Coffee Klatch

Here are some musical artists and groups that belong together:

~ Anita Baker and Humble Pie
~ Asleep at The Wheel and ZZ Top
~ Bad Company and Motley Crue
~ Blondie and Split Enz
~ Bob Dylan and Wheezer
~ Boston and Cream
~ Cracker and The Jam
~ Crash Test Dummies and Third Eye Blind
~ Cream and Puff Daddy
~ Dizzy Gilespie and Ten Times Fast
~ Donna Summer and Edgar Winter
~ Eddie Rabbit and Echo & the Bunnymen
~ Fine Young Cannibals and Missing Persons
~ Flock of Seagulls and Everybodyduck
~ Foreigner and Bad English
~ Guess Who and The Who
~ Jethro Tull and The Clampetts
~ Josie & The Pussycats and Cat Stevens
~ Kajagoogoo and The Babies
~ Kansas and Toto (and add Ozzy)
~ Meatloaf and Salt-N-Pepa
~ Michael Jackson and Enigma
~ Milli Vanilli and The Pretenders (or Milli Vanilli and Cheap Trick)
~ Neneh Cherry and Fiona Apple
~ Pearl Jam and Bread
~ Phish and Styx
~ Ratt and Poison
~ Smashing Pumpkins and The Smithereens
~ Spice Girls and Simple Minds
~ Styx and Stones
~ Tammy Graham and Cracker
~ T-bone and Skillet
~ The Beatles and Black Flag
~ The Cranberries and Juice Newton
~ The Lost Dogs and Stray Cats
~ The Mamas and the Papas and The Offspring
~ The Monkees and Bananarama
~ Three Dog Night and Bow Wow Wow
~ Traffic and The Jam
~ Twisted Sister and the Doobie Brothers
~ Us3 and U2
~ Vanilla Ice and Cream

Well, it was a long and tiring week, but quite fun. Since I play bass bells, a week like this is a bit of a workout, hefting that heavy metal around for hours and hours!

The concert Thursday was great! There was some really nice music made. 107 ringers on about 9 choirs’ worth of bells, with the bass going as low as G1 (that’s two octaves below the bottom line of the bass clef staff). Carl Wiltse, the director, did a fantastic job of pulling us all together and evoking some truly beautiful music.

Some highlights were “Plink, Plank, Plunk” (by Leroy Anderson, and which was played at a pretty good tempo and where Carl actually left the podium and went and sat in the audience–who needs a director?), “Lyric Piece” (by Carl himself, for handbells and organ — very beautiful and reminiscent of Maurice Duruflé), “August 9th Adagio (Nimrod)” (from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which is a piece well known in Europe and used as a mournful or reflective piece of music, much like Samuel Barber’s “Adagio” here in the States), and Cathy McMichael’s “Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity” (from Holst’s The Planets, which was a HUGE piece of music, using everything available in a full, huge handbell choir like we had, with plenty in the low bass, the high treble, in between, chimes, etc. — Simply wonderful!).

Now to get back to the “real world” and prepare for classes to start at Butler. That’s just a week and a half away!

Tomorrow I leave for Bay View, Michigan, to spend a week with 100+ handbell ringers who have all spent time this summer getting music performance ready. We’re supposed to arrive with our parts learned and ready to play at tempo. This allows us to spend four intense days rehearsing to bring it all together and make it musical. Thursday night is big concert (open to the public) and Friday we head home. I’m especially looking forward to Cathy McMichael’s arrangement of “Jupiter, Bring of Jollity” from Holst’s The Planets. Should be tiring but fun.

This spring I received my Master of Music degree in Composition. The Master’s Thesis involved writing a piece of music “in one of the larger forms,” which in my case involved a larger piece for Wind Ensemble (pretty much the same thing as Concert Band, but typically only one player per part). A paper to accompany the score is also required.

I am very grateful to Butler University’s Wind Ensemble who took the time to learn my piece and make a recording for me. And thanks to Butler’s Digital Commons initiative, I can make my entire thesis (score, paper, and mp3) available online to anyone who wants it. You may partake, if interested, at http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/42/

For all of you who have never met Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil, he’s sure to get stuck in your head.

LYRICS

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil.
Komm aus Ägypten, das liegt direkt am Nil.
Zuerst lag ich in einem Ei,
dann schni-,schna-,schnappte ich mich frei

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
hab scharfe Zähne, und davon ganz schön viel.
Ich schnapp mir was ich schnappen kann,
ja ich schnapp zu, weil ich das so gut kann.

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
ich schnappe gern, das ist mein Lieblingsspiel.
Ich schleich mich an die Mama ran,
und zeig ihr wie ich schnappen kann

[Refrain]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil,
und vom Schnappen, da krieg ich nicht zu viel.
Ich beiß dem Papi kurz ins Bein,
und dann, dann schlaf ich einfach ein.

[Outro]
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (schnapp!)
Schni Schna Schnappi (ja!)
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (schnapp!)
Schni Schna Schnappi (mhmm!)
Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp (ja!)
Schni Schna Schnappi
Schnappi (hmm) Schnappi Schnapp

Yamaha has recalled 20,000 pianos due to a problem with the pedal sticking, causing pianists to play faster than they normally would, resulting in a dangerous number of accidentals. The sticky pedal also makes it harder for pianists to come to a full stop at the end of a piece making it extremely risky for audiences. Although there have been a tremendous number of accidentals, fortunately it has so far caused no deafs.

Analysts are wondering if it will put a damper on their bass [base] market and if they will be able to sustain sales. Congress is also considering calling in the President of Yamaha for questioning as to when the company first learned about the treble.

This is just too cool not to share on my blog. Bobby McFerrin was part of the World Science Festival last summer where he participated in a talk called “Notes and Neurons: In Search of a Common Chorus.” In this video clip, he demonstrates the power of the Pentatonic Scale through audience participation.

Weird Al Yankovic wrote a spoof on a song called “Ridin’ Dirty” and he called it “White & Nerdy.” It’s very funny and stars Donny Osmond dancing (not singing). I’ve included the video below, but down below that video is another. It’s the “green screen” version where you can see Al singing and Donny Osmond dancing for the whole song. Talk about “white and nerdy!” How funny!!

And here’s the one where you can see Donny Osmond being just hilarious!!

You might be a Music Theory geek if…

1. Your favorite pickup line is, “What’s your favorite augmented sixth chord?”
2. You can look at a piece by Bach and say, “You know, I think he could have gotten a much better effect this way . . .”
3. You like to march around your room to the rhythms of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.”
4. You love to quote Walter Piston.
5. You long for the good old days of movable G-clefs.
6. You like polytonal music because, hey, the more keys the merrier.
7. You dream in four parts.
8. You feel the need to end Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony with a picardy third.
9. You can improvise 16th century counterpoint with no trouble, but you frequently forget how to tie your shoes.
10. You lament the decline of serialism.
11. You enjoy the tang of a tritone whenever you can.
12. You like to deceive your friends and loved ones with deceptive cadences.
13. You only drink fifths, and then you laugh at the pun.
14. Instead of counting sheep, you count sequences.
15. You only sing tunes that make good fugal subjects.
16. You find free counterpoint too liberal.
17. Mussorgsky’s “Hopak” gives you nightmares.
18. You wonder what a “Danish Sixth” would sound like.
19. The Corelli Clash gives you goosebumps.
20. You can hear an enharmonic modulation coming a mile away.
21. You have ever done a Schenkerian analysis on “Three Blind Mice.”
22. You have ever tried to do a Schenkerian analysis on John Cage’s “4’33″.
23. You have hosted a “Gurrelieder” party.
24. You have ever pondered what an augmented seventh chord would sound like.
25. Bass motion by ascending thirds or a sequential pattern with roots in ascending fifths immediately strikes you as “belabored.”
26. You know what the ninth overtone of the harmonic series is off the top of your head.
27. You can name ten of Palestrina’s contemporaries.
28. You can answer your phone with a tonal or a real answer.
29. You have ever heard a wrong note in a performance of a piece by Berio, Stockhausen, or Boulez.
30. You suspiciously check all the music you hear for dangling sevenths.
31. When you’re feeling particularly prankish, you transpose Mozart arias to locrian mode.
32. You keep a notebook of useful diminutions.
33. Those “parasitic” dissonances make you queasy, especially when left unresolved.
34. You have composed variations on a theme by Anton Webern.
35. You know the difference between a Courante and a Corrente.
36. You have trained your dog to jump through a flaming circle of fifths.
37. You have ever used the word “fortspinnung” in polite conversation.
38. You feel cheated by evaded cadences.
39. You have a poster of Allen Forte in your room.
40. You know who Allen Forte is.
41. Every now and then you like to kick back and play something in hypophrygian mode.
42. You wonder why there aren’t more types of seventh chords.
43. You wish you had twelve fingers.
44. You abbreviate your shopping list using figured bass.
45. You always make sure to invert your counterpoint, just in case.
46. You have ever told a joke that had this punchline: “because it was POLYPHONIC!”
47. You know dirty acronyms for the order of sharps.
48. You consider all music written between 1750 and 1920 to be “rather elementary.”
49. You memorize dates and times by what they would sound like in set theory.
50. You can not only identify any one of Bach’s 371 Harmonized Chorales by ear, but you also know on what page it appears in the Riemenschneider edition and how many suspensions it has in the first seven bars.

After much hard work, creativity, and hours in the recording studio, I would like to announce my two new CDs!

Scott Sings the Narcissistic Hits

1. I Love Me, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
2. Hopelessly Devoted To Me
3. How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By Me
4. I Wanna Hold My Hand
5. Everything I Do, I Do It For Me
6. I Am The Sunshine Of My Life
7. Tonight I Celebrate My Love For Me
8. I Light Up My Life
9. I’m The One That I Want
10. Up Where I Belong
11. I Love Me Just The Way I Am
12. In My Eyes
13. I’m The Inspiration
14. I Am So Beautiful (To Me)
15. I Love Me
16. I Honestly Love Me
17. (I’m) Still The One
18. Have I Told You Lately That I Love Me?
19. I Only Have Eyes For Me
20. I Was Always On My Mind
21. I Don’t Know Much (But I Know I Love Me)
22. I Can’t Help Falling In Love With Me
23. I’ve Got A Crush On Me
24. It Had To Be Me
25. You Made Me Love Me

Then there’s:
Scott Sings the Narcissistic Classics

Songs include:
1. I’ll Have To Say I Love Me In A Song
2. Dreaming Of Me
3. Because I Loved Me
4. I’ve Only Just Begun
5. I Decorated My Life
6. If I Leave Me Now
7. (I’m) More Than A Woman
8. I’ll Give Me A Diamond Ring
9. I Owe It All To Me
10. Unforgettable (That’s What I Am)
11. How Deep Is My Love?
12. Till There Was Me
13. And I Love Me
14. Just The Way I Am
15. Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of Me
16. Close To Me
17. I Want Me, I Need Me, I Love Me
18. Miss Me Much
19. I Can’t Stop Loving Me
20. How Am I Supposed To Live Without Me?
21. God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On Me
22. I Can Love Me Like That
23. I Just Called to Say I Love Me
24. Every Breath I Take
25. As Long As I Love Me

Look for both of these CDs coming soon to a fine music store near you!