Lately, my writing has taken a backseat to music notation. Jeremy is
creating complete scores of three of his songs for college and scholarship
applications. I help decipher Jeremy’s fiendishly difficult rhythms and occasionally
enter lyrics in the music notation program.
To check for mistakes, we can use the notation program's playback function. The guitar track has a typical electronic tone, but the vocal line
sounds like a heavenly choir of tenors, an interesting effect in heavy metal
music. The virtual tenors sing all notes, “Aaaaah” as if they’re going to segue
to “alleluia” or “amen”, but so far they haven’t.
The title of this post was taken from a 1921 Ladies’ Home Journal
article in which Anne Shaw Faulkner suggested, “the
demoralizing influence of the persistent use of syncopation, combined with
inharmonic partial tones” was responsible for the corruption of America’s
youth.
Self Promotion
7 hours ago
1 comment:
I think this was my favorite passage: "A number of scientific men who have been working on experiments in musico-therapy with the insane, declare that while regular rhythms and simple tones produce a quieting effect on the brain of even a violent patient, the effect of jazz on the normal brain produces an atrophied condition on the brain cells of conception, until very frequently those under the demoralizing influence of the persistent use of syncopation, combined with inharmonic partial tones, are actually incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong."
Great stuff. I wonder if there's anyone in America who feels that way now about jazz? I bet every new sound that kids like has come under negative scrutiny by someone.
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