Michelle Williams on Campus (Click to ENLARGE)

Whitney Houston on Campus (Click to ENLARGE)

Elvis on Campus (Click to ENLARGE)

Paul McCartney (Click to ENLARGE)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Click to ENLARGE)

Thereminist (Click to ENLARGE)

ELVIS (Click to ENLARGE)

Another Sample Song Presentation

YAKETY YAK

MY SONG PRESENTATION is "Yakety Yak," a hit for the doo-wop group The Coasters in 1958.
    Doo-wop is a form of Rhythm and Blues with mainly vocal harmonies supporting a lead vocal, with the group singing nonsense syllables in the background, such as "doo-wop"; hence the name (listen to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," by The Platters, where "doo-wop" can be clearly heard). Although doo-wop was usually in ballad form, such as "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," The Coasters specialized in comic vignettes, or short-short stories in Rock form.
     The song  gets its name from an idiomatic expression used when someone talks too much or "nags." The husband may tell his nagging wife, "Yakety yak! Stop yakking!"
     The song sums up in a few minutes the irritation teenagers feel when their parents nag them about chores or friends.
     The lyrics are a capsule of 1950s youth culture that a sociologist might take dozens of pages to describe as well. References are made to Rock 'n' Roll dances, Friday night dates, "talking back," "trash" (garbage),  "hip" (wise) fathers, and laundromats.
    Using the point of view of the mother, the writer refers to a teenager's chores (scrubbing floors, caring for pets, etc.), using contemporary jargon and idiomatic expressions ("dirty looks," "what cooks," "hip," and "hoodlum friends"). "Dirty looks" are angry looks. "What cooks" means what's happening. A laundromat uses coin-operated clothes washers and dryers. Most teenagers can probably identify with this little vignette even today, half a century later.
     Words and music are by Lieber and Stoller, who wrote famous Rock hits in the 1950s, including many for Elvis Presley, such as "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," "Love Me" (not to be confused with "Love Me Tender") and others.
    The arrangement is highlighted by a stuttering sax solo by King Curtis, a well-known session player of the time. The solo is a gem and stands repeated hearings. It begins with Curtis's trademark sax stutter 54 seconds into the song.
     The solo is a model of simplicity, based on strict repetition or simple sequential patterns (that is, a phrase repeated at different pitch levels). The rhythmic changes add interest to the repetitions.
    The refrain ("Yakety Yak" and its answer, "Don't talk back") adds humor and realism to this marvellous vignette of the early Rock era and closes the song nicely with repeats of the title, and the teen's symbolic victory, since he has the final word, which must have pleased teenagers.
    Unfortunately the original recording is not available on youtube except in an edited cartoon version that especially mars the solo with sound effects (go here). The song begins several seconds into the cartoon and the solo is barely audible and edited to repeat the opening strain. What sounds like a cover version can be heard here. Though at a faster tempo than the original, it gives an idea what the original sounds like and the solo is intact. Taiwan students can probably easily locate the original.

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Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spending cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Just finish cleaning up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doing that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don't talk back)
(KING CURTIS SAX BREAK)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak!

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Elvis Variations (click to ENLARGE)

Gustav Mahler on Campus (click to ENLARGE)

Homage to Chuck Berry (2) (click to ENLARGE)

Sidney Bechet on Campus (click to ENLARGE)

Beethoven Taking a Walk on Campus (click to ENLARGE)

BEEP, BEEP (not required)

BEEP, BEEP

    A novelty song from 1959. A "novelty song" is a song noted more for its gimmick than for its musical values.
    Usually novelty songs had a novelty hook. (A hook is a part of a song listeners remember most, so it sells the song, like a refrain.) "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window" is an example of a novelty song, with the barking of a dog its hook. The Chipmunks' records had the hook of speeded up voices sounding like chipmunks. The "Witch Doctor" song (also by David Seville) had a similar tape trick to sound like a witch doctor.
    "Beep, Beep" is based on the hook of the silly refrain ("Beep, beep") as well as the change of pace (from very slow to very fast). It also has a surprise ending, since it turns out the Nash Rambler (economy car) is not racing the high-status Cadillac but is just stuck in "second gear."
    Car rivalry has been a part of the road since the beginning of the automobile. But the stakes are higher today in the US when victims of "road rage" can end up dead if the guy in the other car has a gun and angry enough to use it.
    To hear the song, go here.  Lyrics are below.
    You can also see the 45 rpm record changer and the 45 rpm record with the big hole in the middle, unique in the US. That's because RCA Victor patented the record to fit their record changer. Since RCA got the market share first, the other record companies had to design their 45s with the same hole in the middle in order to be playable on the popular RCA changers. Adapters could be bought for about 1 cent each. These were inserted inside the big hole making a smaller hole that allowed the 45 to be played on a regular (small hole) turntable if the buyer did not own a Victor changer.
    Records in the 1950s, when "Beep, Beep" was released went through a changeover from the breakable 78 rpm records (revolving 78 times per minute) to the slower-speed 45 rpm (revolving 45 times per minute), which were unbreakable. These soon replaced the 78s. Early records by Elvis Presley were released in both formats, until the 78s became extinct. The LP record (invented by Columbia in 1948) revolved at 33 1/3 per minute (33 1/3 rpm), allowing for more playing time with lower fidelity (6 songs on each side). This made possible the release of complete Broadway musicals on a single LP (long-play) disk. The first Columbia release was the classic Broadway musical, South Pacific.

---

[Very Slow]
While riding in my Cadillac,
What to my surprise.
A little Nash Rambler was following me -
About one third my size.
The guy must've wanted to pass me up
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I'll show him that a Cadillac
Is not a car to scorn.
Beep beep. Beep! Beep! Beep beep. Beep! Beep!
His horn went beep beep beep. Beep! Beep!
[Slow]
I pushed my foot down to the floor
To give the guy the shake.
But the little Nash Rambler stayed right behind;
He still had on his brake.
He must have thought his car had more guts
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I'll show him that a Cadillac
Is not a car to scorn.
Beep beep. Beep! Beep! Beep beep. Beep! Beep!
His horn went beep beep beep. Beep! Beep!
[Normal]
My car went into passing gear
And we took off with gust.
Soon we were doing ninety -
Must've left him in the dust.
When I peeked in the mirror of my car,
I couldn't believe my eyes:
The little Nash Rambler was right behind -
I think that guy could fly.
Beep beep. Beep! Beep! Beep beep. Beep! Beep!
His horn went beep beep beep.
[Faster]
Now we're doing a hundred and ten -
This certainly was a race.
For a Rambler to pass a Caddy
Would be a big disgrace.
The guy must've wanted to pass me up
As he kept on tooting his horn.
I'll show him that a Cadillac
Is not a car to scorn.
Beep beep. Beep! Beep! Beep beep. Beep! Beep!
His horn went beep beep beep.
[Fastest]
Now we're doing a hundred and twenty -
As fast as I could go.
The Rambler pulled along side of me
As if we were going slow.
The fellow rolled down his window
And yelled for me to hear,
"Hey, Buddy, how can I get this car
Out of second gear?!"
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

HOW A GREAT SYMPHONY WAS WRITTEN Leonard Bernstein Three G's and an E-flat. Nothing more. Baby simple. Anyone might have thought of them. Maybe. But out of them has grown the first movement of a great symphony. A movement so economical and consistent that almost every bar of it is a direct development of these opening four notes. People have wondered for years what it is that endows this musical figure with such potency. All kinds of fanciful music appreciation theories have been advanced. That it is based on the song of a bird Beethoven heard in the Vienna woods. That it is Fate knocking at the door. That it is a friend of his knocking at the door. And more of the same. But none of these interpretations tells us anything. The truth is that the real meaning lies in the notes that follow it. All the notes of all the five hundred measures that follow it. And Beethoven more than any other composer before or after him, I think, had the ability to find these exactly right notes. But even he who had that ability to such a remarkable degree had a gigantic struggle to achieve this rightness: not only the right notes, but the right rhythms, the right climaxes, the right harmonies, the right instrumentation. We are going to try to trace that struggle for you. Now all of us are familiar with the composer's struggle to find the right melodies and the right thematic material. We have all been privileged to watch Schumann and Brahms and other greats of the silver screen agonizing over the keyboard as they search for the right tune. We have all seen Jimmy Cagney as George M. Cohan dramatically alone on a bare stage with a solitary work light picking out the immortal notes of "Over There." Or Cornell Wilde as Chopin eking out the nocturne in E-flat. But spurious or not the struggle is real. Beethoven too shared in that struggle. We know from his notebooks that he wrote down fourteen versions of the melody that opens the second movement of this symphony. Fourteen versions over a period of eight years. This is the way we know it today. Now the original sketch for this goes this way. Another sketch for the same melody is quite different. After eight years of experimenting with eleven others, he ultimately combined the most interesting and graceful elements of all versions and finally arrived at the tune which is familiar to us now. But now that he has his theme, the real work begins. Now comes the job of giving symphonic meaning to the theme. And this meaning becomes clear only after we have arrived at the very last note of the entire movement. Thus the famous four notes are not in themselves susceptible of meaning in the music appreciation sense. They are really only a springboard for the symphonic continuity to come. That is the real function of what is called form: to take us on a varied and complicated half hour journey of continuous symphonic progress. In order to do this, the composer must have his own inner road map. He must have the ability to know what the next note has to be. To convey a sense of rightness, a sense that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that could happen at that precise instant. As we have said, Beethoven could do this better than anyone. But he also struggled with all his force in the doing. Let's try to follow this struggle graphically. To begin with, Beethoven chose seven different instruments with which to begin his first movment: the flute, clarinet, first violin, second violin, viola, cello, and bass. These seven instruments appear on the first page of his manuscript score. But there is something crossed out: the part of the flute. So we know that Beethoven for one second was going to include the flute. So why did he cross it out? Well let's hear how it would have sounded with the flute left in. The high piping notes of the flute don't seem to fit in with the generally rude and brusque atmosphere of the opening bars. Beethoven clearly wanted these notes to be a strong masculine utterance. And he therefore orchestrated entirely with instruments that play normally in the register of the male singing voice. The flute being the instrumental equivalent of the soprano would be intruding here like a delicate lady at a club smoker. So out came the flute. And now let's hear how masculine it sounds without it. You see, a lot of us assume when we hear the symphony today that it must have spilled out of Beethoven in one steady gush, clear and right from the beginning. But not at all. Beethoven left pages and pages of discarded material in his own writing, enough to fill a whole book. The man rejected and rewrote, scratched out, tore up, and sometimes altered a passage as many as twenty times. Beethoven's manuscript looks like a bloody record of a tremendous inner battle. But before he began to write this wild looking score, Beethoven had for three years been filling notebooks with sketches, some that he ultimately discarded as not right. I have been trying to figure out what his first movement would have sounded like if he had left some of them in. I have been experimenting with the music, speculating on where these sketchkes might have been intended for use, and putting them back into those places, to see what the piece might have been had he used them. And I have come up with some curious and interesting results. Let's see what they are. We already know almost too well the opening bars of this symphony. Now once Beethoven had made this strong initial statement, what then? How does he go on to develop it? He does it like this. But here is a discarded sketch which is also a direct and immediate development of the theme. Not very good and not very bad taken all by itself. But it is a good logical development of the opening figure. But what would the music sound like if Beethoven had used this sketch as the immediate development of his theme? We can find out by simply putting the sketch back into the symphony and it will sound like this. It does make a difference, doesn't it? Not only because it sounds wrong to our ears, which are used to the version we know. But also because of the nature of the music itself. It is so symmetrical that it seems static. It doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. And that is fatal at the outset of a symphonic journey. It doesn't seem to have the mystery about it that the right version has, of that whispering promise of things to come. The sketch music on the other hand gets stuck in its own repetition. It just doesn't build. And Beethoven was first and foremost a builder. Let us look at another rejected sketch. Here is one that sounds like this. Again it is based as all of them are on that same opening figure. Now my guess is that he would have used it somewhere in this passage. Now let's hear the same passage with the discarded sketch included. Terrible, isn't it? This sketch just intrudes itself into the living flow of the music and stands there repeating, grounded, until such time as the music can again take off in its flight. No wonder Beethoven rejected it. For he of all people had a sense of drive to his music that was second to none. This sketch just doesn't drive. It is again like the first one, static and stuck. Now this sketch is different. It has real excitement and build. I suspect it was intended for a spot a little later on in the movement. Here. This is certainly one of the most climactic and thrilling moments in the movement. It is the beginning of the coda, of the last big push before the end. Let's see how it would have sounded, using the sketch I just played you. Not at all bad. It has logic and it builds. But what Beethoven finally did use has so much more logic and builds with so much more ferocity and shock that there is no comparison. The other, although good, seems pale beside it. Now here is a sketch that I really like because it sounds like the essential Beethoven style. This has pain in it and mystery and a sense of eruption. It would have fitted very neatly into the coda, harmonically, rhythmically and every other way, except emotionally. Here is the spot in the coda I mean. Now let us add the sketch to it. Do you hear the difference? What has happened? We had to come down from a high point to a low point in order to build up again dramatically to a still higher point. This is in itself good and acceptable dramatic structure. It happens all the time in plays and in novels as well as in music. But this is no moment for it. Beethoven has already reached his high point. He is already in the last lap and he wants to smash forward on that high level right to the end. And he does with astonishing brilliance. It is this genius for going forward, always forward, that in every case guides his hand in the struggle with his material. Why even the very ending was written three different ways on this orchestral score. Here is the first ending he wrote: an abrupt typically Beethovenian ending. Why did he reject it? It seems perfectly all right and satisfying. But no he apparently felt that it was too abrupt. And so he went right on and wrote a second ending that was more extended, more like a finale, more noble, romantic, majestic. It went like this. But in the manuscript this ending is also buried beneath the crossing out. Now he felt it was too long, too pretentious. Perhaps too majestic. It didn't seem to fit into the scheme of the whole movement, where the main quality is bare economical direct statement of the greatest possible force. And so he tried still a third ending and this one worked. But the odd thing is that, as it turns out, the third ending is even more abrupt than the first. So you see he had to struggle and agonize before he realized so apparently simple a thing: that the trouble with the first ending was not that it was too short but that it was not short enough. Thus he arrived at the third ending, which is as right as rain. This is how we hear it today. And so Beethoven came to the end of his symphonic journey: for one movement, that is. Imagine a whole lifetime of this struggle. Movement after movement, symphony and symphony, sonata after quartet after concerto. Always probing and rejecting in his dedication to perfection for the principle of inevitabilty. This somehow is the key to the mystery of a great artist. That for reasons unknown to him or to anyone else, that he will give away his life and his energies, just to make sure that one note follows another inevitably. But in doing so, he makes us feel at the finish that something checks throughout. Something that follows its own laws consistently. Something we can trust: that will never let us down.

Bo Diddley (Click to ENLARGE)

Whitney 2009 (Click to ENLARGE)

Hear Glenn Gould play and hum Bach

Handel's "Largo": Bryn Terfel

Elvis Presley; HOUND DOG (1956)