Pay attention at about the 12:30 mark. The ensuing section is pure magic.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Something for Thursday
I'm on a bit of a Leonard Bernstein kick of late, so here's Lenny conducting his own Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Pay attention at about the 12:30 mark. The ensuing section is pure magic.
Pay attention at about the 12:30 mark. The ensuing section is pure magic.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
A Vignette
It was still pretty chilly that night, but evidently the elderly lady didn't care: it was April and winter had been officially 'over' for three weeks and dammit, she just didn't care. She was going out with the top down. So out she went, into the garage, to pull the cover off her beloved powder-blue convertible Volkswagen Beetle. Then she suited up in her jogging suit of large, splotchy purple and pink flowers, threw a scarf around her neck, and back the car out of the garage.
It was late afternoon, and the shadows were long. The day was still bright, though, because in this neck of the woods, in mid-April the trees have still not quite begun to leaf out, so those long shadows are narrow and spindly. It's the time of year when the sun is bright and warm as long as the wind isn't blowing too hard, and when it's still quite brisk and cold when you're in the shade. It's the time of year when people who own convertibles and motorcycles get them out and endure the chill, just because they want the wind in their hair.
That's what this lady wanted: the wind in her hair, even though her hair was short and gray and styled to within an inch of its life. She was going out in her convertible, dammit! And that's just what she did. She backed out of her garage, a bit jerky at first, and then she sat at the very end of her driveway, looking this way and that and this and that and this again, waiting for the perfect moment. Finally, after waiting for a guy out for a walk to scoot past her car (and he looked like he wasn't entirely sure he trusted her not to gun the gas as soon as he was directly behind her), she backed out into the road, turned, and sped down the road.
She had to feel liberated and free! There's something especially wondrous in that first taste of spring wind and that first feel or spring sun upon your face. But it's still...cold. The feeling of freedom is fleeting, replaced quickly by the fact that you're still freezing.
So she came back five minutes later, parked her beloved Beetle with the top back up, and went back inside to make some tea. Still, summer's coming.
It was late afternoon, and the shadows were long. The day was still bright, though, because in this neck of the woods, in mid-April the trees have still not quite begun to leaf out, so those long shadows are narrow and spindly. It's the time of year when the sun is bright and warm as long as the wind isn't blowing too hard, and when it's still quite brisk and cold when you're in the shade. It's the time of year when people who own convertibles and motorcycles get them out and endure the chill, just because they want the wind in their hair.
That's what this lady wanted: the wind in her hair, even though her hair was short and gray and styled to within an inch of its life. She was going out in her convertible, dammit! And that's just what she did. She backed out of her garage, a bit jerky at first, and then she sat at the very end of her driveway, looking this way and that and this and that and this again, waiting for the perfect moment. Finally, after waiting for a guy out for a walk to scoot past her car (and he looked like he wasn't entirely sure he trusted her not to gun the gas as soon as he was directly behind her), she backed out into the road, turned, and sped down the road.
She had to feel liberated and free! There's something especially wondrous in that first taste of spring wind and that first feel or spring sun upon your face. But it's still...cold. The feeling of freedom is fleeting, replaced quickly by the fact that you're still freezing.
So she came back five minutes later, parked her beloved Beetle with the top back up, and went back inside to make some tea. Still, summer's coming.
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
It's a really hot, humid, summer day. You're sitting on your porch. If you don't have a porch, imagine that you're on A porch. A nice, wide porch. Maybe it's got a swing. Yeah, you're sitting on your porch swing, late afternoon, hot, humid, sunny. You've had a good day, and you're holding a nice, cold glass of...what?
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
N
Sports columnist Jason Whitlock is often an interesting commentator on race issues, particularly as they relate to sports. Here's an excerpt from his column today:
I honestly can't claim enough familiarity with race issues to know how I feel about this. On the one hand, the attempted taking-over of the N-word and its concurrent attempted transformation into a tool of irony is a fascinating cultural development. On the other, I'm not sure it's a good thing.
In fact, as a white male, I'm not sure I even can ever gain sufficient familiarity with race issues to have a genuine feeling about this, other than a vague sense that something is deeply wrong, that racism is still alive and well, albeit mostly bubbling beneath the surface. Trouble with that is, lots of things do even more damage when they're bubbling beneath the surface, because that allows us to get complacent and think, oftentimes, that it's not there at all.
The people at the top of the rap music food chain should not be afforded such easy forgiveness. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know the dishonesty and the illogic that fuels the popular sentiment within commercial rap music industry that states the embrace of the N-word is harmless because young people have redefined it and erased its dehumanizing power.
This popular mantra is every bit as intellectually dishonest as the mantra that slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, lynching and discrimination are issues that no longer affect modern American society.
Jay-Z and the other denigration rappers and comedians love to say they’ve taken the N-word from bigots and transformed it into a word of affection and respect. It’s a lie.
The N-word was given to/slapped on black people in America 300 years ago to justify our mistreatment. It was given to define us as less than human so that mentally slave owners would have no trouble treating us as animals.
You don’t change something built to destroy you into something that uplifts you. It’s the equivalent of thinking the slop/food fed to slaves can be transformed into raw fruits and vegetables. As bad as our diet is today (and it’s a direct descendant of what we were forced to eat 300 years ago), actually what we’re trying to do with the N-word is much worse.
The N-word is human feces. It’s not meant for consumption. Jay-Z and his defenders can sauté human waste in butter and garlic for a month and it’s still gonna taste like $**t and lead to poor health.
As long as we keep cooking and serving up the N-word to each other, we’re going to remain mentally comfortable hunting and executing each other like animals and throwing on baseball caps supporting the killers.
Regardless of the user, the N-word is still doing the exact job it was intended to do in the 1700s. Hell, it’s doing a better job.
I honestly can't claim enough familiarity with race issues to know how I feel about this. On the one hand, the attempted taking-over of the N-word and its concurrent attempted transformation into a tool of irony is a fascinating cultural development. On the other, I'm not sure it's a good thing.
In fact, as a white male, I'm not sure I even can ever gain sufficient familiarity with race issues to have a genuine feeling about this, other than a vague sense that something is deeply wrong, that racism is still alive and well, albeit mostly bubbling beneath the surface. Trouble with that is, lots of things do even more damage when they're bubbling beneath the surface, because that allows us to get complacent and think, oftentimes, that it's not there at all.
Son of Possible Cover Art!
Another cavalcade of nifty images that should grace the cover of my books!
Back to writing!
Monday, July 15, 2013
Storm Clouds Over the Atlantic Ocean Near Brazil
Storm Clouds Over the Atlantic Ocean Near Brazil, originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.
Wow. That is all.
Shouldn't we elect him to something?
JK Rowling has been unmasked as the actual author of a crime novel.
Which jogged my memory. Here is guy-who-knows-everything Ken Jennings, writing almost six years ago:
(Emphasis added.)
Casual Vacancy excepted, Mr. Jennings certainly had Rowling pegged. Go read his post, by the way -- it's not long, but the stuff I snipped out is a cool examination of mystery story tropes as deployed in the Harry Potter books. (Which I plan to re-read this winter.)
Which jogged my memory. Here is guy-who-knows-everything Ken Jennings, writing almost six years ago:
Structurally, these aren’t fantasy novels at all. They’re fair-play mysteries in wizard’s clothing–novels with not just plots and characters and setpieces, but “solutions” as well. J. K. Rowling is justly praised for her elaborate and meticulous world-building, but I’m convinced that a lot of that endless detail is just there for standard detective-novel purposes: to distract, to confound, to envelop the real “clues” in a Cloak of Invisibility.
...
I bet Rowling’s first post-Harry Potter book–talk about a hard act to follow–will be a classic mystery of some kind. I don’t know if it’ll be a hard-boiled gumshoe case, a true-crime police procedural, a classic manor-house throwback, or what, but it’ll be a mystery novel. She’s been writing them all along, after all. It’s just that no one’s noticed.
(Emphasis added.)
Casual Vacancy excepted, Mr. Jennings certainly had Rowling pegged. Go read his post, by the way -- it's not long, but the stuff I snipped out is a cool examination of mystery story tropes as deployed in the Harry Potter books. (Which I plan to re-read this winter.)
Sentential Links
Holy crap, it's been a long time since the last time I did one of these. I know the blog has spent an unfair amount of time on the back burner of late, as I strive to beat Princesses Still In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) into submission, but wow. Anyway, here are some linkworthy links.
:: In the similar mode, I’m suggesting a “slow audience response” movement. Please stop talking when the speaker/movie/concert starts, and wait for the event to actually end before fumbling with your keys. You may actually enjoy it better if you are “present” at the event, rather than treating it as one more thing to check off the to-do list. I KNOW your fellow audience members will appreciate it. (I couldn't agree more. I've never understood why it is that people are always in such a damned rush to get out of the movie theater. And it's like a conditioned response with some folks: their brains are wired to bounce up and head for the exit the second the words "Directed by ___" appear on screen. I've noticed, over the last few years, that sometimes movies will have "Easter Egg" content during the credits, if not actual scenes, so the credits-sprinters will stand up, move to the stairs along the side, and then stand there until they're satisfied that they can leave. Why not just keep your asses in the seats? Where are you going?!
I recall some conversation years ago on some classical music-related blogs on the subject of applause in between movements of multi-movement works. This doesn't really bother me all that much, but I do recall attending a Buffalo Philharmonic concert years ago when they played the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. There's a spot in the last movement where everything builds to one long, dramatic chord, which the orchestra holds until the conductor gives the cut-off. There's a pause of a few seconds, and then the conductor cues the orchestra to begin the final portion of the work. The problem is, the folks at the concert weren't musically literate enough to not recognize the fact that that long, sustained chord couldn't possibly be the end of the work. So as soon as the conductor cut the chord off, the audience started applauding. For a work that wasn't even finished. Oy.)
:: They were both great horses, but the difference between Roy Rogers' Trigger and the Lone Ranger's Silver was that Trigger was well-trained. Silver just knew. (I still want to see The Lone Ranger, and almost certainly will, when it comes to DVD.)
:: The waiter apologizes and says he hasn’t felt good all night. He thinks it’s something he ate. Oh, that's comforting. Your waiter has such a high fever he could could fry your Monte Christo on his head. (Mmmmmm...Monte Cristo sandwich...ummm, sorry.)
:: Dear Mr. Card,
I wanted you to know that I recently read your statement regarding the proposed boycott of ‘Ender’s Game’, and I can understand where you’re coming from in your plea for tolerance. Believe me, I can understand what it’s like to worry that your livelihood will be affected by the intolerance of others. Many of my LGBT friends have had to face open discrimination in the workplace due to the kind of open hatred you personally fostered with your time and money…and in fact, continue to foster today, despite your belief that the whole issue is now “moot”. So I can deeply sympathize with your hope that “the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”
:: What if E.T. and the Thing had a baby, and horribly, that baby was Jeff Bridges?
:: Providence has sent a solution after all! (I can barely process this.)
:: For me, the point of having a personal blog is that it’s basically a journal for me. A place where I talk to myself about whatever the hell I want. A place to work out how I feel about my life and the world, or to document my struggle with weight and mental disorders, or to list my favorite things, or to talk about the movies I saw. If someone else reads it and likes it, cool. That’s wonderful. But it’s not done for them. It’s done for me. It’s done because I feel a need to write it all down someplace. That’s the point of it. Frankly, the only person that I really, truly care about reading it is my wife, because I want my wife and me to know each other as much as possible. She’s really the only one who I need to understand me. It’s not about validation by strangers; it’s just me having fun and introducing a fraction of structure into my weekly routine.
:: And watch Monteith, and how accessible he is, how available. He’s a big strapping guy, a foot taller than everyone else, and his body shows the awkwardness of not quite knowing what to do with himself, but that just makes him more honest, more open: there is no artifice in him, no protection, no holding back. (I've never liked Glee, but my dislike of the show has always been mostly on a conceptual level and in the way it treats the music and the enterprise thereof. The talent involved in the show, however, is quite often jaw-dropping. This young man's passing is a cruel, cruel loss.)
More next week! (I hope!)
:: In the similar mode, I’m suggesting a “slow audience response” movement. Please stop talking when the speaker/movie/concert starts, and wait for the event to actually end before fumbling with your keys. You may actually enjoy it better if you are “present” at the event, rather than treating it as one more thing to check off the to-do list. I KNOW your fellow audience members will appreciate it. (I couldn't agree more. I've never understood why it is that people are always in such a damned rush to get out of the movie theater. And it's like a conditioned response with some folks: their brains are wired to bounce up and head for the exit the second the words "Directed by ___" appear on screen. I've noticed, over the last few years, that sometimes movies will have "Easter Egg" content during the credits, if not actual scenes, so the credits-sprinters will stand up, move to the stairs along the side, and then stand there until they're satisfied that they can leave. Why not just keep your asses in the seats? Where are you going?!
I recall some conversation years ago on some classical music-related blogs on the subject of applause in between movements of multi-movement works. This doesn't really bother me all that much, but I do recall attending a Buffalo Philharmonic concert years ago when they played the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. There's a spot in the last movement where everything builds to one long, dramatic chord, which the orchestra holds until the conductor gives the cut-off. There's a pause of a few seconds, and then the conductor cues the orchestra to begin the final portion of the work. The problem is, the folks at the concert weren't musically literate enough to not recognize the fact that that long, sustained chord couldn't possibly be the end of the work. So as soon as the conductor cut the chord off, the audience started applauding. For a work that wasn't even finished. Oy.)
:: They were both great horses, but the difference between Roy Rogers' Trigger and the Lone Ranger's Silver was that Trigger was well-trained. Silver just knew. (I still want to see The Lone Ranger, and almost certainly will, when it comes to DVD.)
:: The waiter apologizes and says he hasn’t felt good all night. He thinks it’s something he ate. Oh, that's comforting. Your waiter has such a high fever he could could fry your Monte Christo on his head. (Mmmmmm...Monte Cristo sandwich...ummm, sorry.)
:: Dear Mr. Card,
I wanted you to know that I recently read your statement regarding the proposed boycott of ‘Ender’s Game’, and I can understand where you’re coming from in your plea for tolerance. Believe me, I can understand what it’s like to worry that your livelihood will be affected by the intolerance of others. Many of my LGBT friends have had to face open discrimination in the workplace due to the kind of open hatred you personally fostered with your time and money…and in fact, continue to foster today, despite your belief that the whole issue is now “moot”. So I can deeply sympathize with your hope that “the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.”
:: What if E.T. and the Thing had a baby, and horribly, that baby was Jeff Bridges?
:: Providence has sent a solution after all! (I can barely process this.)
:: For me, the point of having a personal blog is that it’s basically a journal for me. A place where I talk to myself about whatever the hell I want. A place to work out how I feel about my life and the world, or to document my struggle with weight and mental disorders, or to list my favorite things, or to talk about the movies I saw. If someone else reads it and likes it, cool. That’s wonderful. But it’s not done for them. It’s done for me. It’s done because I feel a need to write it all down someplace. That’s the point of it. Frankly, the only person that I really, truly care about reading it is my wife, because I want my wife and me to know each other as much as possible. She’s really the only one who I need to understand me. It’s not about validation by strangers; it’s just me having fun and introducing a fraction of structure into my weekly routine.
:: And watch Monteith, and how accessible he is, how available. He’s a big strapping guy, a foot taller than everyone else, and his body shows the awkwardness of not quite knowing what to do with himself, but that just makes him more honest, more open: there is no artifice in him, no protection, no holding back. (I've never liked Glee, but my dislike of the show has always been mostly on a conceptual level and in the way it treats the music and the enterprise thereof. The talent involved in the show, however, is quite often jaw-dropping. This young man's passing is a cruel, cruel loss.)
More next week! (I hope!)
Sunday, July 14, 2013
The Problem
We expect our legal system to produce moral consequences, and yet, so often it does not. It’s probably the case that a codified legal system can’t be expected to always produce moral consequences, precisely because what’s moral cannot be so precisely codified. But this does not excuse a lack of efforts to try to make it better, and it certainly does not lessen the pain that arises when the moral and the legal so spectacularly fail to intersect.
Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome
Oddities and Awesome abound!
:: An oral history of the 1989 Cleveland Indians. Oddly, official Major League Baseball archives don't seem to have much information about this team, so this oral history and the cinematic documentary on the subject, are likely to remain the only sources of historical data.
:: Here is the short tale of a very helpful motorcyclist.
:: Another baseball-related item: Baseball's dying traditions.
More next week....
:: An oral history of the 1989 Cleveland Indians. Oddly, official Major League Baseball archives don't seem to have much information about this team, so this oral history and the cinematic documentary on the subject, are likely to remain the only sources of historical data.
:: Here is the short tale of a very helpful motorcyclist.
:: Another baseball-related item: Baseball's dying traditions.
More next week....
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Something for Thursday
A violin concerto today, and one of my favorites! I love the way this concerto eschews any introductory stuff in favor of jumping right into the melody, and I love the way the Romantic lyricism is tempered with a Classical attention to structure. Pay special attention to what happens at about 2:50 in the first movement: the soloist (Hilary Hahn in this case, one of this generation's finest musicians) soars to a very high note on a dramatic flourish, but as she does, you can hear the tension dropping away, and then she arpeggiates down to a very low note, which she sustains while the woodwinds play the movement's lovely second theme. That is one of my very favorite passages in all classical music.
Here is the Violin Concerto in E minor, by Felix Mendelssohn.
Here is the Violin Concerto in E minor, by Felix Mendelssohn.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
How many social networking sites/apps do you use?
What prominent social networking sites/apps do you not use?
And what the heck is LinkedIn for, anyway? What good comes of being on that thing? I have zero idea why LinkedIn is a thing.
Discuss!
What prominent social networking sites/apps do you not use?
And what the heck is LinkedIn for, anyway? What good comes of being on that thing? I have zero idea why LinkedIn is a thing.
Discuss!
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
So...parched....
I've written in the past about my love of the White House's Official Flickr Stream, and I'm overdue to share some stuff from there...but this particular photo cracked me up, because there are all these people in this conference room setting, clustered around tables with the President, and only the President gets a water bottle.
Wassat? One of you is thirsty? Well, that's just too damned bad. You just sit there and watch the President take a nice, cold sip from Hydration Force One!
Heck, a couple of the people in this photo actually seem to be staring longingly at the President's water bottle! That dude on the left, the one who looks vaguely like James Doohan in Star Trek VI -- I think he's really thinking, "Shit, why did I eat those salted peanuts before I came in here...."
UPDATE: OK, looking at this some more, it's even funnier. The three people immediately to the President's left are amazing. The two guys are staring off blankly into space, but neither is staring at the same thing. And the lady in magenta looks like she's sneaking a text message in under the table!
Still here....
Wow, I've sucked at posting here lately...sorry about that! It's been a bit on the busy side the last few days, and making matters worse, the air conditioning at Casa Jaquandor decided to take a nose-dive, so things there haven't been too comfortable and it's taken a lot of effort just to work up the proper enthusiasm for writing in the first place. So, what energies I have been able to summon on that front, have been devoted to the book, which is kind of slow-going right now anyway because I'm in the stage of the game where the pot is a rolling boil and I don't wanna screw things up too badly.
Anyway, we're still here! How are you all doing?
Anyway, we're still here! How are you all doing?
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Geekapocalypse Soon!
It occurs to me that this fall is going to be a mite busy.
The new Thor movie comes out in November.
The second Hobbit movie comes out in December.
Season three of Sherlock comes along in October. (It's not set to air in the US until 2014, from what I'm reading, but that won't stop me.)
Scott Lynch's long-awaited third novel in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, The Republic of Thieves, arrives in October.
JW Rinzler's The Making of Return of the Jedi also hits shelves in October.
Along with all this is the usual season returns of teevee shows I already watch.
Oh, and our annual fall getaway, which will be the first weekend in October.
And NaNoWriMo in November.
And in December, I should be able to start the editing of Princesses In Space II: The Fall of the Planet Reichenbach (not the actual title).
I guess I'd better enjoy the next 2.5 months, because I suspect that starting mid-September, things are gonna roll!
UPDATE: My friend and former college roommate and best man at my wedding, Mr. Chris Gustafson, points out that the title of this post should be Ageekalypse, and not that abomination that I actually used in my pre-coffee stupor. Ach!
The new Thor movie comes out in November.
The second Hobbit movie comes out in December.
Season three of Sherlock comes along in October. (It's not set to air in the US until 2014, from what I'm reading, but that won't stop me.)
Scott Lynch's long-awaited third novel in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, The Republic of Thieves, arrives in October.
JW Rinzler's The Making of Return of the Jedi also hits shelves in October.
Along with all this is the usual season returns of teevee shows I already watch.
Oh, and our annual fall getaway, which will be the first weekend in October.
And NaNoWriMo in November.
And in December, I should be able to start the editing of Princesses In Space II: The Fall of the Planet Reichenbach (not the actual title).
I guess I'd better enjoy the next 2.5 months, because I suspect that starting mid-September, things are gonna roll!
UPDATE: My friend and former college roommate and best man at my wedding, Mr. Chris Gustafson, points out that the title of this post should be Ageekalypse, and not that abomination that I actually used in my pre-coffee stupor. Ach!
Thursday, July 04, 2013
Something for Thursday: The Annotated "Stars and Stripes Forever" (a repost)
I get search engine traffic for this post fairly regularly, and since we're all likely to hear this march at least once today -- those of us in the US, I should say -- I thought this might be a good opportunity to repost this, so you can better attend to the structure of the typical American band march. Happy Fourth!
Anyhow, in my Something for Thursday series, I've lately posted several Grand Marches from various operas, and now I'm thinking a bit of the wide variety of music that falls under the general category of the "March". You have Grand Marches, as I've noted above, that involve long musical scoring to big set pieces in operas. You also have the Funeral March, which are generally downbeat and sad-sounding, for obvious reasons. You have Processional Marches, with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches being prime examples. And there are the Military Marches, patriotic marches, circus marches, symphonic marches, and so on. Lots and lots of marches.
One of the most famous of all marches is, of course, John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever. It's a staple of nearly every patriotic-themed classical music concert you might ever attend, and the march is as central a staple in July 4th festivities as hot dogs or fireworks. In college, when the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra played a concert on our campus, their first encore work was The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Sousa wrote many marches -- hence the moniker "The March King" -- a number of which are very familiar to our ears now (Washington Post and Liberty Bell among them), but The Stars and Stripes Forever is by far his most familiar work. It can sound a bit clicheed these days, but like all works that have to a degree become clichee, when you blow off the dust and actually listen to the thing, you can hear anew those qualities that allowed it to become cliche in the first place.
The Stars and Stripes Forever is also a perfect example of the traditional American military march, which in their heyday of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tended to follow specific forms. If you were to join a concert band in rehearsing one of these marches, you would hear some odd-sounding terms: "Let's begin at the second strain, first time through." Or, "Just the trombones, please, starting at the dogfight." You'd be thinking, "What's a dogfight? Are there going to be planes flying in aerial combat above our heads?" Well, of course not! So what we'll do here is go through The Stars and Stripes Forever, with my notations below indicating at which point each section starts.
(This is one of the niftiest musical videos I've ever seen, by the way.)
0:07 to 0:10: The is the Intro section. Most marches will have some kind of intro section.
0:11 to 0:24: This is the First Strain, which is will be repeated once.
0:24 to 0:39: The First Strain, repeated. Sometimes, but not always, a band or orchestra will perform a repeat of a strain differently than they did the first time: they'll dial down the dynamics, playing the repeat softer, or maybe they'll actually vary the instrumentation a bit. This is often at the discretion of the conductor. Marches in this genre tend to be "modular" in construction, making it easier to tailor the piece a bit depending on the demands of the performance. You might need to make it longer or shorter, depending on the situation, so a conductor might decide to repeat each strain twice instead of once; but then deciding to play the first repeat softer and the second repeat softer still, or some other kind of variation. Some conductors, with experienced ensembles, will even have hand signals ready so they can indicate to their ensemble such a change while in the midst of performance.
0:39 to 0:54: Here is the Second Strain, first time through. Note that it is more lyrical than the boisterous First Strain. In a well-written march, the strains will usually contrast in some way.
0:55 to 1:09: Now we repeat the Second Strain. Note in this performance that the brass join in the melody and it's a bit louder and more boisterous than the first time through. This difference is why, in rehearsal, our conductor will say things like "OK, start at the second strain, second time through." He has to let the brass know if they're playing or sitting out.
OK. After we're done with the first two strains -- and there are usually just two -- however many times we've performed them, with whatever performance variations our conductor has decided upon, we're onto the Trio. Sometimes we'll have a key change when we hit the Trio, along with some other way to differentiate the Trio from the Intro and the first two strains. In Stars and Stripes Forever, our relatively brisk sound of the first two strains yields to a longer, more lyrical melody -- even more lyrical than what we heard in the second strain. Additionally, there is less syncopation now, although Sousa still puts key parts of emphasis on the occasional off-beat. A Trio section is often the longest part of a march, and it often revolves around a single melody or musical idea, as opposed to the first and second strains, which posit musical ideas briefly and then shuffle them off the stage. The Trio is the main attraction, as it were.
Now, with our Trio section, there's only one main musical idea going on, but we're going to hear it three times. Sousa doesn't want to bore us, so he'll change it up a bit each time. How? Let's see:
1:10 to 1:39: The Trio, first time through. Sometimes we might call this the First Strain of the Trio, or we might just call it the Trio, first time. In any event, this specific case is one of the most recognizable melodies in musical history, and in terms of marches, it's probably the most famous march melody ever. (It might be a close second to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March #1...or the Elgar is a close second to Stars and Stripes. Not sure which.)
By the way, note that Sousa doesn't just give us this melody by itself; he continues to remind us that this is still a march by putting all those little staccato flourishes softly playing behind the melody. There's always something going on in a Sousa march, something new or different or contrasting with the main thing at any given moment. Case in point: when the melody reaches its highest note at 1:24, note the descending arpeggio in the lower brass, or at 1:34 when we reach a high note again, a little "tweet" of a fanfare in the trumpets.
Note, also, that one time through the First Strain of the Trio takes as long as two times through each of the First and Second Strains.
1:39 to 2:02: Now, having heard the complete Trio strain one time through, we're going to repeat it twice. But unlike the First and Second strains, which are repeated in immediate succession, we get a bit of contrast in a passage that stands in marked rhythmic and dynamic contrast to the Trio strain. This contrasting section, found in the Trios of many marches of this type, is called the Dogfight. We'll hear it twice through; this is the first time. The Dogfight isn't really a melody, per se; it's more of a martial fluorish. Note that the Dogfight is, by itself, longer than either the First or Second Strain.
2:02 to 2:30: The Trio strain, repeated (or, alternatively, the Second Strain of the Trio). Sousa lowers the dynamics again, back down to a softer setting, but we get the first variation of the Trio here. The Stars and Stripes melody plays again in its entirety, but this time with a brilliant touch: a counter-flourish played by the solo piccolo. Note also that the little trumpet fanfares from the first time through aren't there anymore, in favor of our piccolo solo.
2:31 to 2:55: The Dogfight, second time through. Many performances play the Dogfight a bit louder this time through, and have the Dogfight end with a crescendo into the Trio strain's final repeat.
2:55 to end: Now we get the last repeat of the Trio strain (or, alternatively, the Third Strain of the Trio). After hearing the Trio strain played softly twice, this time Sousa lets it all hang out: everybody's playing at full-bore, including our intrepid piccolo player. Now, a lesser composer might think that just hearing this great melody with the entire band playing forte might be pleasing enough to send the crowd away, but Sousa isn't done giving new things to hear. Specifically, this last time, he gives a countermelody to the low brass that plays mostly on the off-bars of the main melody; when the main theme is holding a long note, the low brass are doing their thing.
And at the very end? That final punctuating note that the march ends on? That's called the Stinger.
Most marches of this type derive their excitement from variations along the way, as described above: variations in dynamics (loud versus soft), variations in instrumention (who plays what and when), variations in backing detail (little fanfares versus that solo piccolo line). What doesn't vary is tempo: a march of this type will always end at the same tempo it started. The only place I've ever heard a change in tempo in The Stars and Stripes Forever is at the very end of the Dogfight, the second time through, where some conductors -- not all -- will throw in a ritardando on that last descending scale before the Trio strain's final repeat, and that's about it. A march is not the place for the type of rubato that you might hear in, say, some Romantic symphony.
Anyhow, there you have it: a road map to The Stars and Stripes Forever. Next time you're hearing this march while eating a hot dog and watching fireworks, note the march's tight construction!
Anyhow, in my Something for Thursday series, I've lately posted several Grand Marches from various operas, and now I'm thinking a bit of the wide variety of music that falls under the general category of the "March". You have Grand Marches, as I've noted above, that involve long musical scoring to big set pieces in operas. You also have the Funeral March, which are generally downbeat and sad-sounding, for obvious reasons. You have Processional Marches, with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches being prime examples. And there are the Military Marches, patriotic marches, circus marches, symphonic marches, and so on. Lots and lots of marches.
One of the most famous of all marches is, of course, John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever. It's a staple of nearly every patriotic-themed classical music concert you might ever attend, and the march is as central a staple in July 4th festivities as hot dogs or fireworks. In college, when the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra played a concert on our campus, their first encore work was The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Sousa wrote many marches -- hence the moniker "The March King" -- a number of which are very familiar to our ears now (Washington Post and Liberty Bell among them), but The Stars and Stripes Forever is by far his most familiar work. It can sound a bit clicheed these days, but like all works that have to a degree become clichee, when you blow off the dust and actually listen to the thing, you can hear anew those qualities that allowed it to become cliche in the first place.
The Stars and Stripes Forever is also a perfect example of the traditional American military march, which in their heyday of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tended to follow specific forms. If you were to join a concert band in rehearsing one of these marches, you would hear some odd-sounding terms: "Let's begin at the second strain, first time through." Or, "Just the trombones, please, starting at the dogfight." You'd be thinking, "What's a dogfight? Are there going to be planes flying in aerial combat above our heads?" Well, of course not! So what we'll do here is go through The Stars and Stripes Forever, with my notations below indicating at which point each section starts.
(This is one of the niftiest musical videos I've ever seen, by the way.)
0:07 to 0:10: The is the Intro section. Most marches will have some kind of intro section.
0:11 to 0:24: This is the First Strain, which is will be repeated once.
0:24 to 0:39: The First Strain, repeated. Sometimes, but not always, a band or orchestra will perform a repeat of a strain differently than they did the first time: they'll dial down the dynamics, playing the repeat softer, or maybe they'll actually vary the instrumentation a bit. This is often at the discretion of the conductor. Marches in this genre tend to be "modular" in construction, making it easier to tailor the piece a bit depending on the demands of the performance. You might need to make it longer or shorter, depending on the situation, so a conductor might decide to repeat each strain twice instead of once; but then deciding to play the first repeat softer and the second repeat softer still, or some other kind of variation. Some conductors, with experienced ensembles, will even have hand signals ready so they can indicate to their ensemble such a change while in the midst of performance.
0:39 to 0:54: Here is the Second Strain, first time through. Note that it is more lyrical than the boisterous First Strain. In a well-written march, the strains will usually contrast in some way.
0:55 to 1:09: Now we repeat the Second Strain. Note in this performance that the brass join in the melody and it's a bit louder and more boisterous than the first time through. This difference is why, in rehearsal, our conductor will say things like "OK, start at the second strain, second time through." He has to let the brass know if they're playing or sitting out.
OK. After we're done with the first two strains -- and there are usually just two -- however many times we've performed them, with whatever performance variations our conductor has decided upon, we're onto the Trio. Sometimes we'll have a key change when we hit the Trio, along with some other way to differentiate the Trio from the Intro and the first two strains. In Stars and Stripes Forever, our relatively brisk sound of the first two strains yields to a longer, more lyrical melody -- even more lyrical than what we heard in the second strain. Additionally, there is less syncopation now, although Sousa still puts key parts of emphasis on the occasional off-beat. A Trio section is often the longest part of a march, and it often revolves around a single melody or musical idea, as opposed to the first and second strains, which posit musical ideas briefly and then shuffle them off the stage. The Trio is the main attraction, as it were.
Now, with our Trio section, there's only one main musical idea going on, but we're going to hear it three times. Sousa doesn't want to bore us, so he'll change it up a bit each time. How? Let's see:
1:10 to 1:39: The Trio, first time through. Sometimes we might call this the First Strain of the Trio, or we might just call it the Trio, first time. In any event, this specific case is one of the most recognizable melodies in musical history, and in terms of marches, it's probably the most famous march melody ever. (It might be a close second to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March #1...or the Elgar is a close second to Stars and Stripes. Not sure which.)
By the way, note that Sousa doesn't just give us this melody by itself; he continues to remind us that this is still a march by putting all those little staccato flourishes softly playing behind the melody. There's always something going on in a Sousa march, something new or different or contrasting with the main thing at any given moment. Case in point: when the melody reaches its highest note at 1:24, note the descending arpeggio in the lower brass, or at 1:34 when we reach a high note again, a little "tweet" of a fanfare in the trumpets.
Note, also, that one time through the First Strain of the Trio takes as long as two times through each of the First and Second Strains.
1:39 to 2:02: Now, having heard the complete Trio strain one time through, we're going to repeat it twice. But unlike the First and Second strains, which are repeated in immediate succession, we get a bit of contrast in a passage that stands in marked rhythmic and dynamic contrast to the Trio strain. This contrasting section, found in the Trios of many marches of this type, is called the Dogfight. We'll hear it twice through; this is the first time. The Dogfight isn't really a melody, per se; it's more of a martial fluorish. Note that the Dogfight is, by itself, longer than either the First or Second Strain.
2:02 to 2:30: The Trio strain, repeated (or, alternatively, the Second Strain of the Trio). Sousa lowers the dynamics again, back down to a softer setting, but we get the first variation of the Trio here. The Stars and Stripes melody plays again in its entirety, but this time with a brilliant touch: a counter-flourish played by the solo piccolo. Note also that the little trumpet fanfares from the first time through aren't there anymore, in favor of our piccolo solo.
2:31 to 2:55: The Dogfight, second time through. Many performances play the Dogfight a bit louder this time through, and have the Dogfight end with a crescendo into the Trio strain's final repeat.
2:55 to end: Now we get the last repeat of the Trio strain (or, alternatively, the Third Strain of the Trio). After hearing the Trio strain played softly twice, this time Sousa lets it all hang out: everybody's playing at full-bore, including our intrepid piccolo player. Now, a lesser composer might think that just hearing this great melody with the entire band playing forte might be pleasing enough to send the crowd away, but Sousa isn't done giving new things to hear. Specifically, this last time, he gives a countermelody to the low brass that plays mostly on the off-bars of the main melody; when the main theme is holding a long note, the low brass are doing their thing.
And at the very end? That final punctuating note that the march ends on? That's called the Stinger.
Most marches of this type derive their excitement from variations along the way, as described above: variations in dynamics (loud versus soft), variations in instrumention (who plays what and when), variations in backing detail (little fanfares versus that solo piccolo line). What doesn't vary is tempo: a march of this type will always end at the same tempo it started. The only place I've ever heard a change in tempo in The Stars and Stripes Forever is at the very end of the Dogfight, the second time through, where some conductors -- not all -- will throw in a ritardando on that last descending scale before the Trio strain's final repeat, and that's about it. A march is not the place for the type of rubato that you might hear in, say, some Romantic symphony.
Anyhow, there you have it: a road map to The Stars and Stripes Forever. Next time you're hearing this march while eating a hot dog and watching fireworks, note the march's tight construction!
When in the course of human events.... (a repost)
(A repost of what I've run on July 4 the last couple of years)
Here's a really weird story. It's so weird, I'm not sure the historians didn't make it up out of whole cloth. It seems that around 235 years ago or so, some folks living in a place under the rule of a King decided that they didn't much like the way that King was ruling them. At all. They pretty much decided, en masse, that their King was behaving, to use a current term, like a douche.
Now, over the many centuries before these folks came along, lots of other folks in other lands have decided that their Kings and Queens were being douchey, so they came up with ways to replace them. They'd organize revolts, usually behind the banner of some obscure relative of the monarch's so they could say that their person has a better claim to the throne, and off they'd go. So you'd expect that the folks we're talking about here would have just said, "You know what? Our King is a douche. Let's replace him with a new King."
But these folks didn't say that. What they said was, "Not only does our King suck, but he sucks so much that we're now thinking maybe we won't even have any more Kings. We'll do it all ourselves."
Over a year or so, there were some battles and skirmishes between these folks and the troops sent by the King to put down the pesky rebels, but it didn't work, and that notion -- "No more Kings and Queens!" -- took hold. It became a really popular idea, so finally, these folks appointed some representatives to gather in one of their cities and talk these issues over. The conversation went like this:
So a guy named Tom wrote the King a sternly-worded letter. It was pretty wordy, given the standards of the time, so here's a paraphrase:
And so it came to pass that after some years of war, and some further years of cruddy government, they all got together again and figured out how they wanted to set up their new, "No Kings!" government. Their notion was to spread power out amongst a bunch of folks who were accountable to the people, and to further make sure that their government was required to respect certain rights that couldn't be taken away. It was a really weird idea...and yet, these folks worked hard to make it work, and their children kept working hard to make it work, and their children kept at it, and so on and so on and son on, until today.
Does it still work? Sometimes yes, sometimes not so much. But we're still here, and we're still working at it.
So Happy Birthday, United States of America! You're a wonderful, weird, beautiful, maddening, and awesome country.
(Hey! Uncle George is in there!)
Here's a really weird story. It's so weird, I'm not sure the historians didn't make it up out of whole cloth. It seems that around 235 years ago or so, some folks living in a place under the rule of a King decided that they didn't much like the way that King was ruling them. At all. They pretty much decided, en masse, that their King was behaving, to use a current term, like a douche.
Now, over the many centuries before these folks came along, lots of other folks in other lands have decided that their Kings and Queens were being douchey, so they came up with ways to replace them. They'd organize revolts, usually behind the banner of some obscure relative of the monarch's so they could say that their person has a better claim to the throne, and off they'd go. So you'd expect that the folks we're talking about here would have just said, "You know what? Our King is a douche. Let's replace him with a new King."
But these folks didn't say that. What they said was, "Not only does our King suck, but he sucks so much that we're now thinking maybe we won't even have any more Kings. We'll do it all ourselves."
Over a year or so, there were some battles and skirmishes between these folks and the troops sent by the King to put down the pesky rebels, but it didn't work, and that notion -- "No more Kings and Queens!" -- took hold. It became a really popular idea, so finally, these folks appointed some representatives to gather in one of their cities and talk these issues over. The conversation went like this:
GUY #1: So, we're all agreed then? Kings suck?
GUY #2: Yes, Verily, they suck.
GUY #1: OK, so what do we do?
GUY #3: Well, we're already fighting, so we just keep fighting. But we should probably tell the King that we're being serious and we're not just a bunch of rabble-rousers here.
GUY #1: Right! How do we do that?
GUY #4: How 'bout a letter? I've got some nice parchment, quills, and a new bottle of ink.
GUY #2: Good idea! But you're about as eloquent as my cow. You'll just write "Hey King, sod off" and be done with it. We should be a bit more poetic about it.
GUY #4: How about Tom? He's pretty poetic.
GUY #1: Good idea! Let Tom do it. Now where's that Adams guy with the beer?
So a guy named Tom wrote the King a sternly-worded letter. It was pretty wordy, given the standards of the time, so here's a paraphrase:
Dear King,
We the undersigned, being representatives of the people of your colonies, have collectively decided that you are a douche and we don't want to live under your rule anymore. Furthermore, we're going to come up with a government of our own that won't even have a King. Now, we've just called you a douche, so you're probably thinking that we should be kind enough to at least tell you all the reasons we have for thinking you're a douche, so there's a list of those reasons later on. For now, suffice it to say that we believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. And you don't. And since we like the whole Life and Liberty thing a lot more than we like you, we're gonna take those and let you do whatever it is you do with your time in that Palace of yours.
So, here's the list of ways you've pissed us off. Note how long it is. You don't have to be a douche, you know.
...
See? Really, dude. There's no reason for some of that stuff, right? So anyway, have a good life and all. You've still got your island, and Canada seems pretty happy with you for some reason (but really, they're weird folks to begin with, what with that odd game they like to play on ice). But we're out of here.
Signed,
All the guys present
PS: Could you make sure your soldiers always wear those bright red coats? It makes it really easy to see 'em in the forests. KTHXBAI.
And so it came to pass that after some years of war, and some further years of cruddy government, they all got together again and figured out how they wanted to set up their new, "No Kings!" government. Their notion was to spread power out amongst a bunch of folks who were accountable to the people, and to further make sure that their government was required to respect certain rights that couldn't be taken away. It was a really weird idea...and yet, these folks worked hard to make it work, and their children kept working hard to make it work, and their children kept at it, and so on and so on and son on, until today.
Does it still work? Sometimes yes, sometimes not so much. But we're still here, and we're still working at it.
So Happy Birthday, United States of America! You're a wonderful, weird, beautiful, maddening, and awesome country.
(Hey! Uncle George is in there!)
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
What's your favorite sappy 1970s love ballad? Represent, fans of "You Light Up My Life"!!!
Monday, July 01, 2013
Charting the Progress...such as it was....
Here is how June shook out for writing:
Well...I'll take it. I did fall short of the goal I set at the beginning of the month by nearly 3000 words, unfortunately. My daily average turned out nearly 100 words less per day than I had been aiming for.
It was a tough month, though -- I lost two entire days to vacation-related driving, there was one day that involved a 4:00 am start at work, resulting in brain fry so extreme that on that day I only achieved 17 total words. Yes, one day I wrote two sentences. And there were a number of days when the going was pretty tough, because I was working my way through a part of the book that was a bit foggy in my mind going in, so I was doing the heavy lifting at the same time as the actual writing. Editing this book is going to be tough, I suspect; I know that there are a lot of fairly dodgy spots where I just basically cranked out prose that I mainly consider 'placeholder' prose. But one of my general attitudes on writing is "Ach, get something down and fix it later", so this doesn't bother me.
So, into July I go. I still hope to finish the first draft by the end of this month, but that may be a tall order. If that works out, then I should be able to let the manuscript age in a charred oak barrel until December! (That's to leave time for NaNoWriMo.)
Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!
Well...I'll take it. I did fall short of the goal I set at the beginning of the month by nearly 3000 words, unfortunately. My daily average turned out nearly 100 words less per day than I had been aiming for.
It was a tough month, though -- I lost two entire days to vacation-related driving, there was one day that involved a 4:00 am start at work, resulting in brain fry so extreme that on that day I only achieved 17 total words. Yes, one day I wrote two sentences. And there were a number of days when the going was pretty tough, because I was working my way through a part of the book that was a bit foggy in my mind going in, so I was doing the heavy lifting at the same time as the actual writing. Editing this book is going to be tough, I suspect; I know that there are a lot of fairly dodgy spots where I just basically cranked out prose that I mainly consider 'placeholder' prose. But one of my general attitudes on writing is "Ach, get something down and fix it later", so this doesn't bother me.
So, into July I go. I still hope to finish the first draft by the end of this month, but that may be a tall order. If that works out, then I should be able to let the manuscript age in a charred oak barrel until December! (That's to leave time for NaNoWriMo.)
Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!
I'm back!
I'll likely have some actual content here later today or this evening...but for now, here's the stellar park job by someone in the Cape May, NJ fire department. Whoops.
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