Bad Habits

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.- T.S. Eliot

Prevention magazine has published 9 "Harmless" Habits That Age You. These are:

1. Lack of Sleep
2. Too much sugar in the diet
3. Too much stress
4. Lack of regular exercise
5. Playing iPod too loud
6. Not socializing with friends
7. Not eating vegetables daily
8. Eating too little fat
9. Not enough sex

Bottom Line

As we age we need sleep and a good diet. The body is just not as tolerant of abuse as when we were young. We also need to stay active both physically and socially. In fact a recent study claims too much sitting can be deadly.

Music

"Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion."-Scottish Proverb

Have you ever been in a foreign country and felt so lost because you don't understand the language? I feel that way with music. It seems that everyone in my church is an excellent singer and/or piano player. Our 10-year-old cub scouts play better than I. Years ago in grade school I spent one year learning the violin but gave it up for art class the following year.

So to make amends I've been commuting while listening to lectures on music by Robert Greenberg of The Teaching Company. Some lecture series I've liked more than others:

great: Listening To Great Music
not so great: Great Masters: Beethoven—His Life and Music (too much life and too little music)

One series I had high hopes for was How to Listen to and Understand Opera. Opera inspired so much that we take for granted today like instrumental symphonies and modern orchestral musical instruments. But alas, I did not not learn to appreciate listening to people contort their voice in foreign languages.

A series that pleasantly surprised me was The Concerto. Lots of music was played and much of it I recognized and enjoy like the Bach Brandenburg Concertos. I'd love to find an online radio station that plays mostly concertos.

Bottom Line

While attempting to find Concertos online I stumbled upon free music theory lessons by the Scottish educational system called "Learn Listening Online". It looks like fun and includes bagpipes!

Other resource I found is Classical Online Radio with 160 classical radio station on the Internet. The first station I checked was Iceberg Radio (Canadian) which has a Soloist Instrumental channel that is mostly Concertos.

Old Tunes

“Music is what feelings sound like.”

Music has been around for thousands of years and some of the tunes we sing are much older than we realize.

While listening to a lecture series on Beethoven, the instructor played the opening of Wellington's Victory, an orchestral work to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory over Joseph Bonaparte's forces at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. And just like the famous 1812 Overture, the work features live cannon blasts.

The Battle Symphony begins with theme songs for each army as they approach for battle. To my surprise the theme for the French Army was a song we sing in Cub Scouts, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.” Back then the song was known as Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre (Marlborough Has Left for the War), one of the most popular folk songs in the French language. This tune would inspire two songs in English, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” and “For He’s a Jolly Old Fellow”. Here’s highlights of the translated lyrics about a battle in 1709:

Marlborough the Prince of Commanders
Is gone to war in Flanders,
His fame is like Alexander's,
But when will he ever come home?
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine.
…
Milady in her watch-tower
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not knowing why or how her
Dear lord from England stays.
Mironton, etc
…
While sitting quite forlorn in
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,
With fainting steps and slow.
...
He's dead! He's dead as a herring!
For I beheld his bearing,
And four officers transferring
His corpse away from the field.

According to Wikipedia, in 1785 a peasant nicknamed Madame Poitrine sang this song to an infant Louis XVII of France as she nursed him. The Queen was captivated by the tune and soon everyone in Versailles was singing it. It spread to Paris and became the rage of the town with the name of the song applied to fashions, carriages and soups. The battle scene was painted on fans, fire-screens, toys, and porcelains; woven into tapestries.

Bottom Line

Many popular songs have a forgotten history.

“The Star Spangled Banner” uses the tune of a popular British drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven".

“America the Beautiful” uses the tune of “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem” from 1882.

"My Country, 'Tis of Thee" is sung to the tune “God Save the Queen/King”. This tune has been used in the national anthems of Norway, Sweden, and Liechtenstein and is the official fanfare for British Royalty.

The Christmas song, “What Child Is This?” (1865), was reset to the tune of Greensleeves from 1580.

What is The Oldest Song in the World? From the lost city of Ugarit in Syria, linguists have discovered a song and tune 3200 years old on old clay tablets. (Picture at top)

The oldest recording of songs? Arias by tenor Enrico Caruso recorded in 1902 and available on iTunes 107 years later.

Listening to Great Music

“Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man” - E. M. Forster

My latest commuting CD lecture series has been, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, by Robert Greenberg and the Teaching Company. In the span of 48 CDs the instructor explains Western Music from Ancient Greece to the 1920’s. It was fun listening to Gregorian Chants and Madrigals – these forms are rarely performed today. Then Baroque (Bach), Classical (Mozart), Romantics (Beethoven), and Modern (Debussy, Mahler). While enjoyable, I wish there was more music and less of the instructor’s opinions – his comments, while amusing, were all too frequent. I also suspect that the Teaching Company had to pay a licensing fee for each musical piece used. So the same song snippets (like the opening of Beethoven’s 5th) were used over and over again to reduce the total number of licenses paid.

One of the instructor’s best lessons was comparing symphony music to baseball. There’s a lot we take for granted when we watch baseball. There will be 9 innings (usually), each inning has both teams at bat, they stay at bat until three outs, and an out can be 3 strikes, tagged at base or a caught ball.

Likewise true Classical music (from the Classic era, 1750 to 1825) has a structure, as do the pieces from the older Baroque period. The Romantic composers like Beethoven expressed their individuality by modifying and playing games with the “official” structure. Modern composers go even further and compose anything they want with little regard to "rules".

For example, the Symphony began as the Overture to Italian Operas. The Germans/Austrians standardized it in the 18th and 19th centuries as a performance in four parts:

1. An opening fast piece (Allegro), usually in sonata form.
2. A slow movement (Andante or Largo)
3. A dance movement like a slow 3-beat Minuet and trio; later changed to a fast 3-beat (Scherzo) by Beethoven
4. A faster finale in sonata–rondo form

A sonata form is like a mini-opera: there is an optional introduction (Overture), then two themes are introduced in the Exposition (Act 1), the themes battle and change in the Development section (Act 2), and there is a final resolution of the themes in the Recapitulation (Act 3). There is also typically a finale called the Coda.

Likewise there are rules for Minuet and trio, Rondo and everything else.

Bottom Line

If you find Classical Music confusing, then I highly recommend this lecture series. It will teach you what to listen for and what to expect in symphony music. The cost is $95 to download the audio or $180 for DVDs you can watch on TV. My cost was zero as I borrowed these from our local library system.