The Music Thread

[Sunflower]

The Boney M song looks much cooler with this amazing dance accompaniment.

Haha, better than a shot of Prozac!  I knew I loved you people... 

[Eich]

Haha, better than a shot of Prozac!  I knew I loved you people... 

Yeah! 



Quick Uppermost (upper)post before bed!

[Sunflower]

In the interest of promoting all things Finnish, I'm pleased that my handbell choir has just been given the hymn from Sibelius' Finlandia (repackaged as "Be Still My Soul," since the Episcopal Church USA takes stands on lots of things, but not Finland's awesomeness).

The arrangement is tinkly like a music box, instead of the bellowing horns and pounding kettledrums Sibelius originally put in, but it's meant to be meditative, during Communion (and during the season of Advent, when service music is supposed to be extra austere).

Sad to say, few in our audience will notice whether we play Finlandia well or not -- it'll just be a big shiny blob of sound.  And nobody there will understand why I'm ringing my bells with Tuuri-like enthusiasm.  Eee!

[Pessi]

Sibelius' Finlandia (repackaged as "Be Still My Soul ...)

I know about this and numerous other versions and still it feels really weird every time. Finlandia-hymni is our almost-national-anthem, so people using the melody for other purposes is a real "what is this horrid desecration?!" situation, no matter how many times it happens

[Sunflower]

I know about this and numerous other versions and still it feels really weird every time. Finlandia-hymni is our almost-national-anthem, so people using the melody for other purposes is a real "what is this horrid desecration?!" situation, no matter how many times it happens

Ooh, sorry about that.  If it's any consolation, I live in an anonymous suburb of San Francisco, and I sincerely doubt our small church's bell choir will be heard by anyone who might have patriotic feelings about Finland. 

Sad to say, Americans have a long tradition of "horrid desecrations" of patriotic songs.  Heck, our National Anthem got its tune from the British drinking song "To Anacreon in Heav'n." 
"America"/"My Country 'Tis of Thee" borrowed its tune from "God Save the Queen."  In the late 19th century, Charles Ives wrote a series of variations on "America" that's madly funny, as well as fun to play (my high school band did so), but would presumably give a loyal British subject heart failure. 

"Yankee Doodle" started as a British satire of the yokels in the American colonies, until the Colonials wrote themselves new words. 
And the solemn "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was originally a soldiers' song, "John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave."

[Pessi]

Hey, I was (mostly) joking. What culture doesn't borrow tunes from others, and is there also any place in the world where people don't make mock versions of serious songs? Though it seems christian people are especially active in recycling all kinds of melodies to be used as Jesus songs. Years ago I was devasteted to find in my song book the Finnish "translation" for the heartbreakingly lovely renaissance love song Amarilli mia bella, since in it the song had been turned into an unimaginative praise to Jesus.

[Sunflower]

Hey, I was (mostly) joking. What culture doesn't borrow tunes from others, and is there also any place in the world where people don't make mock versions of serious songs? Though it seems christian people are especially active in recycling all kinds of melodies to be used as Jesus songs. Years ago I was devasteted to find in my song book the Finnish "translation" for the heartbreakingly lovely renaissance love song Amarilli mia bella, since in it the song had been turned into an unimaginative praise to Jesus.

Well, thanks for being a good sport.  I know a lot of people who take music very seriously, so I wanted to tread lightly. 

I certainly sympathize with the aesthetic confusion of hearing secular melodies paired with "unimaginative praise to Jesus," or vice versa.  Yesterday at church, when we celebrated the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (and everyone brought their pets to be blessed), we sang "All Things Bright and Beautiful," whose tune is a 17th-C. English country dance.  We even have a couple of hymns whose tunes began as naughty French songs like "Une jeune pucelle."

Our music director said he has trouble finding music for our bell choir to rehearse because it has to be 1) sacred, not just classical and 2) stuffy and dignified enough for an Anglican service.  Most of the U.S. churches with handbell choirs (he says) are evangelical Protestant ones that play a lot of pop music and rowdy "praise music."  That would make most of our congregation grab their inhalers.  (The music also has to be 3) easy because we're not very good, but he was too kind to say it out loud.)

[Pessi]

But you will become better and better the more you practice. And I'd imagine it's rather difficult to do anything really bad sounding with handbells. In Finland they are a quite new thing, the only orchestra I've heard about is Kide of the Jyväskylä Lutheran congregation.

"All Things Bright and Beautiful" allways reminds me of Monty Python's All Things Dull and Ugly

I guess lots of religious songs have started life as secular dances and songs since it's so much easier just to make new words for an old melody than compos a totally new one, and people also remember the songs better if the melodies are allready popular. My favorite example is the music for Branle de L'Official that most people know only as a traditional Christmas song.

[Eich]

This game has a pretty awesome soundtrack.
On the Beach at Night

[Sunflower]

My favorite example is the music for Branle de L'Official that most people know only as a traditional Christmas song.

Wow, another Renaissance music fan!  I fell in love with it back in late teens.  When most other kids my age were engaging in sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll (my high school was a lot like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"), I was hanging out with the Society for Creative Anachronism, sewing lumpy period dresses, and learning the dance hits of the 15th century.  My parents thought I was very strange.  (Later, I worked one summer at a Renaissance Faire.  It was a lot of fun, but it certainly made me grateful as a woman to be living in modern times with clothes that are machine-washable and don't weigh 30 pounds!)

Thanks for the link to The Night Watch.  Are there other early-music groups you like?

P.S.  Also, thanks for the kind words about handbells.  They do have such a pretty sound, even if we're playing total nonsense.

[Pessi]

I was hanging out with the Society for Creative Anachronism, sewing lumpy period dresses, and learning the dance hits of the 15th century.

If you late teens happened anywhere between 1994 - 2002 we have been "living in the same world" since that's when I was a member of SCA - or to be more period "a citizen of the village of Korpi in the Barony of Aarnimetsä in the kingdom of Drachenwald". I even met my husband there and we had many happy medieval years together - and then we had a baby and suddenly it was soooo difficult to go to any events and so we never actually found our way back to the current medieval times =D

Which kingdom of The Known World did you live in? I have a rather hazy idea of the complex SCA geography on that side of the Atlantic Ocean. It's so much simpler here with only one kingdom that covers all of Europe.

Are there other early-music groups you like?

There are two Finnish groups I'm rather fond of. Oliphant is a serious ensemble of professional musicians (one of them was my recorder teacher back in the 90s) while Räikkä is a more amateur based group of women with a strong tongue-in-the-cheek attitude. I also like the British Mediaeval Baebes, though their music might better be called "early music inspired".

[Fimbulvarg]

Maybe this will be the strangest song posted here yet, but anyways: The driver played this song on the bus today. I had to stiffle a laugh because I immediately recalled the music video and pictured Emil being the lead singer.

[Eich]

Maybe this will be the strangest song posted here yet, but anyways: The driver played this song on the bus today. I had to stiffle a laugh because I immediately recalled the music video and pictured Emil being the lead singer.

Well... *checks art thread*
He might just be a rich girl.

Before I got to bed, time for something totally heartbreaking!  Oh dear, this is sad.

[ThisCat]

Alle snakker sant, and anything else by Siri Nilsen. (translation in the comments for non-norwegians)

[Pessi]

Heavens, what a beautiful voice she has!

Funnily, judging by the family name, the translator seems to be at least partly of Finnish origin