tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32354680.post4381112959260345883..comments2023-11-03T09:05:31.265-04:00Comments on Soho the Dog: Full measures of devotionMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10936327293692397100noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32354680.post-87965334777498722682007-09-13T23:33:00.000-04:002007-09-13T23:33:00.000-04:00Ah, Marvin Gaye's 1983 performance, what has it wr...Ah, Marvin Gaye's 1983 performance, what has it wrought? Last week, before the Saints v. Colts game, some <I>American Idol</I> wannabe took MG's style to the nadir; a singer ornamenting a Handel aria wouldn't dare add as many runs and melismatic bits as she did. It was the musical equivalent of using a nuclear weapon to kill a fly, just utterly ghastly. The fact she sang flat some of the time didn't help.... <BR/><BR/>As my mom is prone to saying, when SBB singers think they're on AI, "Just sing the damn song so the game can start".Henry Hollandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15871451112170286316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32354680.post-5917022210880990902007-09-12T17:05:00.000-04:002007-09-12T17:05:00.000-04:00Darcy: It's interesting that Ray recorded his vers...Darcy: It's interesting that Ray recorded his version of "America" in 1972, just four years after the Feliciano brouhaha, and didn't get any grief for it. That's a great point about his avoiding three—it made me think of Sam Cooke as well, who does something similar in his straight-eighths 4/4 (!) cover of "The Tennessee Waltz."<BR/><BR/>"America the Beautiful" is already a hymn—the words started off "O Mother, dear Jerusalem." Can you think of a better intersection of patriotic imagery and the habit of viewing the nation as an Augustinian city on a hill?<BR/><BR/>Daniel: For those who don't know the story, we should link to <A HREF="http://operachic.typepad.com/opera_chic/2007/02/stravinsky_in_s.html" REL="nofollow">Igor's mug shot</A>. (Yep, he was arrested for that arrangement. Go Boston!)Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10936327293692397100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32354680.post-83285705163118578242007-09-12T15:01:00.000-04:002007-09-12T15:01:00.000-04:00If we're talking about gospelized national anthems...If we're talking about gospelized national anthems, you can't very well not mention Ray Charles's version of "America The Beautiful." The tune is originally in 4/4, of course, but Ray moves it to a slow gospel 12/8 (though the faux-martial intro suggests 3/4), and most of the activity is contained within the first two beats.The front of beat 3 is usually left open, or functions as an arrival point for a held note, and then the activity resumes on beat 4, or in the following bar. Not every single bar works like this, of course, but Ray's aversion to beat 3 is so strong that even when the choir is singing in straight dotted quarters "From sea to shin-ing sea," Ray sings the the first three notes with them (starting with the pickup on beat 4) -- "From sea to" -- then a dotted quarter rest on beat 3, then "shin-ing sea" all on beat four. (He does this both times.)DJAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12435473070510590935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32354680.post-6002198632692763772007-09-12T14:27:00.000-04:002007-09-12T14:27:00.000-04:00Isn't it astonishing how much musical tastes have ...Isn't it astonishing how much musical tastes have changed when you recall that Stravinsky's arrangement -- which introduced a very few modest dissonances to the harmony but otherwise varied little from the "official" arrangements of the era -- was once an occasion for great controversy.Daniel Wolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093101325234464791noreply@blogger.com