Donkeys are universally goofy. Their iconic braying has inspired composers to set “hee haw” in a number of works. There’s the amorous braying in Mendelssohn‘s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream“. There’s some good mockery in Saint-Saen‘s “Carnival of the Animals“, where the composer draws a connection between these dumb beasts and “people with long ears” … IE, music critics. There’s a charming Christmas tale by Rutter, “Brother Heinrich’s Christmas” about a donkey who wants to sing in the choir, and ends up contributing a well-timed “hee haw” to cleverly complete the carol In Dulci Jubilo.

But by far the smartest musical Hee-Haw is American composer Ferde Grofé‘s Grand Canyon Suite, which has a whole movement based on this delightful “ass-motif“. This movement perfectly paints a bumpy donkey ride in the beautiful American western landscape.

In one episode of the Britcom “Red Dwarf“, a robot suggests that the traditional 7-pitch musical scales should be changed into a 10-pitch scale, making it work with the metric system. In this show, this is suggested as a joke, and is accompanied by that truly horrific laugh-track that accompanies any Britcom. But it’s really an interesting idea, if you think about it.

It’s nothing new, though. People have been messing around with scales for ages. For example, most people are familiar with the sound of a pentatonic scale, which is used in every culture in the world (but western children will usually say that it sounds “Asian”.) And then there’s the octatonic scale, a favorite among jazz musicians and late romantic composers. Claude Debussy continued this tradition of scale-play by stretching standard tonality to its limits. In his piano composition, Voiles (meaning “veils), he uses a 6-pitch scale called “whole tone.”

The effect is marvelous – it feels like we are floating! On one hand, we have a sense of a tonal center (a “home key”) thanks to the pulsing bass, and simple melodic figures. But on the other hand, a couple more pitches in the scale, and we begin to question where we really are.

In the King Arthur legends, there’s all kinds of adultery, usually achieved by one person tricking another through magic. While everybody knows the famous love triangle of Arthur – Guinevere – Lancelot, fewer know about the directly attached love triangle of Guinevere – Lancelot – Elaine.

It’s all so screwed up. Lancelot is mad because he got tricked into marrying Elaine (NB: make sure you actually look at somebody before you sleep with them); Elaine is mad because Lancelot doesn’t love him (NB: don’t use trickery to get someone in bed); Guinevere is mad because she has to share her lover now (NB: don’t be so greedy); Arthur is mad because he has to pretend not to notice (NB: laws that demand adulterers be put to death can really mess up your family life); Morgause is mad because Arthur’s family has ruined hers (NB: incest is not necessarily the best form of revenge).

Edward MacDowell is one of the first highly-trained American composers. He is one of the Boston Six, the American answer to France’s Le Six or the Russian Mighty Handful: a group of composers who were shaping a national sound for the relatively young country. His tone-poems are on par with the best of the European masters, though they are largely ignored today. MacDowell’s tragic Lancelot and Elaine borrows its sound from the epic musical legends of Wagner.