UST/Luna - Worthless now!

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by AsianStew, May 14, 2022.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Thanks. Something to do, while we await Bitcoin's final moment.
    What's taking so long? If I hadn't espoused atheism a year or two back, right now I'd be praying for a complete Crypto demise.
    As everybody has seen here, from time to time - I'm not a patient person. Age doesn't seem to improve it, either. Rather the opposite.
     
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I'm a New Age piano instrumentalist, not a bluesman, but I have to make an effort not to write solely for D-minor, so I can understand this.
     
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  3. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Good to know, Steve. Great! I like New Age too. And a D-minor scale is used for 'third' position blues harmonica playing, on a C-harp, relative in other keys, so my ear is quite used to it - and I can play in it.

    Little Walter Jacobs used to use it sometimes, back in the 50s. Nice sound. I use that scale for "Work Song" - (Nat Adderley / Oscar Brown Jr.) "Breakin' up big rocks on the chain gang...." For my money, Paul Butterfield did the definitive blues harmonica version of that song in the 60s. :)

    You can't beat a guy who was "Born in Chicago" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_Chicago :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2022
  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    BTW - the same D scale on a small diatonic C harmonica (no sharps or flats) works well for non-blues songs - e.g. "Taste of Honey" and "Scarborough Fair."
    It's actually modal - Dorian mode scale on a diatonic C harp starts in D. Aeolian mode, while starting a scale on A works for A minor. A Mixolydian scale is available starting on G - and that's the go-to, "Crossharp" position that's 90% of blues playing. Lotta theory in those little harps. :)

    There's a Brazilian lady on Youtube - Indiara Sfair - who knows this stuff backwards and forwards. She's a phenomenal harmonica player and also has some lessons online. Brazil seems to abound with great women blues harp players. Another is Marianne Borssato (sp?). Maybe Google "gaitistas mulheres brasileiras" (Brazilian lady harmonica players.) :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2022
  5. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    As it happens, d minor is one of the three "good" minor keys in meantone based on C. The others are a minor and g minor. (For completeness' sake, the six good Major keys are A, Bb, C, D, F, and G.)

    After posting, I went and took another look at that excursion into c minor I mentioned. Nope; still don't know why he did that.
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Trivial speculation: Germans traditionally refer to B Major as "H" and Bb Major as "B". Tiresome of them but maybe it was too much trouble to write out Bb? Or is this the result of their wholesome preference for meantone?
     
  7. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    In fact, 50-odd years ago, the greatest of all blues harp players, Sonny Terry, showed me a harp in the key of H that he had been given by Hohner, Germany. And B-sharp in the German system is "His." The "H" for B Major either stands for "hart" (hard) or because it got mixed up with the # (sharp) symbol, in early printed music, depending whom you ask - or that the flat symbol looked too much like a "b". I favour the first theory - "hart".

    Sonny used to joke about "the key of X" (there was none, of course.) He was a very warm and generous man, who said kind things and inspired me to play better, in my early days. I still have a harmonica he gave me around 1963-4 and I have a picture from that time of Sonny Terry on my bookshelves, jamming with a well-known local musician (guitar) who was a friend of mine - Jack Washington.
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2022
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  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    B, the piano white key B, has some ancient and unfortunate connotations. It is the "final" note of the Locrian mode that was considered "fiendish" because the tonic triad isn't major or minor but diminished. Brrr! Flattening the B to Bb fixed that problem anyway.

    Naturally, one goal I have in retirement is to write plainchant in Locrian mode...;)
     
  9. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    By the way...I was totally unaware of the translation of "hart". The word I had for "hard" was "schwer" but "hart" is definitely good German. I wonder if "hart" comes from the Platt Deutsch dialects?
     
  10. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Put it in H!

     
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  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I learned both words, when I learned German in school. "Schwer" means hard, in the sense of "difficult." It's other meaning is "heavy." "Hart" is hard in the sense of hard materials etc. Steel is "hart" or a diamond is "hart" etc. Both are good Hochdeutsch. There's an Old High German root for "Hart" so they say - so that would not indicate a Plattdeutsch origin - but I wouldn't 100% exclude it, either.

    We get old English words and "hard" from it -- and it persists in Dutch as well. "Hard" in Plattdeutsch is "hoat." I guess if you pronounce it right - it's similar to "hart." So, it's kinda Pan-German, I figure. "Echt Deutsch." Know how hard it is to find a working Plattdeutsch dictionary on Google? Holy Cow! Auf Hochdeutsch, Heilige Kuh! - no, that's too literal. - Heiliger Bimbam! :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    And of course, some time in my retirement, I intend to sing it. :rolleyes: Nosborne, start your neumes! And bring your 4-line staff. :)
     
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  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Seriously, Nosborne, (well semi, anyway, which is about as far as we usually go, here) if you are interested in writing plainchant music, I'll make you an offer. When you've got the music really underway, give me an idea of what you want it to say, and I'll have a stab at Latin lyrics for you. I can't sing at all -- but I think I could still manage some Latin for you. ... But I'm already thinking Locrian mode could bring some added challenges. :)

    Bernie said to Elton, when he heard the news:
    "Man, this Latin Locrian is givin' me the Blues!" -J
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  14. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the offer but I’ve spent some time recently studying the rules of medieval polyphony. It’s worse than the old tax code! Besides, who would sing it? Near as I can tell, the Church abandoned all interest in composed music in favor of folk guitar fifty years ago. That’s their business and not mine of course but it seems like a loss to me.
     
  15. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    My mom couldn't stand contemporary church music either, she called them "love songs to Jesus". Fortunately, I can confirm that the last 450 years of choral and organ music are alive and well in the Episcopal Church.
     
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  16. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure South Park is something you have seen, but there's an episode where one of the characters forms a Christian rock band to win a bet. Explaining that Christian bands are always top-sellers, he lays out his songwriting technique: "All we have to do to make Christian songs is take regular old songs and add Jesus stuff to them. See? All we have to do is cross out words like "baby" and "Darling" and replace them with Jesus."
     
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  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Ah, but will the Episcopal Church itself survive?

    I am not in a position to have an opinion about Church music but the "clap your hands for Jesus" stuff has morphed into "clap your hands for Moses" and invaded Reform synagoges in a big way. The big Reform seminary even named its music school after one of the worst offenders. Not to speak ill of the departed but her stuff is everywhere and makes me grind my teeth. I swear that one thing keeping me from returning to services after Covid is the certainty that I shall have to endure crappy music.

    I am not alone in this. All congregants are not addled children incapable of subtlety in thought or appreciating the beauty that comes from discipline in song.
     
  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    :) That's the best legal humor I've heard in a long while! And who would sing it? I have a tape of monks in Gethsemani, Kentucky, singing Gregorian chants. Even though I no longer have ANY religious feelings whatsoever, I enjoy their music. Maybe you might give them a call. Or, there's a group of ladies called The Medieval Baebes, (sic). Thy're very talented - and spirited, too, which for me, is the only answer, when it comes to music. There are quite a few people who sing and play Medieval music very well. Some of those Guillaume de Machaut tunes are real toe-tappers! A real rock star of the 1300s. :)

    To my mind, the best in Church Music is, far and away, that of the Black Churches. And where did most of the popular Black singers I like get their early training? Right -- in Church. For instance, Aretha Franklin, who sang in her father's Church, in Detroit. Sam Cooke, who sang with Spiritual groups for years before his successful "crossing over."

    I first realized the beauty and vibe of Black Church music in my late teens. A Black musician friend told me I should get a Sister Rosetta Tharpe album - and I did. An instant - and lasting musical conversion. She's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Rosetta_Tharpe I still like Sister Rosetta, who's been gone a long time, now. Mavis Staples is around 80 now - and still performing. I've liked her music since she was a young woman. Still do. Here's from her latest. I heard it on the Jazz station last week:

    God don't hate the Christians.
    God don't hate the Jews.
    God don't hate the Muslims
    But they all give God the Blues.


    As you know, I'm no longer interested in religion --- but oh, the music! I'm reminded of the feelings expressed by singer-songwriter Marc Cohen in his "Walkin' in Memphis." He's at the entrance to the Gospel Tent, asking the lady for admission:

    She said "Son, are you a Christian?"
    I said "Ma'am, I'm one tonight." :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  19. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Johann "though I no longer have ANY religious feelings whatsoever, I enjoy their music."

    Exactly. That's the precise purpose of liturgical music and church art. Listen, folks. The Church isn't historically ignorant of human psychology (though in the last half century, one does wonder a bit). The music, if it is doing what it is supposed to do, is preaching and teaching at a deeper, even subconscious level. The asthetic experience serves to keep your heart open. Maybe not convince you intellectually but keep you at least listening to it emotionally. Music and art are pursuasive at a very deep level.

    I do not know what happened in the '60s. Church (and synagogue) architecture went "concrete moderne" and seemingly deliberately ugly. Appallingly ugly. More importantly, repellantly ugly. Service music became irritatingly childish and deadingly boring. Occasionally texts were simply absurd. I heard a Christian hymn that actually SAID, "Lord, we appreciate you!" This is absurdity with a capital "A" and can be explained only by carelessness and ignorance. Explained, I said, not excused.

    This horror show serves to drive away anyone with a brain who might otherwise be attracted.

    Now I do not wish to single out the '60s for synagogue irritation. Jews have been building ugly synagogues and at least Ashkenazim have been humming intensely boring things endlessly for a couple hundred years at least. But the religion never presented itself asthetically before as childish and stupid. My fear is that at least the Reform branch is headed that way.

    End of rant.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Well put - all of it. And point taken, I assure you.
     

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