Music Inspires During the Pandemic

I’ve never had more time to write, but pandemics and social distancing apparently don’t kindle creativity.  Lately my mind works best with logical, choreographed activities like woodworking, crossword puzzles and home improvement projects.  Not exactly awe-inspiring stuff.

But one idea sprung up on social media in time for my family’s roundtrip drive to Lexington, Kentucky and back: the 30 Day Song Challenge.  It’s a simple exercise to get you to think of music that’s inspired you in various ways over the years, to get you to mine some of the songs that maybe you’ve forgotten about, and to share your choices with others.

(by the way, our drive was to move our daughter home from her apartment, so no judging)

My daughter suggested that the four driving companions pick a song from each category, and rather than play one song a day, we’d plow through as many as we could during the six hour drive via a Spotify playlist.  I believe we got through about fifteen rounds on our way to Lexington, so about sixty songs, and it was a enjoyable way to pass the time.  Since our trip we’ve continued to gather together during the evenings to play a few rounds of songs, Zooming in my other daughter who lives in California.  It’s a great way to ensure a little family time instead of going off in separate rooms to pursue our own time-sucking activities. 

Each of us have our own proclivities, and the exercise has forced us to open up our minds to different genres and time periods.  My wife isn’t a music aficionado, but she’s come up with a bunch of songs that the rest of us never would have considered.  Case in point, and an example of one of the most egregious affronts to all that’s holy: Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love,” my wife’s choice for “A Song You Remember From Childhood.”  Awful, awful stuff, but she’s also dug up some great songs, and my kids have introduced me to a bunch of newer tracks, including many in the hip-hop genre that I don’t normally gravitate toward.  In short, it’s been eye-opening and fun.  To make the exercise even more fun and challenging, many of us have opted to have no repeat artists, which is a feat after fifty rounds!

Some of the 30 day categories are a little lame, so we’ve created a bunch of our own. The possibilities are limitless. Rather than share all of our specific choices, I thought I’d list the other categories that we’ve come up.  Including the original 30 Day Challenge, we’ve now done 50 categories and have a bunch more in the works.  Here are the ones we’ve added so far and the songs I personally chose for each category:

Song that’s acoustic (Hometown – live version, Joe Jackson)
Song that expresses satisfying anger (Hard to Laugh, The Pursuit of Happiness)
Song that reminds you of a specific person (Code of Silence, Billy Joel)
Song that’s creepy (Paranoid Android, Radiohead)
Song whose musicianship amazes you (Rosanna, Toto)
Song with stupid lyrics that you still love (Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung)
Song that pumps you up (If You Want It You Got It, Bryan Adams)
Song about friendship or support (Trouble Me, 10,000 Maniacs)
Song that’s funny but isn’t a parody or gag song (Her First Mistake, Lyle Lovett)
Song about societal problems (Oh Jungleland, Simple Minds)
Song that gives you the chills (We Belong Together, Rickie Lee Jones)
Song that tells a great story (I Hung My Head, Sting)
Song that celebrates a breakup (Salt In My Tears, Martin Briley)
Song that laments a breakup (I Miss You, Randy Newman)
Song that fills you with awe (And You And I, Yes)
Song that’s under three minutes (Dear Madam Barnum, XTC)
Song that’s a guilty pleasure (The Name of the Game, ABBA)
First song you heard by a particular artist (I Remember Me, Innocence Mission)
A great song from an otherwise bad album (Breathe, Melissa Etheridge)
Song that blew you away the first time you heard it (Here With Me, Dido)

One note: for the category of great story songs, my son and I actually chose the same tune – “I Hung My Head” – by Sting.  One of the best.  When I learned that we’d doubled up, I switched to another Sting song, “Ghost Story,” and could have easily chosen another of his tracks, “Seven Days.”  The guy can write a good story!

Here are the original 30 and my choices:

Song with a color in the title (Red Rain, Peter Gabriel)
Song with a number in the title (Driver Eight, REM)
Song that reminds you of summertime (One of these Days, Adrian Belew)
Song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget (Change of Heart, Tom Petty)
Song that needs to be played loud (No More, No More, Aerosmith)
Song that makes you want to dance (Escapade, Janet Jackson)
Song to drive to (Spirit of Radio, Rush)
Song about drugs or alcohol (Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd) - NOTE: my son picked the same song, so I switched to Alcohol by Barenaked Ladies)
Song you never get tired of (New Sensation, INXS)
Song from your preteen years (Stay in Time, Off Broadway)
Song from the 70s (Logical Song, Supertramp)
Song to be played at your wedding (Sweet Potato Pie, James Taylor)
Cover song (Stop Your Sobbing, The Pretenders)
Classic favorite (Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder)
Duet You’d Sing for Karaoke (Common People, William Shatner)
Song from the year you were born (Hung Up on a Dream, The Zombies)
Song that makes you think about life (Fast Forward, Joe Jackson)
Song that has many meanings (Love and Hard Times, Paul Simon)
Song with a person’s name in the title (Alex Chilton, The Replacements)
Song that moves you forward (Chasing the Sun, Sara Bareilles)
Song everybody should hear (Tripping Through Time, Sunshine Boys)
Song by a band you wish was still together (Oscar Wilde, Company of Thieves)
Song by an artist no longer living (TVC15, David Bowie)
Song that makes you want to fall in love (Wink and a Smile, Harry Connick, Jr.)
Song that breaks your hears (Traveling Star - live version, James Taylor)
Song by an artist whose voice you love (Sweet Surrender, Sarah McLachlan)
Song you remember from childhood (Band on the Run, Paul McCartney and Wings)
Song that reminds you of yourself (Grounded, Paul Heinz)

So there you are! Music, as usual, finds a way to soothe the soul during challenging times.  Make sure you’re getting your daily dose, and maybe use some of the above prompts for inspiration.

Identifying Notes without Perfect Pitch

It’s been well-established that if you don’t have perfect pitch as an adult, you can’t develop it.  You might be able to develop a very good educated guess, but it’s not the same as playing a cluster of notes on a piano and being able to identify and sing each note perfectly, as Rick Beato’s son can.  (Beato is a well-known and wonderfully informative musician and vlogger whose YouTube videos I highly recommend not only for musicians but for music fans who want to delve a little more deeply into songcraft.)  Of course, learning relative pitch is an important skill that you can develop.  When I attended Berklee College of Music back in the 80s they had classes devoted to ear training, and while I found these useful at the time, these days anyone can train their ears at home without shelling out gobs of cash.  Just download an app at your favorite store and start learning.

That aside, it does come in handy to be able to identify pitch without first plucking notes on a keyboard.  So what can you do if you don’t have perfect pitch? Once again, Rick Beato comes to the rescue. Part 3 of his video series “How to Develop Perfect Pitch” was an eye-opener for me, even though it shouldn’t have been; sometimes the most obvious pursuits are the least likely to cross one’s mind.  In this video Beato recommends choosing twelve songs – one for each pitch – and using these as references for pitch identification.  I had done this for years for the key of C with REO Speedwagon’s “Roll with the Changes,” and once I found C, I could identify all the other pitches through relative pitch.  But Beato’s method works better because it’s quicker – why identify C first if what you really want to do is identify an A? – and also because if one reference fails you by a half-step – as it sometimes does for me – then having another reference can help correct your error.

Watching Beato’s video, I recognized immediately that I’d be better off choosing songs I know well, that are a part of my DNA.  This is easier said than done, because while there are ample pop/rock songs in the key of E or D or A, finding songs to help identify a C# or Aflat are fewer and farther between.  Even now, I’m not positive that some of my choices are the best, but I’ve been able to employ Beato’s pitch-identification strategy while playing piano at church and it works pretty darn well.  It’s really helpful to look at a piece of music and know what the first note or chord is going to sound like before playing it, as it can be jolting if you’re expecting the pitch to be different.  With Beato’s technique, I can more often than not correctly identify the pitch before the song begins.  This isn’t to say that I can identify a note in the midst of a complicated song whose key I haven’t already identified – Beato’s strategy isn’t a substitute for having perfect pitch and has its limitations – but it is useful.

When identifying songs that work for you, it’s important that the note you’re trying to identify plays at the start of the song. A song might be in the key of E, but if the first note is an A, then pick this song for A, not for E.  This is the case for “All my Loving” by the Beatles, which I’ve chosen as my “A” song.  Another helpful tool is to create a playlist of all twelve songs on Spotify or some other music streaming service so that you can quiz yourself quickly and often.

Without further ado, here are the twelve songs I’ve chosen for my pitch identification.  Some of these may be obscure for you, but there are several lists in the comments section of Beato’s video that might prove helpful. 

• C:  “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles, and “Roll with the Changes” to confirm.

• C#:  The opening to “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers.  Finding a rock song in C# wasn’t easy!

• D: “We Can Work It Out” by The Beatles.  This one really works well for me for some reason.  “Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)” by Pink Floyd is another good one.

• Eflat:  The second note of “The Long and Winding Road” by The Beatles.  Ideally, I’d pick nothing by Beatles songs – they are so ingrained into my musical memory.

• E: “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles.

• F: The first note of “Goodbye to Love” by The Carpenters.

• F#:  The first note sung in “Oh! Darling” by The Beatles.

• G:  “Christmas” by The Who.

• Aflat:  “Ripples” by Genesis.  This is one that works almost 100% for me.

• A:  The first note of “All My Loving” by The Beatles.

• Bflat:  The first note sung on “Guide Vocal” by Genesis.  The “Star Wars” theme works well here, too.

• B:  The original version of “The Revealing Science of God” by Yes.

There you are!  I just tested myself again for each pitch using the above reference songs (first clearing my hearing palette) and I got 10 of 12 notes correct, with two off by a half-step, which means I probably need to practice some more.  This method may not be a perfect pitch substitute, but it does have value if you’re willing to put a little work into it.

Song Forms, Repetition, Elton John and ABBA

Last May, as part of a build-up to the Elton John biopic Rocketman, the magazine Entertainment Weekly posted interview snippets of some of today’s great piano rockers about John’s influence on them.  One remark by Ben Folds particularly resonated with me.  When asked about the song “Levon,” Folds says:

The melody doesn’t repeat for a long time. I’ve brought this up with him and he’s usually “eh, I don’t want to think about it too much.” Same with “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” It stretches for over two minutes before a repeat. The current era’s songs are maybe two seconds.

He’s right.  Listen to “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”  There isn’t one second of melodic repetition until 1:08, when he briefly repeats a melodic motif in the chorus before moving onto new material.  It isn’t until 1:53 that we have an honest-to-goodness repeat, when we go back to the beginning before the second verse kicks in.   

That is fricking amazing.  It also goes to show that human beings are capable of not being spoon-fed pop songs onto perfect little index cards.  It’s a shame that more music isn’t as exploratory.

Ben Folds’s comment inspired me to listen to some songs more closely and look for moments when artists don’t throw away the playbook, but invent interesting alterations with regard to song structure.  Sure, when it comes to prog rock or particularly inventive songs like “The Continuing Adventures of Bungalow Bill” by The Beatles, “Déjà vu” by CSNY, or “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, song forms go out the window.  For these compositions it’s hard to identify what constitutes the verse or the chorus, or if these sections even exist at all.  But as impressive as these songs are, what I find truly remarkable are hit songs that eschew traditional structures but are still rooted in constructs that we can identify.

There seems to be a dearth of material on the internet about creative song forms in pop music, though there are a few, including one that inspired a comment about how unorthodox Journey’s ubiquitous “Don’t Stop Believin’” is.  What most of us would identify as the chorus doesn’t occur until the song’s end at 3:23.   Pretty remarkable.  If I had to map out the song form – which is certainly open to debate – I’d call it A-A(half)-B-A-B-C, with C repeating until fade.  It’s not a multiple movement song like “Bohemian Rhapsody” – there is a verse for sure, and a chorus, and a section we might call a bridge (the “Strangers waiting…” section).  It’s just presented unusually, and for that I give Journey kudos.

Having said that, I never want to hear the song again.

Scott McCormick of Disccogs writes an insightful blog that analyzes the work of Roy Orbison and Kendrick Lamar and how their song structures often stray from the norm.  I would label some of the song sections he examines a little differently, but I definitely recommend giving it a read.

And in 2013 I wrote about song forms and highlighted the work of Elvis Costello, who often places a bridge immediately following the first chorus – a highly effective technique – and a wonderful song by James Taylor called “Shed a Little Light,“ notable for its symmetric song structure of A-B-C-D-C-B-A.  Remarkable stuff!

But it’s another song that’s completely enraptured me recently in ways I hadn’t anticipated: ABBA’s “The Name of the Game.” 

It starts out simple enough, a verse (A), a pre-chorus (B) and a chorus (C), but then adds a sort of post-chorus (D).  At that point the song is already more intricate than 95% of what’s been produced in the last hundred years, which makes what happens next all the more amazing.  We would expect to go back to a verse here, but the Swedish pop band instead goes into an entirely different (and entirely wonderful) section E, the “And you make me talk, and you make me feel…” section, which in and of itself gets complicated with an altering melody the second time through.  Call it section F.

It isn’t until 2:04 that we go back to the beginning of the song.  How is it possible to anchor the listener when you go through five or six song sections in two minutes?  ABBA succeeds largely because there is repetition within each section, unlike, say, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” which follows a normal song form but whose forms are extremely intricate.  For “The Name of the Game” each section repeats within itself.  Within section A the melody repeats twice.  Same for B, C, D and E.  Because of this repetition, the listener isn’t left floundering with information overload like attending a Broadway musical that fails to offer any repeating motifs or reprises.  ABBA pulls it off beautifully, following this song form:

A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B-C-D-E-F-C

Wonderful stuff.

In my own writing I’ve on occasion explored different song forms with varying degrees of success, but not to the extent that I should.  When you only have 12 notes to work with, one of the most effective ways to mix up your compositions and make them sound original is toying with song structure.  I may not be capable of creating a verse as interesting as Elton John, but I can at least go to a new section instead of returning to the verse right after the first chorus.  For composers, I highly recommend messing with this stuff and seeing what you can come up with.

In the meantime, I’m going to play some more ABBA.  And I owe an apology to Andy who loved this band in 7th grade and who I ridiculed because of it.  I’ve come around, Andy.  My bad.

Things to Watch, Read and Listen

Keeping track of TV shows, movies and books used to be a fairly easy task, but with today’s segmentation of markets and the sheer volume of media being produced (just looking at TV, there were approximately 495 scripted original series in 2018), relying on word-of-mouth has never been more important or more overwhelming.  Each time someone recommends a show or book or whatever to me, I text it to myself and compile a list that I keep near the TV, but I’ll never get to most the recommendations;  there’s simply too much out there to wrap one’s arms around.  I have a list of twenty shows to watch, fifty movies to view, fifteen books to read, twenty-five bands to listen to, and another half a dozen podcasts to explore.  This is in addition to the pile of unread books I already own and the podcasts I listen to regularly. 

In the spirit of offering more than you can handle, I thought I’d share just a few things I’ve come across lately that might be worth your time. 

WATCH

• The loss of romantic comedies from movie theaters has been lamented for some time, though apparently not enough for Hollywood studios to actually produce them.  But there is hope for the hopeless romantic.  Amazon has released Season 1 (8 episodes) of Modern Love, an anthology series based on a column in The New York Times, and has already renewed the series for another season.  I can’t vouch for all eight episodes, but the first two were excellent, with smart writing and directing, mostly by John Carney of Once and Sing Street.  The episodes clock in at under half an hour, which might almost be too snappy to tell compelling tales consistently, but so far so good.

• If you haven’t already checked out Ken Burns’s latest documentary Country Music on PBS, I urge you to do so.  Like all of his material, it requires a degree of dedication you might not be accustomed to – the series runs about sixteen hours – but it’s a rewarding ride.  I’m not much of a country fan, but I’ve learned a lot during the first four episodes, and with Spotify at my side, I’ve been able to explore many of the artists even further.  There’s something to be said for technology.

READ

• As if there weren’t enough music rabbit holes to fall into, Tom Breihan of Stereogum has embarked on the monumental task of listening to and writing about every #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 track hit from 1958 to the present.  Word-of-mouth failed me with this endeavor, because I just found out about it a month ago as a fluke, and Breihan is already into 1977, but that’s not a band place to start, as 1977-1982 is my sweet spot for music.  The first song I clicked on was Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light,” and I figured I’d read a few paragraphs about the track.  But no, Breihan writes extensively about each song, providing some history and context, offering links to other versions of the songs, and rating each song he covers, which makes this blog a little more thought-provoking than many.  When he mentioned how much he hates “Hotel California” the comments section went ballistic, but that to me is half the fun.  A great read.

LISTEN

Measured by time, I listen to podcasts more than any other medium – even music.  I have my usual suspects – WTF with Marc Maron, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Freakonomics, Radiolab – but here are two that I’ve added to my arsenal this year:

• Unspooled.  If you like movies, this is a fun podcast that covers one movie a week from the AFI list of Top 100 Films.  Hosted by actor Paul Scheer and critic Amy Nicholson, this weekly discussion has inspired me to fill in the gaps of some of my own viewing (my daughter Sarah has now watched 93 of the top 100 – I’m probably somewhere in the 60s). Paul and Amy are not the most eloquent speakers – I keep wanting them to live up to the standard that Siskel and Ebert set – but I like that they’re challenging the status quo and questioning whether the old boys club that supports mainly male-centric films from the 1970s needs to be upended (spoiler: it does).  They’ve also recommended some terrific books – most notably Making Movies by Sidney Lumet and Cameron Crowe’s Conversations with Wilder.  Both brilliant.

• My friend Michael Stoller has produced a podcast called My Blueprint, an exploration of various issues pertaining to growing as a human being.  These are snappy episodes of under ten minutes, and the few I’ve listened to so far are terrific.  Stoller doesn’t shy away from providing specific examples from his own life and touching on topics that affect all of us, and I walk away with just a little something to ponder as I go about my day.

So there you are!  Add them to the list so you can feel just as overwhelmed as I do!

Music Aids the Claustrophobe

I’m not happy in tight spaces, a characteristic that probably falls short of a clinical phobia, but still significant.  The box-torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty and the entire movie Buried stayed with me long after viewing, conjuring feelings of anxiety when I imagined myself in these dreadful scenarios.  (As I write this, I wonder if my public admission is akin to Winston confessing his fear of rats in Orwell’s 1984.  If ever the powers that be want to break me, they know what to do.)

Which brings me to the dreaded MRI procedures I had to face not once but twice last spring, a result of an immobile left shoulder.  Why my entire body had to be inserted into such a tiny tube to scan a small area of my shoulder I don’t understand – I’ll leave that to the sadistic medical experts – but for the first MRI I was in good shape.  I was given headphones, I asked for some easy-listening 70s hits, and twenty minutes later I was birthed from the cocoon transformed in neither beauty nor health, but with results that gave the doctor what he needed: permission to do another MRI, this time with painful injections before the procedure.  Yea!

It was this second MRI – twice as long as the first – that nearly did me in.  The technician offered me ear plugs instead of headphones, which immediately put me on edge.  The bedside manner that was so calming the first time around seemed to be lacking, and when I asked for headphones the technician seemed annoyed, which caused me to blurt out a fatalistically unspecific response when asked what kind of music I wanted to hear.  I said, “Something light and soothing.”  Oh, was this a mistake, for the technician put on the most banal, painful, incessant piece of new age piano rubbish ever to pollute the airwaves.  It was the formless expression of someone who wanted to make a living writing scores for independent film but who lacked the talent, an affront to all thing musical with meandering phrases and NO ENDING.  I mean it never stopped!  Meanwhile, my mind was focused on how much I wanted to scream and wiggle my legs and arms, and how much I needed to raise my head beyond the encasement whose ceiling hovered just inches from my forehead, and with each thought I became more and more anxious until I finally called out, “Can we take a break?”

Through the crackle of the distorted audio on my headphones, the technician seemed nonplussed by the request (and yes, I’m using nonplussed in the correct sense, not the sense that’s been promulgated recently, including by none other than President Obama). 

“We’re not even half-way through,” she said.

Oh no. “Just a break,” I said.

She conveyed me out, and we talked things through.  I said I didn’t know if I could finish, but maybe if we changed the music I could persevere.  This time I returned to my musical stalwart of easy-listening 70s hits, and as I was slid back into the tiny compartment, the piano intro to Al Stewart’s “The Year of the Cat” began to play.  It’s a song that I know very well, having seen Stewart play the tune at City Winery less than a year prior, and my son having played the piano intro off and on ever since.  The piece felt like a well-worn sweatshirt on a bone-chilling evening, it’s soothing message of mystery settling my nerves instantly.

To help me through my journey, I imagined walking around my residential block, but slowly, carefully, fully aware of each and every step I took and each detail my eyes observed.  Flower by flower, tree by tree, house by house, I strolled down Highland Avenue, then east on Fremont, then south on Oak, and by the time I reached half-way down that block, with “You Are the Woman” by Firefall accompanying me, the procedure was complete. 

The result? Nothing that couldn’t have been prescribed without the MRI! Physical therapy for a frozen shoulder. A complete waste of time, money and spent anxiety. But a reminder of the power of music, whether life-affirming or torturous.

Next spring my daughter will graduate with a degree in music therapy, and if her life’s work can help easy people’s suffering the way 70s rock did for me, it will be a career well-spent.

Now, can we discuss why the openings of MRI machines are so fricking small?