Music has been an important part of our human experience for a
long time. David played his lyre to calm King Saul's troubled spirit.
Orpheus, of Greek mythology, was a supreme musician who sailed with
Jason and the Argonauts. He saved the Argonauts from the Sirens and put
to sleep the dragon so Jason could take the Golden Fleece. It's no
wonder then, that there is something within us that is looking for
deeper meaning in music. Sometimes it has been right in front of us all
the time. Sometimes we have to dig a little deeper. Sometimes we find
it. Sometimes we don't.
We'll start with some nursery rhymes.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses and all the kings' men
Could not put Humpty together again
We have all heard Humpty Dumpty a zillion times. Is it just words that rhyme, thrown together around the 'humpty dumpty' phrase? It could be. However, there is also an interesting story that says it comes from the English Civil War. There was a cannon named Humpty Dumpty mounted on the town wall of Colchester. During a siege of the town, Humpty Dumpty was hit by cannon fire, knocked off the wall, and irreparably damaged.
A penny for a ball of thread
Another for a needle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel
Very much like Humpty Dumpty, we have probably heard Pop Goes the Weasel a zillion times also. Sadly, this song is about hard economic times, about being down on your luck. The weasel is a winter coat, or some of you other possessions. 'Pop' is selling your weasel to a pawn shop, or some other moneylender in order to get cash.
Euclid (think Geometry) wrote about the Golden Section in his Elements treatise. The Golden Section basically says it is aesthetically (visually) pleasing to divide something by.62/.38 rather than.50/.50. Anyway, in 1995 John Putz wrote an article in Mathematics Magazine where he analyzed Mozart's musical works (musical works split into two sections) in regards to the Golden Section. Putz analyzed the sections by looking at the number of musical measures. So if a piece was 100 measures long and perfectly adhered to the Golden Section, one part would be 38 measures long and the other part would be 62 measures long. Putz did not make any ironclad declarations, but he did find a frequency distribution that centered around the.62 figure.
Next up is Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin had the misfortune of somehow getting mixed up with fellow Russian Helena Blavatsky (or maybe it was the other way around). Blavatsky didn't just have a screw loose. Her train derailed on the way to the moon. In all honesty, Scriabin was way ahead of his time as far as multimedia presentations. He started work on his magnum opus Mysterium in 1903. It was going to be far more than just music. Scriabin wanted it to be a full participatory experience that also included sight, smell and touch.
Graduate students are still writing small-town telephone book-thick (do they even still print those?) theses and dissertations about Scriabin. (Here's one. In fact I this would work well as a sanity test. If you read that and it makes sense to you, you are insane. I'll go one step farther. If you can read that whole thing, you are insane.)
I mean really, you have no idea. I can't make this up. This stuff leaves Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code in the dust. And you thought heavy metal hair bands were full of themselves. Scriabin envisioned Mysterium being performed at a week-long event in the Himalayan foothills, subsequently to be followed by the end of the world. I guess it is good for us he never finished it. He worked on it until his death in 1915.
Hey, there's still more to go, but that will have to wait until next time...
We'll start with some nursery rhymes.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses and all the kings' men
Could not put Humpty together again
We have all heard Humpty Dumpty a zillion times. Is it just words that rhyme, thrown together around the 'humpty dumpty' phrase? It could be. However, there is also an interesting story that says it comes from the English Civil War. There was a cannon named Humpty Dumpty mounted on the town wall of Colchester. During a siege of the town, Humpty Dumpty was hit by cannon fire, knocked off the wall, and irreparably damaged.
A penny for a ball of thread
Another for a needle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel
Very much like Humpty Dumpty, we have probably heard Pop Goes the Weasel a zillion times also. Sadly, this song is about hard economic times, about being down on your luck. The weasel is a winter coat, or some of you other possessions. 'Pop' is selling your weasel to a pawn shop, or some other moneylender in order to get cash.
Euclid (think Geometry) wrote about the Golden Section in his Elements treatise. The Golden Section basically says it is aesthetically (visually) pleasing to divide something by.62/.38 rather than.50/.50. Anyway, in 1995 John Putz wrote an article in Mathematics Magazine where he analyzed Mozart's musical works (musical works split into two sections) in regards to the Golden Section. Putz analyzed the sections by looking at the number of musical measures. So if a piece was 100 measures long and perfectly adhered to the Golden Section, one part would be 38 measures long and the other part would be 62 measures long. Putz did not make any ironclad declarations, but he did find a frequency distribution that centered around the.62 figure.
Next up is Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin had the misfortune of somehow getting mixed up with fellow Russian Helena Blavatsky (or maybe it was the other way around). Blavatsky didn't just have a screw loose. Her train derailed on the way to the moon. In all honesty, Scriabin was way ahead of his time as far as multimedia presentations. He started work on his magnum opus Mysterium in 1903. It was going to be far more than just music. Scriabin wanted it to be a full participatory experience that also included sight, smell and touch.
Graduate students are still writing small-town telephone book-thick (do they even still print those?) theses and dissertations about Scriabin. (Here's one. In fact I this would work well as a sanity test. If you read that and it makes sense to you, you are insane. I'll go one step farther. If you can read that whole thing, you are insane.)
I mean really, you have no idea. I can't make this up. This stuff leaves Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code in the dust. And you thought heavy metal hair bands were full of themselves. Scriabin envisioned Mysterium being performed at a week-long event in the Himalayan foothills, subsequently to be followed by the end of the world. I guess it is good for us he never finished it. He worked on it until his death in 1915.
Hey, there's still more to go, but that will have to wait until next time...
Check out http://www.LouisGuitar.com for additional articles and other resources.
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