The Fine Art of Listening

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.

Actually, that title is completely wrong. If you don’t have solid rhythm, you’ll never dance this waltz.

Nearly all music (seriously – I mean like 99% or more) is in one of a couple meters. We divide them into a few categories: duple vs. triple; simple vs. compound. Duple means there are 2 (or 4) beats per measure. Triple means there are 3 (I bet you guess that already, though.) Simple means you can divide each beat into 2 smaller beats (twinkle, twinkle, little star); compound means you can divide each beat into 3 smaller beats (row, row, row your boat). You can have simple or compound duple meter (2/4 or 6/8 – 2 beats per measure, and each beat can be divided into 2 or 3 smaller beats); you can have simple or compound triple meter (3/4 or 9/8 – 3 beats per measure, and each beat can be divided into 2 or 3 smaller beats).

Confused? Don’t worry. The important thing is that we are by no means limited to using only these meters, despite the fact that they dominate the music we hear. Write something in a different meter – say, 5/4, 7/4, 11/8 – and your piece will have either a rhythmic edge that excites people, or a disorganized pulse which only confuses people. Enter Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, arguably the smoothest crafter of melody to have ever walked the earth. This “Waltz” from his Sixth Symphony is in 5/4 time, but flows so smoothly that you wouldn’t know it’s in a quintuple meter unless you tried to dance to the music. It’s a standard form for a dance: trio – there’s an A section with a sweeping cello melody, followed by a B section marked by a timpani pulse, then a return to the A material.

Some people get delightfully embarrassed if you sing a song about them. Think about the feeling you might get when your friends sing you “Happy Birthday”, or when that special someone sang “A Whole New World” to you at the karaoke bar.

And then there are those people who are so self-focused that they feel the need to constantly sing about themselves. This famous aria from Gioachino Rossini‘s The Barber of Seville is practically a love-song that Figaro sings to himself. Does he deserve all this praise? Well, he just might. Try singing along with him at 3:45 – just use the syllable “la”. Not so easy, eh? Not only does he need super-human tongue abilities, he needs to sound good and sing loud at the same time.

Ok, ok, you win – go ahead and sing about how awesome you are. You deserve it.

There’s really nothing weird about singing a song about how awesome you are. Modern-day popular examples include “Ice, Ice, Baby“, “What’s My Name“, “My Name Is” (it’s practically a rite of passage for a hip-hop artist to use a song to promote him/herself).