Father's Day in American music

http://new.headlinecountry.net/?p=186
An excellent Father's Day spotlight on country music tributes to our fathers, always with us. Thanks Tom Roland for the list!

This post dedicated to the memories of my dad, a Father's Day baby who would be 72 today, and another dad I remember fondly, the dad of 4 of my oldest friends. Here are two songs that remind me of them.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning, from the film featuring Gordon MacRae. Years ago, my dad sang Curley in a local production of Oklahoma!. This was for years afterward his signature song, and his voice was still beautiful into his 60s.
I Believe, by Diamond Rio. This song appeared on the radio shortly after my friends' dad Keith was diagnosed with cancer. I may not "believe in ghosts" like the lyrics, but the song still makes me cry.

Songs for the Road

The one accessory any car of mine must have is a radio. The car is my favorite (and usually, only) place to hear current popular music beyond YouTube, and therefore my only automatically produced playlist (I've never liked Pandora's interface - too much of my own choices imposed on what I hear).
"Driving" or "train" songs especially appeal to me. I'm not sure if this is due to my actual music preferences, or my love for automobile travel (and pseudo-nostalgia for/idolization of train travel). Here are some great driving songs - the ones that sound like you're on the road, not just songs about being on the road.

God is great, Beer is good - Billy Currington

Ok, it's not about driving or travel at all, but the rhythm's steady "chugga chugga" beat and leisurely pace (cut time; according to my metronome, about 72bpm) has that perfect "road" sound. The song itself is simplistic  'easy listening country', with a I V vi IV progression for the verse and an interesting if sentimental twist at the end.

Me and Bobby McGee- the Kris Kristofferson version
This time, a song about travel, with a similar beat. Kristofferson's recording isn't a bit rushed, very laid back. Janis Joplin's version is iconic but more high-energy - contrasting qualities which extend beyond the metronome mark and the rhythm section to the voices themselves.







Hey, Good Lookin'

the 2000s cover by Jimmy Buffett and friends from 2004 is an entirely different animal compared to the Hank Williams original. The "good times" community feel of a group of star soloists sharing a good-natured pick-up line is perfect for summer and road trips - though once again, the beat of this song places it in this category, not so much the content. The quality of the voice is once again key - like Joplin and Kristofferson, it's not so much the authenticity of the original singer but the atmosphere the cover creates.





End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys 
The music video for this quintessentially "travel" song takes place on a train. The Traveling Wilburys were an all-star group that included Eric Clapton,George Harrison, and Bob Dylan.


Two of Us - Beatles
A little more upbeat than the other songs here, this piece is actually much more nostalgic and almost bittersweet than the "in the moment" mood evoked by most of this list.
I could probably make a playlist of just Beatles road songs. Here's another:

Any Road
Off of George Harrison's last album, Brainwashed, this song features his son Dhani on guitar and a world-wise lyric from Harrison. Definitely a must for any Beatles road trip.



Mockingbird - James Taylor + Carly Simon
I heard this on a drive through upstate NY, and it makes excellent driving music. The singers' voices mix in an inventive quasi-polyphony; the original version of the song was written and sung by siblings Inez and Charlie Foxx.

 City of New Orleans: Willie Nelson
Suggested to me for this list - this is an all-time favorite of mine and mentioned on my post Songs from my mother, but it is also equally appropriate here for its "train" theme and rhythm. Actually, this song is always appropriate!
(As a side note, Willie Nelson sings great music for any road trip playlist. "On the Road Again" has a much more upbeat feel though, not the "train" beat this post highlights.)

Als die Mutter: Songs from my mother

In my life thus far, there has been no greater musical influence than my mother. Her tastes influenced mine, and my strongest interests in music have developed from the starting point of her printed and recorded collections. My interest in opera would not exist were it not for the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rodgers and Hammerstein, which I learned to appreciate because of my parents.
Here are 10 tracks from my mother's record collection or songbooks.

1. Buffy St. Marie “Universal Soldier.”
2. Rodgers and Hammerstein: Waltz from “Carousel”
3. The Beatles: “Taxman”
4. Patti Lupone: “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”
5. Willie Nelson: “City of New Orleans”
6. Kenny Rogers: “Lucille”
7. The Shirelles: “Soldier Boy”
8. “Malagueña”
9. Palestrina: Jesu Rex Admirabilis
10. How Great Thou Art

Pop music and ear training

Oh, the things you learn from life when you're a music major.

I sucked at ear training when I got to UNH. Some of my friends have even said I might be a little tone deaf, because it takes a lot sometimes for me to match pitches, or tell if I'm singing sharp or flat. (That's why it's fortunate I play piano!) But nevertheless, I didn't have any remedial theory homework the summer between orientation and freshman year, and I got passing grades – actually quite decent ones – in the four semesters of Ear Training. For me, the breakthrough came halfway through the second semester, over Spring Break 2009.

I went to New Orleans for an alternative spring break trip, and doing light carpentry work with my team, heard a LOT of pop songs. If I didn't know the words to most of them the first day, by the end of the week I did, and I noticed many common features among songs that got frequent airplay. Certain chord progressions repeated throughout this repertoire, and it became possible for me to improvise the melody or a harmony line along with the song by following the progression. Not surprisingly, the songs were harmonically simple and mostly picked up on three common progressions in Western music: I IV V I, root progression from dominant to tonic; I vi IV V I, the rock'n'roll progression (heard in songs like Heart and Soul); and the blues, I IV I V IV I. These progressions make improvised lines easy to create because of the common tones in I, IV, and vi, and knowing cadential formulas from Theory I provided the basic framework to follow. (Theory taught me to resolve tritones out, and to take the melody 3-2-1 over a I64 V I bass – all features of Western tonality which are woven through pop music whether we normally pay attention to them or not.)

After spending a week immersed in pop music, I found theory and ear training both easier. The easy melodies which stick in your ear are also very useful for immediately recognizing the 3^rd or 5^th scale degree, and even intervals are better remembered in a pop context. (Minor 6^th is the first two notes of "In My Life" by the Beatles; Major 6^th is the first two notes of "All at Once You Love Her" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Pipe Dream;" and the Star Wars theme begins with a perfect 5^th.) I've never stopped listening critically to pop music and along the last 2 years, I've found some gems in odd places. Two of my favorites are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0_oPPK6eA From the Country end of the spectrum, Big & Rich "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy." The melody is doubled at the octave, and the two singers mix pitched speaking voices with singing. Overall, the effect strikes me as a reflection of early styles of organum, where the melody would be doubled with a perfect interval (4^th, 5^th, octave). Their speaking-singing also reminds me of Rex Harrison speaking his way through Henry Higgins on Broadway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xp2lgiAjY Amie, by Pure Prairie League. The main body of the song is very typical of 1970s folk blends like America or Kansas, but near the end as the song is playing out (and nothing new is happening in the text) the supporting harmonies highlight the melody in an unusual way. Leading to IV through V7/IV over 1 (in this case, A – A7 –D over an A pedal), the melody itself is sung below the backup vocals. The lyrics here are "fallin' in and out of love with you" and until the word "love" the backup vocals are following the melody's contour a third above. At "love" the interval between melody and accompaniment widens to a minor 7^th, as the backup vocals follow a descending line above the melody's pedal point. This dissonance is very exposed by being higher than the melody, but the well-matched timbres of the voices mitigate the dissonant quality and allow this passage to express tension in a wistful way, while bringing the song to a quiet close.