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The more perspicacious (is that even a word, and if so, doesn’t it just mean “sweaty”?) will have noticed that TOG has left the land of surprisingly poor internet access (China) and has finally, thanks to Japanese technical ingenuity, had the chance to upload my latest TTOTDOWOHOHCBATCI - “Warmth of the Sun” by the Beach Boys.
Why this particular tune? Because a) it’s an early sign of Brian Wilson’s songwriting genius and b) it’s a good illustration of the Beach Boys’ mighty gift of harmony. If you understand harmony, you understand music. EVERYONE understands rhythm and melody at some level, because rhythm surrounds us in everyday life and everyone can hum a basic tune; but if you can get your head round chords - starting with the simplest tonic-mediant-dominant (notes 1,3 and 5 in the scale) - and their endless variations and applications within a tune, you can consider yourself “proper” musical. (Oh, and c) because every single song I’ve uploaded up to this point, apart from the ill-fated Van Morrison one, seems to have been taken from a 45-day period in 1983 and my musical taste is looking shockingly narrow as a result.)
I have a theory, which I hope to be able to test out one day; if you expose children at an early age to lots of harmony-heavy music (like this song, any good barbershop, or something more modern like the Puppini Sisters), you’ll end up with an individual who can’t help but instinctively understand chord formation. OK, that may not mean that they’ll automatically win The X Factor in later life (which, as I understand it, is judged solely on whether a contestant can make their voice do a ridiculous Mariah Carey-esque vibrato on EVERY SINGLE NOTE), but at least it’s some kind of parental gift with meaning.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Music, Taf's Tune of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Martin is a bit of a Beach Boys fanatic and knows the lyrics to just about every song they ever did. Fortunately, I quite like them myself, otherwise I’d have killed him after the fortieth rendition of Sloop John B of the day.
The Puppini Sisters are indeed excellent; I especially love their versions of Heart of Glass and Wuthering Heights. Also, if you read the comments under the Youtube clip of them singing Crazy in Love, a rather amusing series of rants break out after people believe that Beyoncé nicked an old 1940s song…
Harmony is definitely the key to musicality, I’d agree, because it requires more of a finely-tuned ear than simple melody. Most people can sing something vaguely in tune, but will find it far more difficult to harmonise or to keep their concentration if someone else is doing so. (Although obviously, some aspects are easier than others: I love the look of awe non-musical people give me when I slip into thirds while singing with them, as if it’s an impressive piece of improvised harmony. I like to maintain my totally undeserved pedestal by pretending it’s much more difficult than it actually is to just sing the same tune a third below) But more than that, it’s great fun. I used to love writing four-part choral songs because with even the most simple melody, it still sounds great, especially if you can work in a little counterpoint here and there. One of the pieces I’m most proud of from my A Level days because it was halfway decent was a five-part a capella arrangement of Ben E. King’s ‘Stand By Me’.
While I’m still feeling particularly nerdy, what’s your favourite harmonic device? I went through a phase (of about, oh, four years or so) of being obsessed with suspension. EVERY song or piece I wrote had to have it in there somewhere. It’s somehow incredibly satisfying, like a massive sneeze after you’ve been expecting one for ages. But, assuming you’re going to create a (naturally very popular) poll on this, as an issue I’m sure we’re all very interested in, I’d also like to nominate the Tierce de Picardie as a second contender.
You’ve reminded me of the rather tongue-in-cheek definitions for musical terms we used to get taught. Melisma is defined as “the reason Mariah Carey should be shot” and modulation as “the point in the song at which Westlife stand up from their stools”.
Points of interest from (at least) a musically uninteresting person:
It’s interesting that you name “Sloop John B” (which leads me to believe that The Beau plays that more than the others) because it’s not an original Beach Boys song.
Taf, you’ve been holding out on me. In the future, if you note any women of interest and of equal caliber to that redheaded siren, notify my immediately. In return, I offer Deltalina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgpzUo_kbFY
Wait for the No Smoking part…
My favorite song for harmony would have to be “Learning to Fly”, by the interminable Tom Petty. Good stuff.
Yup - it’s his favourite. Closely followed by Kokomo, but I think that’s only because he has a thing for Oriental chicks.
Zee - to my shame, I’m a complete ignoramus when it comes to the descriptive technicalities attendant on harmony. I don’t even have GCSE music due to a music teacher who I disliked intensely (ask Chez about Richard Bainbridge…) I can sing harmonies, and often replicate them first time on piano or guitar, even write them down transposed into an easy key - but to me, a “melisma” is the miasma of a relationship which I once had with a girl called Melissa.
Cane - Deltalina’s not my type at all, I’m afraid. Her nasal version of the American accent doesn’t do it for me in the slightest, so she’s off to a bad start; factor in the pentagonal face and artificial trout pout, and you have a woman who’d have to offer me the flight for free before I’d even consider joining the mile-high club under her stewardship.
Which only goes to prove that all the education and reading of books in the world can’t beat good old-fashioned natural talent. You do it with music, just as Cane does it with writing. *sigh* I’ll just keep on learning my theory and hoping it does me some good one day.
Taf - I failed to reckon with your peculiar sensibilities. Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nAMFWDuDEI
Fall in love all over again.
—–
Zoe - Uh-huh, right.
“How evah will Ah prevail in the presence of all these men? Oh look: I dropped my pen. I guess I’ll have t- ”
BANG!
“Got it!”
CRASH!
“Gimme that!”
POKE!
“MY EYE! OH GOD MY EYE!”
ZAM!
“Ooph!”
“Why, thank you, boys.”
There’s talent, and then there’s Talent. You gotta let us have something.
Cane - I was expecting a less pentagonal honey; I guess that’s my own personal version of a Rickrolling. However, for the (calendarially appropriate) distilled essence of why you hate Morrissey, check dis -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z9TOyPzgTeo
It was filmed in Texas (possibly).
Okay, I surrender. My findthevideothatbestdisplaysthecaseforMorrissey’shomosexuality skills are no match for your Wang Fu.
Cane - apologies for the over-justification of my comments box (and I mean only in the typeface sense).
My high horse beckons momentarily, however; FYI, Morrissey is not a professed homosexual. He is an avowed celibate (and vegetarian), although even if he were a professed badger-bumhole-fetishist who subsisted solely on raw veal, it would make no difference to the quality of his music. He may not be to your taste, and I’ll concede that he often prances around like a tit, occasionally says silly things, and has been largely crap in terms of solo output. Nonetheless, he’s an English national treasure, and he’s been (in the form of The Smiths, rather than his solo work) primarily responsible for arguably (in fact, almost certainly) the most important and influential English music since the Beatles. To properly understand our Strangeways, you need to get intimate with writers like Steven Patrick Morrissey, Ian Dury, Ray Davies et al. God knows I’ve already met you half-way, owning as I do three Zed Zed Top albums.
I just like to rib you about that. It seems safe. Look: I lay off the ex-girlfriends; I sympathize with your social flubs…I even consider you a weird-ass* stanky liberal eFriend, for God’s sake. Let me (you) have my (your) Morrissey.
I know he’s not a homosexual, and I don’t care. If he were a homosexual I wouldn’t care about that either. Honestly, it maligns homosexuals for me to describe him as such, but it’s hard not to slip. You won’t catch me banging on** (or off) about most truly gay artists. And why not? Elton John might smoke more cocks than Billy’s Barbecue Chicken Shack, but he doesn’t act like a his grown-up male body is being controlled by the brain of a five-year old girl with a love for interpretive dance and a taste for peyote.
Oh Taf–why do we fight? You had me at Black Crowes.
*Weird-ass because eAnything is weird; not because you are.
**Honourary*** Brit slang
*** Once more
Fair dos, Cane; but I will at least get you to admit that some Smiths stuff is good, even if you and Mozza never see eye-to-eye personally.
“Elton John might smoke more cocks than Billy’s Barbecue Chicken Shack, but he doesn’t act like a his grown-up male body is being controlled by the brain of a five-year old girl”… so what the frock is this all about then?
(Incidentally, congrats for getting Elton John into this thread; the post-title pun is justified now.)
All right, all right–”How Soon Is Now” is good, and I’m sure that indicates the existence of a few other gems within The Smiths collection.
This is all alarmingly like the Robert Smith/The Cure conversations I had to endure from my alternative friends in highschool.
“You gotta respect The Cure, Cane.”
“No, I don’t. Have you seen that guy?”
“Fine, he looks weird, but admit that their music changed the scene; I mean, it was seminal, and–”
“Oh I admit that. There’s no denying Robert Smith got a bunch of seminal fluid flowing. Hey, is that how he gets his hair to do that?”
“You can’t tell me that you don’t like any Cure songs.”
“All right–”Just Like Heaven” is good.”
“If you like that, then check ou–”
“Save it. You’ve done enough damage today.”
I will admit those proponents were justified when The Crow soundtrack came out. “Burn”, is a damned good song.
Upon Sir Trick–Look at his face. That man is NOT happy. A five-year old girl may be controlling him, but she’s sober, and he’s clearly angry about the puppetry.
“He is an avowed celibate”
I beg to differ. Thanks to this thread, I have just spent the most surreal five minutes of my life, watching a man make sweet, passionate love to a rock. That boulder ain’t no virgin no more, and he ain’t no celibate neither.*
* Honorary Texas slang, because Cane absolutely owned you there, Taf.
Own no he didn’t!
Ha!
By the bye: For some time, when I have to enter the Anti-spam word, all I have to do is click in the box and select from a series of seven or so.
I think that’s just your browser remembering an entered value. If you clear your cache / cookies, it should stop - although either way, I wouldn’t worry overly; I suspect that VP is an awful long way from being the equivalent of a fat juicy oil tanker to the Somali pirates of cybercrime.
Haha! Sorry, I wasn’t complaining. I was commenting on the frequency of my visits. Hey, did I ever mention that my job is in IT?
I also started out to make a joke about clicking boxes, since that particular word was ‘bang bang’, but decided against it at the last minute.
Apols, Cane, obviously that’s what you meant. I should have gone with my first instinct; as-yet-unborn children know that browsers tend to auto-complete passwords.