“You were red and you liked me because I was blue.
But you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky
Till you decided purple just wasn’t for you.”
–Colors by Halsey
Category: Music
High Schoolers Tackle The Great Gatsby With Classical Music
This week I had the amazing opportunity to visit a high school English class and do a combined literary and musical activity with them. They had recently finished reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” for class, so I brought in a piece for them to explore in relation to that book.
The piece I chose to play was the first movement of Ligeti’s Cello Sonata (Dialogo). Before I played it, we made a list on the board of many of the characters from the book. Then I simply told the students to imagine the music as a sort of movie score as they listened–who might the characters be? What might they be doing?
After playing the music all the way through (it’s about 4 minutes long), I asked them for reactions. It started out a little slow, but then things really got rolling. One student broke the ice by saying he imagined the first chords to be the green light pulsing at the end of Daisy’s dock and that what followed was Gatsby watching that light and thinking about her. Other students actually said they had the same idea.
Here are some other characters and events some of the students imagined:
- Gatsby asking Nick to swim in his pool followed by Gatsby’s death and Nick’s reaction to it all at the funeral.
- Wilson finding out about Gatsby’s supposed hand in his wife’s death and preparing the gun that would kill him.
- Gatsby and Daisy meeting for the first time at Nick’s house.
- Daisy reading Gatsby’s letter after it was too late to take him back.
It was really amazing to hear all of their creative ideas! We barely scratched the surface of this 4 minute piece in the 30 minutes I had with them.
One question I only somewhat rhetorically asked them was how people could imagine such different things in Continue reading “High Schoolers Tackle The Great Gatsby With Classical Music”
Top 3 Funniest Quotes From The Importance of Being Earnest
(Plus a comparison to a Flight of the Conchords song…)
1. “How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.”
“Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.”
“I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”
2. “You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.”
3. “Ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl…I have ever met since…I met you.”
(This last quote is a lot like a line in the hilarious song, “Jenny,” by Flight of the Conchords:
“I meant it was nice to meet you that time that I met you…When was it that we met that time that I met you when I met you?”)
In Medias Res in Music
Book 1
Argument: In a council of the Gods, Minerva calls their attention to Ulysses, still a wanderer.
-The Odyssey
In medias res is the technique of starting a work in the middle. For example, The Odyssey begins when Ulysses is still wandering the earth after the Trojan War, skipping how he became a wanderer and jumping right into things.
In music, you might hear an in medias res beginning in multiple ways:
1) A loud, fast opening (you are right in the middle of the action!)
2) Conversely, a soft opening which increases Continue reading “In Medias Res in Music”
Day Jobs of Famous Musicians
Before they packed concert halls and stadiums around the globe, many musicians held rather typical, boring — and sometimes very unusual jobs — early in their careers to make ends meet. …
Source: Day Jobs of Famous Musicians
If You Like 1984…
…the book, not necessarily the year.
If you like George Orwell’s 1984, then you might like the band Muse. Their sound is classified as alternative, but I think you could also call it rock. The vocals are particularly fantastic, there are some incredible electric guitar lines, and they even play off of classical music at times. Overall, their sound is hard to describe but it’s fantastic.
Some of their songs have this rebellious and apocalyptic feel (hence, my association with 1984). A prime example:
Are you already familiar with Muse? Do you think the song matches the book?
Music Quotes: A Melody of Tears
“She’s in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside.
She’s singing, ‘Baby come home’ in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time.”
–Jet Pack Blues by Fall Out Boy
Similar Songs Across Time: Elf and Boy Bands
Whether it’s heartbreak or true love or “girl power,” we tend to say the same types of things over and over again through music. But have you ever heard two songs that really struck you as fundamentally similar? Ones that seemed to have the same message, even if communicated slightly differently? Sometimes music is similar in both meaning AND mode, yet that doesn’t make one or the other superfluous, at least in my experience.
I was thinking about this idea recently after watching the Christmas movie, “Elf.” I noticed that Frank Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” (as heard in the movie) has a similar message to…well…One Direction’s “Act My Age.” While Sinatra’s song talks about feeling younger than normal because of a girl, the modern boy band’s song states that in the future they will feel as young as they do now.
But this one line in Sinatra’s song particularly Continue reading “Similar Songs Across Time: Elf and Boy Bands”
Music, Princesses, and Emma Watson
Thanks to electrobeth for nominating me for the Liebster award! She has a great blog on writing inspiration that you should totally check out!
(I basically already posted 11 random facts about myself for another award, so instead of repeating myself you can check them out here. As a sneak preview, I talk about swords, Batman, and setting my hair on fire.)
1. What made you start your blog?
I am writing a book that is provisionally titled “Dickens and the Cheshire Cat: The Book Lover’s Guide to Classical Music.” In it I discuss how to hear stories in music (along the lines of the “Classical Music Stories” section of my blog, but in more detail). So my goal as I’ve been blogging is to connect with people who might share my interests (and, of course, to have fun!).
I believe that without first connecting to classical music and enjoying it on a personal level, technical information about things like how to identify instruments and form is more useless than useful. So, yes, the “goal” of the book I am writing is to help readers have an appreciation for classical music, but not because it is better than other music. I love my pop and rock tunes as much as the next person! Instead, the fact that classical music tells such intricate stories makes it likely that the avid reader would also be an avid listener if he or she cracked the code, so to speak, on how to listen. I hope my book will help with just that and introduce readers to this fascinating and fun activity that they might just love…
2. How do you de-stress after a long day?
Playing games on my phone, taking the most ridiculous Buzzfeed quizzes I can find, and reading, of course.
3. What fascinates you?
How we perceive Continue reading “Music, Princesses, and Emma Watson”
The Only Exercise Playlist You’ll Ever Need
WARNING: THIS MUSIC MAY CAUSE RECURRING NIGHTMARES, PARANOIA, AND/OR SHIN SPLINTS. LISTEN AT YOUR OWN RISK.
1) Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams
First, you need some motivation and optimism for the long trial ahead…you shall win the Olympics of exercise! You shall conquer!!! Endurance, strength, power: you have it all.
2) The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
So much for the babying. This is about a girl who is chosen to die as a sacrifice to the gods. And though it may start out a little slow, you can tell. So you can either start listening right when it gets crazy or take advantage of that nice, slow intro.
3) The Planets, Op. 32: Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst
WAAAAAAARRRR. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR BATTLE.
4) …To Die For by Hans Zimmer (from The Lion King)
Kind of an outlier in this list, I know, but this piece will always be terrifying. ALWAYS.
RUN, SIMBA, RUN!!!!!!!!!
(These next three are particularly effective if it’s kind of dark or foggy out:) Continue reading “The Only Exercise Playlist You’ll Ever Need”
If Mermaids Wore Suspenders 