion of 'Golden Brown' but was fascinated by the complexity of 'Hey Ya' and have always loved 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. It was played on the radio on the last journey we ever did after seeing my Nan and it still very much has that association 31 years on.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
Not a Radiohead fan, I have to say, although I like three well-known songs on 'The Bends'. If you have a chance, compare Radiohead's 'Creep' with the Hollies' 'The Air That I Breathe', not in terms of time signature but generally. I often play 'Golden Brown' after The Beatles' 'Norwegian Wood' and Bob Dylan's '4th Time Around'. Only the latter two have a known connection and the Stranglers' song isn't quite the same but it does have similarities.Last edited by Guest; 23-01-13, 23:26.Comment
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Some parallels there Lat! Thanks. (Norwegian Wood/Golden Brown!). "Air that I breathe" soundtracked my later childhood with other Hollies songs...
As for "Creep" - ! Had I never heard this or just forgotten it? Gorgeous, Radiohead in their spare and bare with explosions mode.
"I'm just a creep, I don't belong here..." Gosh. That's me.
Sometimes feel I'm a rock fan who got into classical by mistake, looking for more... intensity? Guess I'll stick around to annoy and (try to) enlighten the forum some more. (I'll try not to annoy.) ...But I was hoping someone would hear "Subterranean" for the first time and go..."!!!"Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 24-01-13, 00:24.Comment
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I listened to it and enjoyed it. Do they really make home movies though? I always feel that the eyes of our loved ones are in the sunshine. It is just a part of me who is on the moon. We travel round the world very freely in these spaces. Mainly we are on flights of fancy. It is Lucy Duran who does the routine chores - clambering over mountains with goatherds and scything through rainforests in a tuk-tuk. People who don’t belong here are especially welcome and Global Truth never checks the passports.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
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What! What! What! I have to provide Mr GT with photo ID and a recent utility bill at the start of each Max LJ stint.Originally posted by Lateralthinking1 View PostPeople who don’t belong here are especially welcome and Global Truth never checks the passports.Comment
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Those cash payments? No need to mention them old boy.Originally posted by johncorrigan View Post
They all go to help reduce the deficit, so you can feel good about it - no need to feel bad...
Last edited by Globaltruth; 24-01-13, 10:25.Comment
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