Public Radio for Acadiana, KRVS 88.7 FM, Lafayette, Lakeshawls.
What you don't know won't hurt you. Here's the theme.
Hello there, I'm Peter Shickley. And this is Shickley Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good.
Good deal. Our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also by my home away from home, this here radio station.
There's an old vaudeville joke, so old in fact that P.D. Kubach used it in his great cantata, Blauus Gras, the bluegrass cantata. See, a carpenter is building a house for a guy and he asks him,
do you want us to build this house from the bottom up or from the top down? And the owner says, well, from the bottom up, naturally. Rats, says the carpenter. Now we have to tear it down and start all over again.
In our culture, if you ask somebody to sing a scale and the response isn't say what, they're almost certain to sing the scale going up.
But I'm told that if you asked ancient Greeks the same thing, they would sing the scale from the top down. Or whatever scale they used. Now isn't that something?
How wrong they were about that? I mean, they wrote such great plays and made such fine statues and bank buildings and everything, and yet they sang their scales backwards.
Well, usually when we music professionals talk about building chords, we work from the bottom up as well. In other words...
But that's not always the way it developed historically. At least not according to some of the liner notes I've read. Let's go back to basics. Let's go back to the basics here. Say you've made up this great melody.
And by the way, I'm playing these examples on my authentic instruments, and no complaints from you purists out there. Authentic, early 1990s Casio tone bank with built-in, like it or lump it, reverb.
Anyway, here's that melody.
You're right to be proud. It's very nice.
Now, you don't want to just have the melody all by itself. You want to have a fuller sound, a richer texture. And you've ruled out drums because your parents are living there.
And the slightest mention of drums sets off a tirade about how the Budapest String Quartet didn't have to have drums, and neither did Burl Ives or the Weavers. So you want to have other voices or instruments adding notes.
Well, you've got a bunch of options. I guess the simplest is adding a drone, a note that stays the same all the time.
That's what a bagpipe is, a drone and a melody. I'm very partial to drones myself. Or you can harmonize the melody. Figure out notes down there that maybe don't move as fast as the melody,
just to make it easy there.
I guess they do move as fast as the melody. But anyway, that's a harmonization. That's one thing you can do. Or you can make up another melody that goes with it, a counter melody.
But what if you decide that you want the other parts to do something that has a direct relation to your melody? You think your melody is so great that you don't want anybody doing anything else.
Well, there are two obvious possibilities. One is, have the other parts do the same melody, but not at the same time. And if you're lucky, it'll work.
I hope you can get people who can play better than I can.
That leads to rounds and cannons and fugues and all sorts of other good stuff that we deal with on other shows. And the remaining obvious, simple possibility is to have the additional part or parts
do the same melody at the same time, but starting on different notes. Okay, have the other one go down four.
Okay, that little weird, maybe this one. You could have all three of those. In other words, both the ones below.
Or you could have the other voice be above the melody. Here's the melody, go up there.
Now it's this last technique that we're going to explore here. Using other music, music you didn't write. Here are two beautiful unaccompanied melodies.
One from many centuries ago and one comparatively recent. They're both religious pieces, and when the first one was composed, Catholic church choirs were men-only institutions.
But we're going to have women do all the honors in these examples. Since there's only one part, this kind of music is called monody.
Now I'm going tooverplay a passage. First, this is Monody. .
. . . . .
. . . .
to Rome, a city called heaven, I've started to make it my home.
My father has reached the bright glory, my father is struggling in sin, my brothers and
sisters won't own me, because I'm trying to get in, sometimes I'm tossed and driven,
I know not where to roam, I've heard of a city called heaven,
I've started to make it my home.
Our little pair of examples of monody began with an offertory, Felix Namkwe, sung by a
beautiful group of four women calling themselves Anonymous Four. This is from a spectacular album called An English Lady Mass.
And the words are, Happy art thou, O sacred Virgin Mary, and most worthy of all. All praise is how it starts.
And then, from a Gene Ritchie album, a hymn called Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow. She says in the notes that it's an old regular Baptist hymn as it was sung in the Little
Zion Church in Jeff, Kentucky. It was sung often in the deep winter months when folks had time to think about life's hardships. Now let's add a parallel voice to the monotic texture.
Here's a bit of Medieval Plains. It's a song that goes back more than a millennium.
Sit gloria Domini in saecula, leti bitur Dominus in operibus suis.
Now we'll add the same melody starting four steps lower. One, two, three, four. And it sounds like this.
Okay.
Now if you take those two parts and double them an octave higher with tenors, here's how it sounds.
Sit gloria Domini in saecula, leti bitur Dominus in operibus suis.
Recording is almost as old as the Plains song. The history of music and sound. And I guess that was the beginning. It was the Brompton Oratory Choir singing an organum.
Sit gloria Domini saecula, may the glory of the Lord abide forever. So let's hear a couple of examples of two voices singing mostly, but not exclusively, in parallel motion.
Again, one is old, the other pretty recent. Since there are two parts going here, we'll call it duody, but I wouldn't use that term on your music appreciation exam if I were you.
Okay.
No. Let's try it again. Okay.
Now we're going to sing the one that just came out, and we're going to use it here.
Okay. Here we go.
Here we go.
Okay. Here we go. Here we go.
Here we go.
I don't feel pity, nor do I feel love, I am the ghost of my past, I am one of the souls that God has forgotten, I had a love that was my life, but the biggest was my torment, when he truly abandoned me.
I am the one that comes, very welcome, if she wants to go, she just leaves, and there will come others, others and others, and today the one that goes is the same.
I am not one of those that when they see each other alone, they want to kill each other or avenge their love, on the contrary, I sold her.
I am the one that comes, very welcome, if she wants to go, she just leaves, and there will come others, others and others, and today the one that goes is the same.
And then we heard the Sisters Cantu doing a number called La Ke Sella, Whoever Comes Along. I wander the world without direction, without feeling shame, and without feeling love.
I am only the ghost of my past, one of those souls that God has forgotten. And the song is actually from the point of view of a man, and apparently that was very common in these songs.
It was assumed that a woman, if she was a professional singer when she got married, she would retire and bring up her family. And the songs, many of them, were like that.
of which were on jukeboxes in cantinas, were from the male viewpoint. There were some women, by the way, who didn't do that, who continued to sing. This is from an Arjuli album, The Tejano Roots, The Women.
My name is Peter Shickley, and the program is Shickley Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Okay, it's on to three voices doing the same melody, but starting on different notes. The most common three-part sound to move around is this one.
Here's an example from the 13th century. Once again, it's not parallel all the time, but often.
The Bodley Singers, on that History of Music in Sound set of LPs recorded in a 13th century recording studio, singing the conductus beatificera, Blessed is the Womb.
Now let's hear a pair of, well, more sprightly examples, of three-part parallelism. Let's see, monody, duody, why not triody?
Oh, the pain, you just can't stand to see me happy, to see me hurt, still I ain't got love in you, understand.
Oh, the pain of loving you, oh, the misery I go through, never knowing what to do at the same time.
The line between the two is fine, but you have bound me hard.
And so, so strong that I can't let you go.
Oh, the pain of loving you, oh, the misery I go through, never knowing what to do at the same time.
Okay, the two best girl groups around. Anonymous 4 and the Trio Gang, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt. Emmylou Harris.
The Anonymous 4 from this wonderful album, and English Lady Mass, we're doing the Gloria. And you know, it's wonderful what's happened in my lifetime to the performance of old music.
When you hear that old recording that I played earlier, that scratchy old thing, forget about the quality of the recording. The music, it was important that they brought that to the fore.
But still, it's quite stuffy sounding, the performance, compared to now when these groups are so zingy and zippy. It's tremendous. Anyway, from Trio, The Pain of Loving You.
And you faithful listeners, I know I've used it before, but hey, what can I tell you? Love that song. All right.
When you've got your strict triody going, the same melody at three different levels, what do you have at any given time? You've got a chord.
Now, you can get into a good argument about whether it's possible to have a two-note chord or not. But hey, I'm easy. Let's skip that. Most people would say that a chord has at least three differently named notes.
And the chords we heard most of in our examples were the major triad and the minor triad.
They are the most commonly used chords during the last 500 years or so. And we deal with them extensively on another edition of this program. Today's show is called Splitting the Octave.
And what I want to point out now is that... Major and minor triads divide the octave asymmetrically.
Now, a semitone is the smallest interval on the piano, the distance from any key to its nearest neighbor. That's a semitone.
Just remember, four quarts in a gallon, three feet in a yard, two semitones in a whole step. Now, if you count out the semitones between the notes of a major triad, here's what you get.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three. One, two, three, four, five. Brings you back up to the octave. Four, three, and five. In other words, completely asymmetrical. And that's what gives the chord its distinction.
And it's also what makes it possible to have 12 different major triads. If you move them up here...
In addition to sounding like you're at the ballgame, it's also true that you don't hit the same three notes until you get all the way up to the top octave there.
Now, what happens if you divide the octave symmetrically? There are 12 semitones. What if you divide by four? One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
Back up at the octave here. That's called an augmented triad. And the reason it sounds so unsettling is that it is symmetrical, which means you can't get your bearings.
It's like the difference between a treasure map and a big orchard. It's like the difference between a treasure map and a big orchard. A treasure map says you start at the tall tree and walk towards the large rock.
Now, that assumes that the tree is taller than the other trees and the rock is larger than the other rocks. What if you're in the middle of a huge orchard? All the trees are the same size. They're all planted in rows.
You can't tell where you are. That may be one of the worst analogies ever perpetrated. But maybe not. There's something to it. Anyway, the augmented triad and the scale associated with it, the whole tone scale,
which is also the scale of the whole tone scale, is also symmetrical. Two notes, two semitones between each pair of notes.
That also makes you feel rootless, which is why the whole tone scale and the augmented triad are so often used for dream sequences or flashbacks.
I shall never forget the night that Gerard smoked his handkerchief. Gerard, I said. You're smoking your handkerchief. Bug off, he said.
And that's the last.
Okay, now what if you divide the octave by three semitones? One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.
You get what's called a diminished seventh chord. And it too, being symmetrical, feels rootless and unsettling. But it seems to have more tension than the augmented triad.
It can produce a feeling of dread or anxiety. And was employed by silent movie accompanists when somebody was in trouble.
So here's a little suite that has three numbers in it. The first is based primarily on major and minor triads. The second primarily on augmented triads and whole tone scales. And the last primarily on diminished seventh chords
and a nice scale organized around a diminished seventh chord. There'll be a test on this later.
Now let me emphasize that, as in most music, there's a lot of extra stuff thrown in here, passing tones, sexy added notes. But the basic harmonic organization involves major and minor triads in the first selection,
augmented triads and whole-tone scales in the second, and diminished seventh chords in the last. See you in about 7 1⁄2 minutes.
That was the Splitting the Octaves Suite.
It began with the Royal Garden Blues, played by the sextet from Hunger on an old 45 that I have. Then we heard Walter Gieseking playing the second prelude from the first book of Debussy's Preludes, Voile.
And then finally, part of the third movement of L'Ascension, the Ascension, by Messiaen, conducted by Stokowski. And it's the London Symphony Orchestra.
I'm Peter Shickley, and this is Shickley Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International. Here's an interesting little factoid concerning the diminished seventh.
During the Baroque and Classical periods, the time of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert, and the heyday of what is sometimes described as traditional harmony,
the only chord that composers ever moved up and down the chromatic or semitone scale was the old diminished seventh. You hear this.
Major and minor triads being moved up and down a major scale. But you don't hear this. Moving. Moving a major triad up or down a chromatic scale, or any other chord,
except our nerve-wracking friend, the diminished seventh chord. Here's a little snippet from Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds. Hearing it isolated like this almost makes you feel as if you're watching a silent movie.
Now our last suite is the Uh-Oh Suite. Three pieces that feature diminished or diminished seventh chords sliding around in one way or another.
In the first number, don't be fooled by the weird ascending effect produced by, manipulating a tape recorder. It's right after that, in the mock melodrama section, that the diminished harmonies appear. Don't get upset.
The Uh-Oh Suite is only about seven and a half minutes long.
Silken hair, more silken hair fell on her face and no wind was blowing.
Silken hair, more silken hair lay near her pillbox down at her feet.
And on a dry weekend, and I saw she'd lost her hair.
I thought I would tell her when she saw her shining forehead didn't stop.
She swooned to the ground, really flipped her waist so hard. I cool, I blew myself over.
La la la la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la la la la.
She drew a comb across her scalp and brushed what she had left. I tried to salvage what I could and threw it in a sack. She made it be lined to a room and grabbed all kind of juice.
She started pouring it on her head and thought it'd grow it back.
You're too late, mama.
Ain't nothing upside your head.
Nothing upside your head.
You're too late, mama. Ain't nothing upside your head.
Nothing upside your head.
You're too late, mama.
Ain't nothing upside your head.
Here come the diminished seventh chords now.
He tied her up.
He turned on the buzz.
And then, and then, and then a long day, John.
We're talking, John.
Commercial came on, so I got up to get myself a snack. You should have seen what was going on.
Right on in the old abandoned heaven fence. Grabbed her.
And then, he tied her up. And then, he lit the fuse to the dynamite. And then, and then, and then a long day. John.
So talking, John.
So long, great mommy. Thank you, John.
Another show.
But there was the same old shoe-up-up and the same old road-biddle. Salty Sam was a-trying to stuff sweet Sue in a burlap sack.
He said, if you don't give me the deed to your ransom, I'll throw you on the railroad track.
And then, he grabbed her.
And then, he tied her up. And then, he threw her on the railroad track.
And then, he dragged her.
And then, he started coming.
And then, and then, and then a long day, John. Then, John. John.
The Uh-Oh Suite began with the Beach Boys.
She's gone bald off the Smiley Smile album. Trevor Pinnock playing the gig from the first partita by Bach. And the Coasters singing Along Came Jones.
We're splitting octaves. We're going to sing along. The Beach Boys are splitting hair. I think it's time to split.
And that's Sickly Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also by this radio station and its members.
We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with record numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 51.
And this is Peter Sickly saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to
Sickly Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E. Sickly Mix. If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Sickly Mix.
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