Skip to main content

The Firebird

We played this when I was in High School. I can't hear the Finale without thinking about Jeanette and her beautiful French Horn... I also can't think about the Berceuse without thinking about rocking slowly back and forth... LOL!!! Man... good times... :-)

My kids and I were having a discussion about the devil's triad - or the tritone - last night on our way back from tithing settlement. I'm not sure how or why it came up. But I mentioned Stravinsky and his masterful use of this form in the Firebird Suite. The Dans Infernal in particular is amazing.

Makes me wish I could still play somewhere, somehow... with all my copious free time... LOL!

The video is from Disney's Fantasia 2000. It's very lovely and fits the music exactly - at least, it's what I always pictured in my mind when we played it...




Another example of the triad is found in the song "Maria" from West Side Story. When Tony sings "Ma-ri-a, I just met a girl named Ma-ri-a"... the first note is the root (1) of the chord, while the "-ri-" is a diminished 5th which resolves into the major 5th. This creates the tension that is desired, so that when the "-a" is reached it feels as though you've been through the tension in the poor man's heart and come to a final and beautiful resolution...



I was singing this at the top of my lungs last night, much to the chagrin of my son, who not only thinks I'm tone-deaf, but also was trying to get done with his homework... Poor lad! HA!

Comments

Bill Cobabe said…
Ah, now I remember how the conversation got started: Ammon said I was whistling out of tune! HA! I told him - yeah, right! This coming from YOU!! LOL!

But Elise asked about how one can be out of tune. We talked about how there are two kinds of "out of tune" - one meaning that the pitch, which should be exactly the same, is off slightly (the frequency of the sound is not the same), while the other is that the chord one is playing is dissonant. I mentioned that in western music, the chord is usually expressed as the 1-3-5. But occasionally there is intentional dissonance introduced to cause interest, drama, or tension, leading to ultimate resolution and release. The devil's triad is 1-3-(flat)5, thus creating tension: our ears just don't like to hear that kind of sound together like that...

Anyway, interesting conversation...
December 15, 2010 at 6:51 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is this thing still on?

 Does anyone even blog anymore? I remember when it first got started and everyone was having a blog. I like writing, and I do a lot of it in my professional life, but not everything makes it onto this blog, which is where a lot of my personal thoughts come out. I put more into Facebook lately, too, because it's a little easier. But there's something to be said for this long-form writing exercise, and I think I will continue here periodically. You don't mind, do you? Well, in my last post I wrote about how difficult things were for me at the time. That changed in July when I finally got a job working for the State of Utah. I was the program manager for the moderate income housing database program, and that meant I worked from home a lot but also went in to Salt Lake when needed, mostly on the train. It was a good experience, for the most part, and I'm grateful for the things I learned even in the short time I was there.  In October I started working for Weber County in t...
1 comment
Read more

The Other Art

I'm not sure we appreciate photography as much as we do other art forms. Part of this comes from the reality that surrounds and permeates a photograph - it's very, very real, and the photographer strives for clarity and crispness in the representations. Perhaps this is why black and white images continue to be relevant - they strip away extraneous information (color) and leave us with something that is at once familiar and also non-existent - for nothing exists in black and white. Nothing. I also think that pictures are becoming too common-place... Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and while that's a very democratic thing (everyone can express themselves in a picture easily and readily, and can find an audience for these images, which are casually taken and casually viewed, and perhaps just as casually forgotten) I think that we embrace that casual attitude, and it spills over to all aspects of the media, making it impotent. So I read this article this morning: h...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Romantic Encounter

Him (tears in his eyes, heartbroken): I want you to know that I love you, that I'm sorry for my weakness and frailties, and that I will try and do better. I think I am doing better than I was before, and I just want to please you and make you happy. I am very grateful for your continued patience as I try to be the kind of man I want to be. Her: You need a haircut. It's getting a little long.
15 comments
Read more