Author: mrsfostermusic

The Rubettes were a British pop group of studio musicians assembled in 1973. Their songs were influenced by doo-wop and 1950s American pop. Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll vocal music that was popular in the 1950s and ’60s. The term doo-wop is derived from the sounds made by the group as they provided the background harmony for the lead singer. In this song the lead singer starts the melody using a vocal technique called falsetto. When a male singer sings in the soprano or alto range, he is singing falsetto. The voice type is known as countertenor.

Things to listen out for:

• The pizzicato (plucked) strings
• A spoken middle 8 section
• The “Wall of Sound” recording technique

Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound technique was one of the first attempts to use the recording studio as an instrument in its own right. This was created through the use of large ensembles of musicians. Echo chambers were then used to produce the final rich and booming result that came across well through the radios and jukeboxes of that era. The Beach Boys often used Wall of Sound arrangements. You can hear this in their classic hit ‘God Only Knows’ on a previous blog post: https://hayesmusic.blog/2020/04/04/daily-listening-saturday-4th-april/

Darius Milhaud (1892 – 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and Brazilian music and make extensive use of polytonality. Harmony that contains chords belonging to several different keys is described as polytonal.

Milhaud’s Scaramouche is a three-movement work based on incidental music written for a play. It is named after the Theâtre Scaramouche on the Champs Elysées in Paris, where the play was performed. In today’s piece, listen out for the offbeat rhythms (syncopation) and fast, energetic tempo typical of the samba music style from Brazil.

Find out more about the saxophonist Jess Gillam here: http://www.jessgillamsax.co.uk/

Eva Cassidy ( 1963 – 1996) was an American singer and guitarist. She had a diverse repertoire of jazz, blues, folk, gospel and pop.  Although she had been honoured by the Washington Area Music Association, she was virtually unknown outside her native Washington,D.C. Two years after her death, Cassidy’s music was brought to the attention of British audiences, when her versions of “Fields of Gold” and “Over the Rainbow” were played on BBC Radio 2. 

Following the overwhelming response on Radio 2, a black and white video of Cassidy interpreting Somewhere Over The Rainbow was shown on the BBC television show Top Of The Pops 2. The video prompted an unbelievable response, the greatest in the programme’s history. Her posthumously released recordings, including three number-one albums and one number-one single in the UK, have since sold more than ten million copies worldwide.

In 1933, Florence Price was the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra (the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). Florence’s music brings together the European classical tradition in which she was trained and the haunting melodies of African-American spirituals and folk tunes. Today’s listening piece is the third dance movement from her Symphony in E minor. The Juba dance or hambone was a dance based in West Africa that was imported by African slaves to American plantations and could be performed at gatherings where instruments like drums (for fear of transmitted secret messages) were forbidden.

The Turangalîla-Symphonie is a large-scale piece of orchestral music by Olivier Messiaen (1908–92). It was written from 1946 to 1948 and is considered a 20th-century masterpiece.

Turanga (time) and lîla (love) come together in this epic symphony by a modern master — complete with the mysterious sounds of the ondes Martenot.

The ondes Martenot or ondes musicales (“musical waves”) is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating “wavering” sounds. A player of the ondes martenot is called an ondist.

The ondes Martenot was invented in 1928 by the French inventor Maurice Martenot. Martenot was inspired by the accidental overlaps of tones between military radio oscillators, and wanted to create an instrument with the expressiveness of the cello.

A typical performance of the Turangalîla-Symphonie runs around 80 minutes in length. When asked about the meaning of the work’s duration in its ten movements and the reason for the use of the ondes Martenot, Messiaen simply replied, “It’s a love song.”

The unusual sounds of the ondes Martenot mean that it has featured in many films, particularly science fiction and horror films. It has also featured in popular music. Jonny Greenwood of the English rock band Radiohead is credited with bringing the ondes Martenot to a larger audience. He became fascinated with the instrument after hearing a performance of the Turangalîla-Symphonie when he was 15.

Spirituals are a genre of songs originating in the USA and created by African Americans. Spirituals were originally an oral tradition that shared Christian values while also describing the hardships of slavery. Although spirituals were originally unaccompanied monophonic (unison) songs, they developed into harmonised choral arrangements over time.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. Vocal performances without instrumental accompaniment are called a cappella. The first group was organised in 1871 to tour and raise funds for the college. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is an another famous spiritual. The earliest known recording of this spiritual was in 1909.

Frederick Delius (1862 – 1934) was an English composer. He was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire to a wealthy business family but he resisted attempts to recruit him into the family wool business. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. He soon neglected his managerial duties, instead dreaming of becoming a professional composer and in 1886 returned to Europe. Having been influenced by African-American music during his short stay in Florida, he began composing. He incorporated the African-American spirituals that he had heard being sung, as well as other non-European musical sounds into his opera Koanga which was first performed in 1904. The story centres on Creole life and features an African prince and voodoo priest who have been enslaved on a Mississippi plantation. Koanga is considered to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music. Today’s melody, La Calinda, is the most famous musical passage from the opera.

Yesterday we heard Ravi Shankar’s music combining Indian and Western classical instrumentation. Today we will hear how Ravi inspired many other musicians, including George Harrison from The Beatles.

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” is a song by The Beatles from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. The track features a sitar part, played by lead guitarist George Harrison. This was the first appearance of the Indian string instrument on a Western rock recording. The song also helped elevate Ravi Shankar and Indian classical music to mainstream popularity in the West, and the song is recognised as a key work in the early evolution of world music.

Many other rock and pop artists, including the Rolling Stones went on to integrate elements of Indian classical music into their musical approach. This became know as raga rock.

Here is another example of raga rock from the 1960s:

Indian musician and composer Ravi Shankar wrote this piece in 1980. The work is subtitled Raga Mala (“A Garland of Ragas”), presenting 29 ragas in four big movements. A raga forms the melody in Indian classical music. Ragas are patterns of notes but are different to a scale or melody in Western music. They are really a combination of both. Each rag:

• has a particular ascending and descending pattern
• is associated with a different time of the day, season, mood or special occasion

Each raga will have some notes that are more important than others. Ragas also contain short musical phrases. The raga is traditionally played on a sitar.

The sitar

• Is a long-necked plucked string instrument with movable frets and a gourd resonator.
• Is played by plucking the strings with a metal plectrum.
• Has six or seven main strings and twelve or more sympathetic strings running underneath them, which resonate in sympathy.
• Has a characteristic shimmering sound.

Listen out for the sitar player improvising using the notes of the raga in many different ways:

• playing pitch bends (done by physically bending the string as it is played)
• playing fast scales or runs
• playing glissandos (slides)
• ornamentation (fast notes that are added to a melody to embellish them)

This piece was written with the following instrumentation:

 3 flutes , 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, timpani, percussion (anvil, bass drum, bongos, chimes, clave, conga, cymbals, finger cymbals, glockenspiel, marimba, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine, tam-tams, thunder sheet, triangle, vibraphone, whip, wind machine, xylophone), harp, celesta, strings, and solo sitar

Claude Debussy was a French composer (1862-1918). He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Suite bergamasque  is one of Debussy’s most famous piano suites. It was first composed by Debussy around 1890, at the age of 28, but was significantly revised just before its publication in 1905. The third and most famous movement of Suite bergamasque is “Clair de lune”, written in the key of D♭ major. Its time signature is ⁹₈ and the music is marked andante très expressif meaning at a walking speed; very expressive. Listen out for the homophonic texture. This literally means ”sounding together”. The texture of a piece can be described as homophonic when several parts move together (e.g. in the same rhythm). A good example of this can be heard around 1 min 36.