Category Archives: Curiosities

by | March 7, 2015 · 6:00 am

Ravel and childhood

ravel with mouni

The roles and realizations of childhood in Ravel’s music were inextricably linked with the language, traditions, and idioms of the literary fairytale—an idea that he himself supported when he wrote that his intention in his fairytale-based Ma mère l’Oye was to evoke “the poetry of childhood”.

Ravel deliberately aligned his music with the traditions of the fairytale through the creation and expressive manipulation of musical and dramatic structure, language, gesture, and perspective. One may trace the voice and presence of the storyteller in Ma mère l’Oye, a work dedicated to two children for whom Ravel was a favorite companion and teller of fairytales.

This according to The language of enchantment: Childhood and fairytale in the music of Maurice Ravel by Emily Alison Kilpatrick, a dissertation accepted by Elder Conservatorium of Music at The University of Adelaide in 2008.

Today is Ravel’s 140th birthday! Above, the composer with his cat Mouni; below, Edward Gardner directs the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest in Ma mère l’Oye.

Comments Off on Ravel and childhood

Filed under Curiosities, Romantic era

Tagged as , , , ,

by | March 5, 2015 · 6:00 am

Musical camp

 

mein herr

There are specific musical gestures with which listeners can identify in camp ways, or use to explain the presence of camp. Even if these are not inherently camp, they may invite a camp interpretation of the text by a performer or a camp reading by a listener.

Useful examples of musical camp include Liberace’s performance of Čajkovskij’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Liza Minnelli’s performance of “Auf wiedersehen mein Herr” in the film Cabaret.

This according to “Notes on musical camp” by Freya Jarman-Ivens, an essay included in The Ashgate research companion to popular musicology (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) pp. 189–203.

Thanks to Improbable Research for bringing this article to our attention! Above, Ms. Minnelli in action; below, Liberace in 1969.

Comments Off on Musical camp

Filed under Curiosities, Humor, Popular music, Romantic era

Tagged as , ,

by | February 23, 2015 · 6:00 am

Händel’s clock music

Charles Clay musical clock

On 8 May 1736 London’s Weekly advertiser reported on an exhibition of a musical clock to the Queen, giving “uncommon satisfaction to all the Royal Family present”. Although two descriptions survive, the machine itself is lost.

However, the discovery among Händel’s MSS of two sets of tunes for musical clock suggest that the composer was, at the very least, intrigued by the instrument’s capabilities—it is also possible that this machine, or one like it, played these very works. Clearly Händel was not averse to mechanical reproduction of his works, and he may indeed have heard it happen!

This according to “Handel’s clock music” by William Barclay Squire (The musical quarterly V/4 [October 1919]) pp. 538–552.

Today is Händel’s 330th birthday! Above, a musical clock by Charles Clay, the inventor of the machine reported on in 1736; below, Händel’s works performed on a toy piano.

Comments Off on Händel’s clock music

Filed under Baroque era, Curiosities

Tagged as , ,

by | February 21, 2015 · 6:00 am

A marching band on skis

 

Since 1914 a Winter Carnival has been held in February in the picturesque resort town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to promote skiing and celebrate the season. Events include ski races, ski jumping, dogsled pulls, skijoring, and fireworks.

The main attraction, though, is the performance of the Steamboat Springs High School Band in the parade held on the last day of the carnival.

Every year since 1935, members of the band have donned red wool uniforms, fixed plastic mouthpieces to their instruments and lubricated them with no-freeze valve oil, attached shortened skis to their boots, and skied in formation as they played.

This according to “The Steamboat Springs High School Ski Band 1935–2005” by Daniel S. Isbell (Journal of historical research in music education XXVIII/1 [October 2006] pp. 21–37). Below, the band in performance.

Comments Off on A marching band on skis

Filed under Curiosities

Tagged as , , ,

by | February 16, 2015 · 6:00 am

Accidental hooks

prado cherry pink

Popular records often include accidents, indicating something about the flexibility of musical practices and the limits of theories. Musical hooks provide useful test-cases because they are normally considered the least accidental part of a song.

One imagines the hook emerging fully formed in a moment of inspiration—the catchy phrase that comes into a songwriter’s head—or at least of calculation: But hooks sometimes incorporate accidents or happen accidentally. If hooks are less than completely determinate, then every aspect of a popular record must be subject to contingency.

This according to “Accidents, hooks, and theory” by Charles Kronengold (Popular music XXIV/3 [October 2005] pp. 381–397).

Above and below, Pérez Prado’s Cherry pink and apple blossom white, one of the examples cited in the article. The intended hook was the prominent trumpet lip slurs; the accidental hook, which made the record a number one U.S. hit in 1955, was Prado’s occasional interpolated vocalizations.

Related post: Pérez Prado and mambo

1 Comment

Filed under Curiosities, Popular music, Reception

Tagged as ,

by | February 14, 2015 · 6:00 am

k.d. lang’s “So in love”

k d lang so in love

On this Valentine’s Day let’s look at how two ways of performing Cole Porter’s So in love illustrate how musical language can be used strategically to represent and signify constructs of gender and power.

The customary torch-song presentation, as used in the 1953 Hollywood film version of Kiss me Kate directed by George Sidney, is a traditional patriarchal narrative; k.d. lang’s 1991 video cover, by contrast, clearly defies traditional societal gender values.

This according to “Genre, gender, and convention revisited: k.d. lang’s cover of Cole Porter’s So in love” by Lori Burns (repercussions VII–VIII [spring–fall 1999–2000] pp. 299–325).

Above, a still from lang’s video; below, Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel in the 1953 film; further below, lang’s version.

Comments Off on k.d. lang’s “So in love”

Filed under Curiosities, Popular music

Tagged as ,

by | February 3, 2015 · 6:00 am

Hermit thrush pitch preferences

HermitThrush

The song of the hermit thrush, a common North American songbird, is renowned for its apparent musicality and has attracted the attention of musicians and ornithologists for more than a century.

Recent research has shown that hermit thrush songs, like much human music, use pitches that are mathematically related by simple integer ratios and follow the harmonic series. These findings add to a small but growing body of research showing that a preference for small-integer ratio intervals is not unique to humans; such findings are particularly relevant to the ongoing nature/nurture debate about whether musical predispositions such as the preference for consonant intervals are biologically or culturally driven.

This according to “Overtone-based pitch selection in hermit thrush song: Unexpected convergence with scale construction in human music” by Emily Doolittle, et al. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America CXI/46 [18 November 2014] pp. 16616–16621).

Below, a hermit thrush video that will fascinate your cats; more recordings, including slowed-down ones, are here.

Comments Off on Hermit thrush pitch preferences

Filed under Animals, Curiosities, Science, Theory

Tagged as ,

by | January 22, 2015 · 6:00 am

Mashup aesthetics

grey album

The aesthetics of musical mashups lie in a particular kind of technical virtuosity and set of listening skills, rather than in the creation of something entirely new or original. The art is to succeed in finding two tracks that fit together musically, resulting in successful songs in their own right.

Mashups are characterized by two underlying principles: contextual incongruity of recognizable samples and musical congruity between the mashed tracks.

Contextual incongruity often creates a humorous effect, which explains why many listeners react with smiles and laughter when hearing a new mashup. In successful mashups, the combination of musical congruity and contextual incongruity results in the paradoxical response: “these two songs should definitely not work together…but they do!”

This according to “Contextual incongruity and musical congruity: The aesthetics and humour of mash-ups” by Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen and Paul Harkins (Popular music XXXI/1 [January 2012] pp. 87–104).

Above, DJ Danger Mouse’s The grey album from 2004; below, The Evolution Control Committee’s The whipped cream mixes from 1994. Both are analyzed in the article.

Comments Off on Mashup aesthetics

Filed under Curiosities, Popular music

Tagged as

by | January 19, 2015 · 6:00 am

Slime mold music

Physarum polycephalum

Die Lebensfreude is a pioneering piece of music composed with the aid of an amoeba-like plasmodial slime mold called physarum polycephalum.

The composition is for an ensemble of five instruments (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano) and six channels of electronically synthesized sounds. The instrumental parts and the synthesized sounds are musifications and sonifications, respectively, of a multi-agent based simulation of physarum foraging for food.

Physarum polycephalum inhabits cool, moist, shaded areas over decaying plant matter, and it eats nutrients such as oat flakes, bacteria, and dead organic matter. It is a biological computing substrate, and has been enjoying much popularity within the unconventional computing research community for its astonishing computational properties.

This according to “Harnessing the intelligence of physarum polycephalum for unconventional computing-aided musical composition”by Eduardo R. Miranda, an article included in Music and unconventional computing (London: AISB, 2013).

Many thanks to the Annals of Improbable Research for bringing this to our attention! Above, the co-composer; below, the work’s premiere.

Comments Off on Slime mold music

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Nature, Science

Tagged as ,

by | January 12, 2015 · 6:00 am

Inebriated zebra finches

 

zebra finches

Speech impairment is one of the most intriguing and least understood effects of alcohol on cognitive function, largely due to the lack of data on alcohol effects on vocalizations in the context of an appropriate experimental model organism.

Zebra finches, a representative songbird and a premier model for understanding the neurobiology of vocal production and learning, learn song in a manner analogous to how humans learn speech. When allowed access, finches readily drink alcohol, increase their blood ethanol concentrations (BEC) significantly, and sing a song with altered acoustic structure.

The most pronounced effects were decreased amplitude and increased entropy, the latter likely reflecting a disruption in the birds’ ability to maintain the spectral structure of song under alcohol. Furthermore, specific syllables, which have distinct acoustic structures, were differentially influenced by alcohol, likely reflecting a diversity in the neural mechanisms required for their production. Remarkably, these effects on vocalizations occurred without overt effects on general behavioral measures, and importantly, they occurred within a range of BEC that can be considered risky for humans.

Results suggest that the variable effects of alcohol on finch song reflect differential alcohol sensitivity of the brain circuitry elements that control different aspects of song production. They also point to finches as an informative model for understanding how alcohol affects the neuronal circuits that control the production of learned motor behaviors.

This according to “Drinking songs: Alcohol effects on learned song of zebra finches” by Christopher R. Olson, et al. (PLOS one IX/12 [23 December 2014] e115427).

Above, a female zebra finch reacts to a (perhaps inebriated) male; below, a (perhaps sober) zebra finch with a fastidious friend.

Comments Off on Inebriated zebra finches

Filed under Animals, Curiosities, Science

Tagged as , ,