WSC Music Old Music New Musicking
The origin of the shower \n This might seem so out of context, and it is. Before showers were invented, people used to go and shower in waterfalls. That’s because unlike showering in still water, showering in waterfalls or rivers makes your body much cleaner. Heck, even some rich mfs in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (Babylon) used servants to pour hot water on them and soap them. So people had done the purpose of the bath, just the bath and the plumbings themselves weren’t invented. Because ancient Greeks had pipes that got water to different places from its source, and because they too understood that when you pour water on yourself you’re cleaner, they created bath houses, aka the invention of the bath. Soon, these bath houses became popular in ancient Greece, and specifically in the ancient city of Pergamon, a city that was influenced by baths as it was located next to a coast, and now it is an archaeological site - where archaeologists found the first bath.
Ancient Greek music is gone and recreated \n Between 750 BC to 350 BC poets such as Homer, Sappho and others composed poems that were sung and played all over ancient Greece. Seems weird how the Ancient Greek didn't put any effort on preserving their music well, as no one knows it now. Poems explained the ancient Greek music with unfamiliar terms, and so we just got to know the melody and metres of the Ancient Greek poems, so using that with skilled players and some rare preserved Ancient Greek instruments, such as the auloi, we got to hear how Ancient Greek music sounded like. It was weird. Throughout history, 60 fragments of melody were translated to our normal accord melody stuff by scholars Martin West and Egert Pöhlmann, so now players can play these melody, it still sounds weird, so the answer for WSC's question of if it sounds familiar or foreign – foreign is definitely the answer.
How ancient Greek music works \n The ancient Greek form of musical notation is a thing that y’all need to know. A musical notation is a system, a language, that visually represents the thing you need to play. Just like “do re mi fa sol la si” on the piano. Unlike our normal western musical notation, the ancient Greek one wasn’t as precise. They had in their notation Greek alphabet instead of notes - upper case letters represented higher pitches, while lower case letters represented lower pitches. The notation itself represented the flow of the music, and not every note by itself.
Flight of the Bumblebee – Rimsky Korsakov \n Originally a composition by Rimsky Korsakov, and it is a masterpiece in the composition industry. Nowadays, some people tried to recreate, or reimagine this composition. Here are the following three examples. Btw, the music comes from Korsakov's opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and in the story a magic swan turns the prince into a bumblebee so that he can visit his father, the Tsar Saltan without being seen. As you listen to the music, you can hear a bumblebee buzzing around the Tsar and then quickly flying away so it doesn't get caught.
It's the Flight of the Bumblebee – Bob Dylan \n A classic Bob Dylan song with a band called “the band”, playing with a wild west bar style (it's hard to explain just hear the song), and in it he talks about how bad it is with that bumblebee that always interrupts the stuff he does. At the end he catches him. He's so chill during the song like he's on weed or something. He might be in the position of the Tsar in our story, but in the opera he didn't catch the bumblebee, and here we have more 20th century lines like "Can't take a pee", therefore it happens more towards today, unlike what Rimsky's intended.
Green Hornet Theme – Al Hirt \n The Green Hornet was a superhero in the 1930's on radio dramas who looks like Zoro but has a green mask instead of a red one. For one of the character’s shows, “The Green Hornet”, composer Billy May composed a theme for the loved hero, and later legendary jazz trumpet player Al Hirt decided to play some of them memorable themes in the album, and it slaps. The Green Hornet theme recreates Korsakov's intentions, as the music is full of drama and tense, with that trumpet buzzing like a bumblebee. It was so successful even Tarantino included it in his Kill Bill film soundtrack.
Our Shining Days – Chinese vs Western Instruments \n A 4 minute video that starts with a girl playing a Guzheng, and then another girl plays the western version of this – a harp. Then a bunch of Chinese girls come over to play the pipa, while other Chinese girls come and play the western equivalent of the pipa – the violin. Then more girls play the dizi, and then other girls come to play the flute – its counterpick. All of this was to the composition of Rimsky Korsakov, and btw the principal was looking at the 1v1 and he rooted for the western instruments. At the end though, some Chinese kid played the Suona, a Chinese trumpet and carried his side, giving the Chinese a massive W. Now I think this is like giving to Korsakov a middle finger on the face, because as we know Rimsky used to compose during his whole life compositions with western instruments, and now letting the Chinese instrument team to win is probably not what the composer would've wanted, also it's disrespectful. At least it delivers the message of "native is better! Colonialist bad!". About “Our Shining Days”, it is a Chinese musical film directed by Wang Ran, and it tells the story of a group of high school music students who compete in a music festival, overcoming obstacles along the way. The girl who plays the guzheng is Xiayou, and the main character in it is of course Chen Jing, who plays the erhu in the clip.
Canon in D – Pachelbel \n A composition made by Pachelbel as a gift for the wedding of Johann Sebastian Bach's older brother, who studied with him. The composition is quite peaceful, and people in the 1600's called it a "masterpiece", so still today there are some musicians who try to outplay the original with something catchy: Vitamin C in her song “Graduation: friends forever”, Jason Maraz with his song “I’m Yours” and Maroon 5 in their song “Memories”. The term “canon” refers to a construction around a repeating melody, and it is kind of a preset for songs, both in the late 1600’s and today, as shown in the following example. Also, it heavily influenced video game music and movie soundtracks, as it has this repeating melody.
Graduation (friends forever) – Vitamin C \n Is a song about a girl graduating high school with her love interest. As it is literally the last day of school, it is her last opportunity to tell her love interest she wants to keep in contact with him, and by that telling him he was her crush. At the end she decides to gather faith and tell him, and so the good ending is unlocked. Throughout the song there are tons of references to 2000’s teenagers activities and high school stuff, as the whole song talks about high school and what’s with the future. How is it connected to Canon in D? The whole melody is the composition, played peacefully in a violin, but add a catchy drum to it and now she raps on the drum and melody. Kinda cool reimagination. The song is, however, definitely produced for commercial value–using archetypes such as “Brainy Bobby.”
Because – The Beatles \n Written by John Lennon, Because is a song with only 8 sentences and the rest is the melody and Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah (makes me die), and all of the sentences are metaphors. He talks about how love is everything and his relationship with someone – when he was first turned on, blown away, and then cried (probably when they broke up). Interesting thing here is that when John Lennon and Yoko Ono, hung out, Yoko played Beethoven's moonlight sonata, and Lennon just asked her to play the chords backwards. He liked it and he wrote a song based on those chords.
Ludovico Einaudi going viral on Tiktok with a composition (experience) \n Ludovico Einaudi is a composer, and in 2013 he published an album called “In a Time Lapse”, and one of the compositions there was Experience (search now in yt and hear it!), that has a simple context of how a human has a relationship with the natural world. It exploded in 2021. Tiktok users loved it. This is the classical composition with the most internet views in the world, 15.6 billion views. 2021 saw him achieve Hollywood acclaim for his music to Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden globe winning films Nomadland and The Father.2021 was Einaudi's year.
Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin \n Is a composition made by George Gershwin in 1924, and it is classic jazz. The composition doesn’t have a storyline, yet it is a celebration of American musical creativity in the 1920’s, particularly in NYC. It has an iconic clarinet solo. Gershwin wrote it just a few days before the deadline, that’s why it’s so unique - giving it a cool vibe. After Gershwin’s death, the manuscript had been lost, but it was rediscovered a few years later by a collector who then sold it to the conductor and musicologist Arturo Toscanini. It now emphasizes the nostalgia of the 1920’s. In films, such as the opening scene of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” or Nintendo’s “Elite Beat Agents” video game.
Pomp and circumstance – Sir Edward Elgar \n A composition by the British composer Edward Elgar. This composition was a patriotic composition made in the beginning of the 20th century, originally meant to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII. However, since then schools all around the world have adopted the composition to their graduation ceremonies. The composition consists of five marches, though only the first march is the popular one. The marches were composed across the majority of the century, with two in the twenties, one in the fifties, one in the nineties and one in 2011. (Why not?) It was popularized mainly because it featured a soaring melody played by the brass section.
Ode to Joy – Beethoven \n Okay this is a very well-known composition by Beethoven. Because it is so popular and gives this chaotic stream of adrenaline, Ode to Joy became popular in social media over the 2010's and now if someone wants to show in a video how they are getting out of sanity, they'd use the part when there is screaming in Beethoven's composition. It also became the official anthem of the European Union, as the composition reflects the work of a European composer, and it reflects values such as unity, peace and prosperity.
Gen Z and Millennials are obsessed with classical music now. \n A few reasons for that. With streaming platforms people can discover, or rediscover new/ old genres, hence young people get to hear more classical music. On top of that, some pop culture hits used classical music, such as squid game. Social media loves classical music in the background – 53 million views under the #classictok on tiktok, and the rest of the article is about classical music influencers. There is French violinist Esther Abrami, who has more than 250,000 followers on Instagram and 380,000 on tiktok, and she dominates classical social media at formal events. Babatunde Akinbobye is a Nigerian-US baritone player that posted a few viral videos that got the attention of talk shows.
2001: Space Odyssey \n A movie directed by Stanley Kubrick, and just at the end of production, he discarded all of the music that his composer, Alex North had written for the movie. Instead, he used some of Richard Strauss' compositions. The example shown in the curriculum is the most famous one, where Kubrick replaced Alex North's dawn of man with Strauss' Also Sparch Zarathustra (listen to both), and the main reason I think he did that change was to add more drama to the scene, with the dramatic music given in Also Sparch Zarathustra, as both of them are classical music- one is more dramatic than the other. North had no idea his pieces had been rejected until he watched the film at the New York Premiere.
Conductors not doing their job right \n In the 19th century orchestras unlocked a new class – the conductor. with little sticks, They arrange the pace of the orchestra, the power of the music, and sometimes helpthe players with timing mid play. That means they have a lot on their shoulders . The curriculum tells us that conductors have the power to change little details of the composition, by for instance requesting from the players to play more quietly, or have the pace of the orchestra much much faster from what the composer intended. That's exactly why there had been a debate on that topic. As there are some conductors that go by the book, and others that change the melody for their taste, a critic famed a conductor called Arturo Toscanini for going perfectly by the book, and by that being "a slave to the composer".
Update: robots will soon be conductors \n In the UAE in 2020, a robot conducted and sang with a human orchestra. This robot is called 'Android Alter 3', and it waves its arms around according to the conducting notes you give it. The opera it conducted is Scary Beauty, written by Japanese composer Keiichiro Shibuya. Alter 3 gets the permission to control the volume and tempo of the music. People are now having a debate on whether conductors should be replaced by humanoids. People against it say that the robots can't feel, while those who are for it say that the robots don't make mistakes, and in compositions like Bach's or Mendelssohn's a conductor needs to be as skillful as the composer to make it sound better.
Conductors that tend to change the compositions. \n Remember Arturo Toscanini? He's a famed conductor for going by the book. This guy has an arch nemesis called Willhem Furtwängler who does the complete opposite – he tries not to go by the book, and has some changes in the composition. The WSC shows us their different takes on Beethoven's 9th symphony, and while Toscanini does it more peacefully, Furtwängler does it much more dramatically. Therefore, a conductor's approach determines how the composition would be. Furtwängler lost his reputation because he conducted in front of Hitler.
Composers conducting their compositions. \n When a composer doesn't want a conductor to change his composition, he steps up as the conductor himself (if the composer isn't dead). That's how John Williams came to conduct his own Star Wars main title theme he himself composed. Today it is much less popular. The other version is too, the title theme, but now conducted by Andrzej Kucybała, who added in his version some trumpets in the background during dry scenes.
Panchajanya – Simon Thacker \n Panchajanya is an album made by Scottish artist Simon Thacker in collaboration with the Hindu composer Sarvar Sabri, and has Indian classical music with contemporary Western classical music. It uses Simon's normal guitar, and other Indian instruments the local Indians use. The album’s name is taken from the name of a conch shell in the Hindu mythology, a one that was blown by Lord Krishna to signal the start of the battle of Kurukshetra in the epic Mahabharata, and so it represents conflict and transition. The music on the album is characterized by a dynamic interplay between Thacker's virtuosic guitar playing and Sabri's rhythmic percussion. The compositions draw on a range of Indian classical forms, including raga, tala, and dhun, while also incorporating elements of flamenco, jazz, and Western classical music.