Eccentric Flower talk:200906/Clip Show

Patrick:

1970s children's television was so damned trippy. That series of counting shorts with the baker falling down the stairs is so random, yet follows a very specific formula.

I think that kind of educational program explains a lot about our generation.

-- 00:01, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Mel:

I don't think Minuet in G sounds much like Canon in D at all. I like them both. (We used Canon in D as the processional at our wedding, which I think has gotten to be pretty common now but I thought was very innovative at the time!) However, I do see the guy's point about the cello part.

I also loved the Foggy Mountain Breakdown performance. (I didn't realize Steve Martin was really so serious about playing the banjo!) And I'd vote for the Hawaiian War Chant as my favorite part of Lion King.

-- 05:17, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Bunny42:

Rob Paravonian has it exactly right. I hate the Canon in D and have, ever since the first time I heard it. Talk about boring. And that particular construction really is everywhere. I once heard a jazz rendition that was passable, but oh, how I dislike that piece. Almost as boring as Ravel's Bolero. 10 notwithstanding, I find that dump, da da da dump, da da da, da da da, da da da dump... to be mind-numbing. Yeah, I know, he wrote it on a dare. I know all about gradually adding instruments, switching to the relative minor key (which apparently wasn't cheating), and all of that. I still think it's annoying.

Thanks for all the Sesame Street clips. I grew up before there was Sesame Street, so hadn't seen most of those.

Oh, and I can well understand how you could confuse the Canon with Minuet in G, if you're only referring to that Electric Dreams clip. That center section sort of IS Canon in D, with occasional references to the Minuet thrown in. Just proves that blasted Canon (sorry...) is everywhere!

-- 10:54, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Bunny42:

Two things:

No offense, Mel. To each his own. Didn't mean to dis your wedding march.

And, here's another Bill Bailey you might enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VbPd2iu4bg

-- 11:19, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Mel: They don't sound much like each other, though as Bunny notes, the Electric Dreams rendition of the minuet has a section that could confuse you. The problem is really that I didn't associate a name with either piece at the time I saw the movie and someone told me that was Pachelbel. They were wrong.

I grew up hearing all these pieces of music and never knowing what any of them were; I'm still, at 41, in the process of putting names to faces, as it were. (Remember when I was thrashing around trying to find out about the Rondo Alla Turca?) This - like the fermata and the time signatures and so on - is one of the places where I suspect I suffer comparatively to my peers, because I was never in band or choir (I sang in a church choir for a couple of months, but I gave up on churches for life right about then for unrelated reasons), or any group-based sort of musical activities.

Steve Martin is a very good banjo player. Pretty much always has been, but his comedy schtick obscured this fact for many years.

-- 16:33, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Bunny: Bolero is one piece I would never have learned to appreciate except for two things:

1) A sequence from Allegro Non Troppo which features the progression of all life evolving anew from scum in the bottom of a discarded Coke bottle, set to it (Bozzetto's dig at the "Rite of Spring" portion of Fantasia);

2) A music appreciation teacher in college, bless him, the man who got me started on this process of learning to love stuff I had rejected for years, who pointed out that "Bolero" is really about an orchestra building and building until it has no option but to self-destruct - at the end of the piece there is that sudden, violent key change and they all start fluffing notes and just fall apart.

Also, you haven't lived until you've heard Frank Zappa's version, which is unfortunately now a semi-rarity - on later pressings of "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life," the song has been omitted due to pressure from the Ravel estate. (But MY copy has it!)

-- 16:42, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Bunny42:

I didn't say I don't *appreciate* Bolero, because I do recognize the artistry involved in constructing an entire classical opus upon one major chord (and its relative minor.) This was quite a feat. I just don't like it much. Maybe after I've seen Allegro Non Troppo (Netflix, don't fail me now!) I'll change my opinion.

In high school, our music teacher was attempting to instill some manner of appreciation of the finer things by playing various selections of program music and asking us to describe the images the music evoked. One happened to be Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faone. I told him I could envision this little faun cavorting in the forest. He replied, "Aha, we know this one, do we?" Or words to that effect. Yeah, I did. I was such a brown-noser. But once you learn to love classical music, there's nothing else like it.

Are you familiar with Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks? Talk about images!

-- 20:37, 27 June 2009 (BST)

Joy:

I can't help but adore Bolero because of Torvill and Dean's 1984 Olympic ice dance to it. I was riveted, as only a 15 year old can be.

-- 04:02, 28 June 2009 (BST)