Subject: Ah, but the human vocal chords are a type of instrument, are they not?
Author:
Posted on: 2021-09-04 12:53:47 UTC
And that means that any other instrument making music is also singing! Therefore, all music is song. :)
CHECKMATE
—doctorlit, CHECKMATE
I know, I know, I seem to have a new obsession every day these days - but there are so many interesting things in the world that I'll never have the time to fall in love with all of them, so I'm just sharing them as they come and go. Right now it's Western classical music and musical instruments that has been taking up the 90% of my brain I don't use according to all those Hollywood movies. Warning: long, rambly post ahead.
So when I was 10 and just moved to the big(ish) city from the country, one of the few things I'd truly found my place in was choir practice with recorder playing. My school was only able to offer extracurricular recorder and citera (a Hungarian folk instrument) teaching and choir, and I remember staying behind after classes with a friend, slowly picking out tunes on our school-issued recorders and frowning at sheet music. Our teacher was a very sweet old lady, and she ran one heck of a school choir - the height of my music-playing career was accompanying my choir with a recorder on an hour-long Christmas performance. And when I was, like, 12, I taught myself my favorite cartoon's theme by feeling out the notes one by one. Ah, good times... I was so proud the first time I played that theme song to my mom, folks.
I haven't actually picked up a recorder or any kind of instrument in years, but just a few days ago I found two things that reminded me of how much I love that feeling of being able to create music, so let me share both with you.
First of all, TwoSetViolin, a.k.a. the best thing since sliced bread, at least on Youtube. It's the channel of Brett and Eddy, two classical musicians and music nerds, who happen to be very funny and very good at roasting the heck out of bad violin playing in TV shows, violinists who garble up the melodies trying to set a world record, cheap low-quality violins on Amazon, violists (language warning), and in case you're wondering what classical music sounds like on a rubber chicken, wonder no more. They do have an unfortunate tendency to misuse the word 'triggered' (which, you know... not cool), but they make super funny and entertaining classical music content that's also very informative to those who have near-zero training like me. Warning for some brief fire imagery in some of these videos, but they really are worth a watch if you're looking for a good laugh to the dulcet tunes of bad violin playing.
Second: this fic. Oh, this fic. Now, I know Star Wars is an interesting fandom to be in and Kylux is a bit of a controversial ship, but this is one of my all-time fave pieces of fanfiction. Since it's an orchestra AU it has only the barest whiff of the movie's characterization, but I'd say it captures the essence of the characters while making them people we can root for. If that makes any sense. Also the author's obvious love for classical music is pouring from every word; I haven't seen descriptions of music this evocative and impressive in published fiction. The sequel is a bit less formidable (I'm one of those people who are tired to death of miscommunication and bottled-up feelings as a plot device), but the characters are still alive and believable, and the music writing is as good as ever. Heed the tags, ratings and warnings on both these fics, but I think you don't even have to be a SW fan to fall in love with them as long as "orchestra AU" is something you'd be into. I mean, I don't even like Star Wars, and I still stayed up until 2 am the other day to reread encore for, like, the fifth time.
More quality music content from the depths of Youtube: Paul Halley's gorgeous string quartet composition Winter, soundtrack to an equally beautiful short film titled The Maker, the Amadeus Electric Quartet's interesting take on Mozart and Falco, and a modern upgrade to Danse Macabre (one of my favorite classical pieces) by the very underrated Tempus Quartet (warning for fire imagery again).
Now, I do also have another ramble up my sleeve about my favorite classical pieces (Les Folies d'Espagne has a particular place of honor in my brain), but I shall keep that one to myself because whew did my mouth run away again. If you've made it this far reading this post, thank you for reading - and I'd love to hear about your musical memories and especially about your favorite classical music, because I'm always on the lookout to find new stuff to be bewitched by.
~Oculus, off to practice on the recorder
… Peking opera. Quite an experience.
Am I gonna stop anytime soon? Well, am I gonna stop discovering the most incredible takes on classical music on Youtube completely by accident? Nnope. So enjoy a medley (heh) of my new favorite classical content from the past few days.
It's some Carnegie Hall musicians playing a medley of Beethoven songs
. . .
while a YouTube singer overlays Beyoncé lyrics over it.
—doctorlit, uncultured
I mean, as far as my understanding goes, that's the case in classical music - you don't call a cello concerto a song if there aren't any human voices involved. I've definitely called classical pieces songs before, but now that I'm really getting into classical music, I understand why hearing that makes any serious music nerd bristle. Which is not to say that it's some horrible unforgivable social faux pas to make, but hey. We live to learn, right? (Which very much includes me, because again, I've made this same mistake.)
I don't think you can call all vocal performance pieces songs, either. Fer instance, operatic arias, or Bach's cantatas. It would feel off.
Not to minimize song as an art form, mind you. The terminology has more to do with genre than anything else, as far as I can tell. Pop music can be just as demanding to perform as classical music, and the voice is an instrument that can be mastered like any other. Helps if the one you're born with is the equivalent of a Stradivarius, of course...
~Neshomeh is not a Stradivarius; misses singing masterworks anyway.
Like, it's a song, because no other term fits it. But it doesn't really meet the criteria at all.
Also: if you sang an operatic aria a capella, I think it would have to be a song. So does that mean you can make something no longer a song by adding instruments to it? That seems weird; I would have assumed songishness was a character of the vocals.
Then again, is it still a song if it's only written? Is Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" a song, or is it only a song when Loreena McKennitt gets her hands on it? And did her writing a tune for it retroactively make the poem a song?
Just for a little extra quibble: the OED defines a song as having lyrics and a melody, but adds "(hence also) an instrumental piece or passage having structural or other characteristics suggestive of a song." If I play "Three Blind Mice" on a recorder, is it a song...?
hS
And that means that any other instrument making music is also singing! Therefore, all music is song. :)
CHECKMATE
—doctorlit, CHECKMATE
I know you're joking, but you don't know how hard I bristled to read that. I know I need to grow a sense of humor about classical music before I become my high school music teacher, but let me just enjoy being a gigantic music nerd in the making first. I'm not gonna sneer at anyone for not being into this as much as I am right now, but it's only recently that I started to understand the tremendous amount of hard work and skill that goes into creating and performing all those compositions I love. So yeah, I am in fact taking it seriously. (Not too seriously, mind you, since I'm a TwoSet fan, but you get my point.)
Edit: just to convey why that comment really caught me the wrong way, it's like walking up to a football fan and saying "All team sports involve tossing a ball around, so they're all basketball". Like I said, I know you're kidding and I'm not enough of a jerk to get mad about a joke, but. Come on.
The music of Brony musician MelodicPony is something else. "Luna's Determination" is on my cannen* for Uru offline. Requiēscat in pāce.
*A D'ni music playback device, I only just now realized a joke that could have been made for OFUMREDURE.
Yeah, I'm not really a music nerd, but I do have a lot of love for it right now. So I decided to go ahead with that ramble about my favorite pieces of classical and opera music after all, plus a bonus from a musical because that singing. I won't provide links because as we know links always break eventually, especially for older videos like a lot of those I listen to, but as of right now all these pieces are available on Youtube. And yeah, most of it's really basic stuff like Four Seasons, but there are a couple in there that might be new to some of you folks if you read this.
Also seriously, please do recommend more classical music to me - I'm about to listen to the entirety of Saint Matthew Passion because I've never heard a full recording, but I'm really looking to branch out right now. I oughta dig up that Beethoven CD/booklet I own...
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is also amazing. Another of my favorite pieces is the William Tell Overture by Rossini.