I know why the Cage bird sings

Some music is utilitarian. Drums played a communicative role in colonial military music. Work songs existed in both the African-American and Native-American cultures to fight the monotony of day-to-day life. Sacred music has always aspired to add to the religious experience. Much music has been created for the sole purpose of accompanying dance. Lyric-based music (whether it be opera, minstrel music, Tin Pan Alley, folk or rock 'n' roll) tells stories. These stories are meant to evoke emotions. Even instrumental music (from classical to jazz) strives to evoke an emotional response through its structure. In the simplest terms, we think of minor key, slow, legato music as being sad and major key, fast, staccato music as being happy. Melody and harmony have always exploited the dichotomy of tension and resolution in an attempt to convey feelings.

Early in the twentieth century, traditional harmonic structures began to be questioned. Charles Ives began to experiment with polytonality, the use of more than one key simultaneously. Arnold Schoenberg composed atonal music, music lacking any tonal center. This new music was less about the heart and more about the mind. It defied simple categorization as happy music or sad music. It posed questions.

John Cage went much further. Cage attempted to study composition under Schoenberg for two years, but ultimately went his own way because he had no interest in harmony. Cage turned his focus to expanding the rhythmic and timbral boundaries of music.

Music has traditionally told us what to do, think, or feel. John Cage’s music forces us to ask what to do, think, or feel. As much a philosopher as a composer, Cage questioned the very definition of music.

In The Name Of The Holocaust (1942)


Why does a piano have to sound like a piano??? A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered through the addition of foreign objects between the strings or on the hammers or dampers. After a span of exclusively writing percussion ensemble pieces, Cage was commissioned to write a piece for a space that was only large enough for one grand piano. By placing wood screws between the piano strings Cage was able to expand the timbral possibilities of the instrument.

Why does a piano have to be played like a piano??? Usually just the fingers are used to play the keys of the piano. In this particular piece the fist and forearm are also used. This innovation was most likely a result of Cage’s interest in percussion music. The volume and violence which this mode of playing allows effectively mimics the tragedy of the piece’s subject matter.

4’33" (1952)


Can silence be music? With 4’33" John Cage explored the concept of silence. Not a single note is played. The "music" is the ambient noise in the room, the sounds made by the audience. This piece blurred the line between composer, performer, and spectator.

What is music??? Cage was directly influenced by Robert Rauschenberg’s White Painting (1951) - seven panels of completely white canvas. These pieces are art and music, apparently, because the painter and composer say they are so.

Speech (1955)


What constitutes a musical performance??? Performers – check. Some sort of sound – check. Instruments – not necessary. John Cage’s "Speech" is performed by five people carrying portable radios and one person speaking. This piece was directly influenced by two technological advances around the time of its composition – the introduction of the pocket transistor radio in 1954 and the proliferation of television which resulted in radio focusing more attention on broadcasting music. Cage’s "music" was provided by radios, the most popular medium at the time for transmitting music.

What is composition??? What might, at first glance, appear to be random is actually carefully scripted by Cage. All of the performers’ actions were predetermined by chance through use of the I Ching, a tool frequently used by Cage. By completely removing any attempt to infuse the composition with his own ego, Cage left the structure of the piece up to the fates.

Chesspiece (1986)


What is a music video??? In 1981 MTV was born, debuting with "Video Killed The Radio Star" by The Buggles. In 1986 John Cage created "Chesspiece". If ambient noise can be music, then surely ambient noise on film can be a music video. In this work, the actions of the video camera are dictated by the I Ching while the movement of the chess pieces are dictated by the rules of the game. The "music" consists of the natural noises generated by a friendly game of chess.

What is John Cage doing??? John Cage’s music evokes not only feeling, but thought. Whether you respect what Cage is doing, or you think it’s silly, he forces you ask questions. Cage’s destiny was profoundly influenced by his father, who was an inventor. John Cage was an inventor too.

Ferris Bueller Goes To Band Camp

I have managed to live the majority of my life able to avoid lavish Broadway musicals. They seem to be so far removed from reality. Someone is talking and then all of a sudden they break into song and then everyone else around them breaks out into the same song and then they all dance in unison. It just seems downright silly. In real life I’ve never seen anyone transition seamlessly from talking to singing... except for Dr. Kwoun. I wonder if she dances too?

I can’t count how many times in the past year someone in a music therapy class has mentioned a song and I’ve said, "What song is that?" and they’ve said, "You know it’s that song from ‘Singin' In The Rain’ or ‘West Side Story’ or ‘Sound Of Music’ or ‘Cabaret’ or ‘Mary Poppins’ or ‘Meet Me In St. Louis’ or ‘Chicago’ or ‘Funny Girl’ or ‘Grease’ or ‘Rent’ or ‘Guys And Dolls’ or ‘Moulin Rouge’ or ‘Les Miserables’ or ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ or ‘Cats’ or ‘Miss Saigon’ or ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ or ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ or … do you get the picture? And then I’ve said, "No, I’ve never seen that." I think I saw ‘The Muppet Movie’ when I was a kid. Does that count? I must have seen it because somehow I know the song "Rainbow Connection". And as a freshman in college I remember watching ‘The Wizard of Oz’, but it was only in an attempt to sync it up with Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’ (see here) I’m also familiar its most famous song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" which led me to the conclusion that all musicals must have songs about rainbows and people with rainbow stickers on their car bumpers must be big fans of musicals – which I later discovered to be only somewhat true.

So in an attempt to broaden my music history horizons, I decided to watch an entire musical from start to finish.

I chose ‘My Fair Lady’, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, the winner of eight Academy Awards in 1964. However, the inherent irony of a man discussing the importance of proper speech in a British accent so thick that I couldn’t understand him gave me a migraine and I had to turn off the movie after about ten minutes.

After a few Tylenol and some quiet time I resorted to plan B, the 2003 version of ‘The Music Man’, starring Matthew Broderick.

I was pleasantly not made physically ill by the first song, which I believe was called "Rock Island". The movie started with a group of travelling salesman having a conversation in a train car stopped at a station. As the train started chug-chug-chugging, the men’s conversation slowly accelerated in time with the sound of the train’s movement. I thought this was a really cool rhythmic effect. I enjoyed the fact that they DID NOT start singing, they talked rhythmically – somewhat like rapping. For the first two minutes of the song the only tonal timbral elements were the train’s whistle, the banging of a pipe against a metal ashtray, and the clinking of drinking glasses. When an orchestra entered the song my interest level immediately dropped. The song did end nicely with the speech decelerating and coming to a stop as the train pulled into the station of River City, Iowa.

Next was "Iowa Stubborn", a song about how people from Iowa are all assholes. I didn’t care for the music, but the lyrics were good.

Next was "Trouble", a song about how the billiard parlor in town just put in a pool table. I really can’t give an intelligent opinion on this song because I spent the entirety of it trying to figure out what the difference was between a pool table and a billiard table.

"Piano Lesson" was a pleasant surprise. The vocal melody was sung in unison with a young girl doing a simple piano exercise. This was another creative way to logically introduce instrumentation into a song. Again, when the orchestra joined, I was disappointed. I guess I’m easily upset by people singing along with an orchestra that isn’t there. I don’t understand. Do only we hear the orchestra or are the characters also supposed to be able to hear the orchestra? It is as puzzling as whether or not Stewie Griffin’s parents can understand him on the Family Guy, which is appropriate because I quickly figured out that Family Guy did a parody of "Piano Lesson":

Well… sorry, that wasn’t it. I couldn’t find it on YouTube, but I swear it exists.

After that song I got distracted and went to microwave some popcorn.

"Seventy-Six Trombones" was unique. The lyrics urged the townspeople to imagine the formation of a huge marching band. The instrumentation was provided by a huge marching band. Although the band didn’t actually exist on the screen, I still thought it was a clever association between the song’s lyrical and timbral elements. When everyone on screen started dancing Disney style, I noticed my toenails were long and decided to clip them.

In "Sincere", four school board members with no previous musical training who walk around town like Mafia henchmen were suddenly transformed into an amazing barbershop quartet. I felt a sharp, sudden pain in my left arm.

"The Sadder-But-Wiser Girl" took place in a tavern and soon after the tune got swinging the bartender moved from behind the bar to the piano in the room and added an additional syncopated ragtime style component to the song.

The next scene moved to a group of women shopping for hats in a hat store so I decided to rest my eyes.

I woke up to the sounds of "Shipoopi". This song was so over-the-top cheeseball, I couldn’t help but laugh. I hope that was the songwriter’s intention. This song was also featured on Family Guy:

After "Shipoopi" I got distracted and started googling Family+Guy+Music+Man and searching for related videos on YouTube. The movie continued to play, but my attention wandered so I couldn’t tell you how it ended.

I am somewhat disappointed that I didn’t achieve my initial goal of watching an entire musical. The DVD isn’t due for a couple days, so maybe I’ll get back to it.

Or maybe not.

Uncle Tupelo: The Carter Family Good Time Happy Fun Revival Band

The Carter Family was a country band.

The Carter Family was a folk band.

This may be somewhat confusing to those accustomed to the disparity between modern country and folk genres. These days when we think of folk music, we most commonly imagine a solo singer/acoustic guitarist singing about peace & love and frequently lacking in acceptable personal hygiene habits. Today’s country music is essentially glossy pop music sung by someone with a southern twang, an oversized belt buckle, and a 10-gallon hat. Common themes are the loss of a loyal dog, a good woman, or a treasured pick-up truck.

The Carter Family was from the Clinch Mountains of Virginia, rather than a musical mecca such as New York or Boston. They were from the country. (In fact, country music was originally called hillbilly music, but that term was later dropped being considered derogatory.) The members of the Carter Family were common folks. They were not members of the upper strata of society and they were not trained in compositional theory from European masters. They were economically poor and subsisted in a rural, agricultural environment (A. P. Carter was a fruit tree salesmen) and their folk music told stories of life as they knew it.

ENGINE 143

Along came the FFV, the swiftest on the line
Running o'er the C&O road just 20 minutes behind
Running into Seville headquarters on the line
Receiving their strict orders from the station just behind

Georgie's mother came to him with a bucket on her arm
Saying, my darling son, be careful how you run
For many a man has lost his life in trying to make lost time
And if you run your engine right you'll get there just on time

Up the road she darted, against the rocks she crashed
Upside-down the engine turned, poor Georgie's breast it smashed
His head was against the firebox door, the flames were rolling high
I'm glad I was born for an engineer, to die on the C&O road

The doctor said to Georgie, my darling boy, be still
Your life may yet be saved if it is God's blessed will
Oh, no, said Georgie, that will not do, I want to die so free
I want to die for the engine I love, one hundred and forty-three

The doctor said to Georgie, your life cannot be saved
Murdered upon the railroad and laid in a lonesome grave
His face was covered up with blood, his eyes you could not see
And the very last words poor Georgie said was nearer, my God, to Thee

"Engine 143" tells a story and teaches a moral. It essentially reworks "the tortoise and the hare" fable that slow and steady wins the race. It uses the themes of death and religion, which are common in folk and country music, and centers around the railroad, a major economic institution in the early 1900s. The main focus is not in the melody, harmony, or rhythm, but in the song’s lyrical content. This is clear by analyzing the structure of the song – five verses and no chorus. There are no superfluous words and the verses are a chronological third-person narrative. The melody is simple and mostly conjunct varying slightly verse to verse as the number of syllables in the lyrics dictate. The harmony is extremely simple, in A Major, using only the I, IV, and V chords of A, D, and E. The rhythm is in a metric 6/8 time signature with occasional additions of a single bar of 3/8 time which seem to allow for the singer to extend a vocal syllable or take a breath between lines. The texture is homophonic, consisting of only an acoustic guitar and female singer. The guitar features the style of "Carter picking" in which the bass strings are played in a linear melodic fashion while the higher strings are used to voice the
appropriate chord. This "Carter picking" style can also be heard in:

SINGLE GIRL, MARRIED GIRL

Single girl, single girl, she's going dressed fine
Oh, she's going dressed fine
Married girl, married girl, she wears just any kind
Oh, she wears just any kind

Single girl, single girl, she goes to the store and buys
Oh, she goes to the store and buys
Married girl, married girl, she rocks the cradle and cries
Oh, she rocks the cradle and cries

Single girl, single girl, she's going where she please
Oh, she's going where she please
Married girl, married girl, baby on her knees
Oh, baby on her knees

"Single Girl, Married Girl" is very similar in structure to "Engine 143" It has a monophonic texture of a female voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Its harmony is even simpler, consisting only of two chords – E and B (I and V in E major). The melody is simple and conjunct. In this tune the rhythm is in a 4/4 time signature with occasional additions of single bars of 2/4 time. The three verses discuss the woes of married life.

The lyrical content of folk (and country) music differs from early parlor music in many ways. It usually deals with facts rather than feelings. It addresses content that exists in the musicians’ everyday lives. Stories of chivalrous love based on the lives of knights and princesses in Medieval England (found often in parlor music) are non-existent in folk music. The high degree of sentimentality found in a song like "Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair" is avoided. The heavy-handed use of metaphor, such as in the song "Grandfather’s Clock", is not commonly used in folk music lyrics.


In 1990 three twenty-somethings from Belleville, Illinois (Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn) created a new musical genre. Under the moniker Uncle Tupelo, the group released their debut album "No Depression" essentially giving birth to the alternative country movement. The album featured two cover songs that had been recorded by the Carter Family over 50 years earlier. "John Hardy" was an adaptation of The Carter Family’s "John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man" – the story of a black man hanged for shooting a white man. The title track (the name of which has since been used as a euphemism for alternative country music and is the title of an alternative country music magazine) was taken from The Carter Family’s "No Depression In Heaven"

NO DEPRESSION

Oh fear the hearts of men are failing
For these our latter days we know
The Great Depression now is spreading
God's word declared it would be so

I'm going where there's no Depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven I'm going there

In this dark hour, midnight nearing
The tribulation time will come
The storms will hurl the midnight fear
And sweep lost millions to their doom

I'm going where there's no Depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven I'm going there

"No Depression" has many traits in common with both "Engine 143" and "Single Girl, Married Girl". It is harmonically very simple, consisting solely of the I, IV, and V chords in C Major (C, F, and G). Its melody is primarily conjunct and the two verses have subtle differences due to the number of syllables. Its form differs in that it does contain a repeated chorus section. The texture is homophonic and the Uncle Tupelo version adds the timbral elements of harmony vocals and electric bass guitar – which serves to mimic the "Carter picking" style. All three songs deal with sad lyrical content juxtaposed with major harmony. The lyrics once again visit the themes of religion and death. When first released in the 1930s by The Carter Family, this song dealt with the current economic condition of The Great Depression. However, when removed from its cultural context, the Uncle Tupelo version sounds more like a suicide pact than a tale of financial troubles.

The alternative country movement of the 1990s took the themes and structure of traditional country music and infused it with the rage and fury of punk music. "Graveyard Shift" and "Factory Belt", two of Uncle Tupelo’s original songs on their debut album, are prime examples of lyrics that look at life through the eyes of common folk. The members of Uncle Tupelo grew up as lower class citizens in middle-America during the Reagan/Bush era. As country musicians in the early 20th century sang about life through the eyes of a farmer or coalminer, Uncle Tupelo updates their viewpoint to that of a factory worker or gas station attendant in the late 20th century.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Hometown, the same town blues
Same old walls closing in
Oh what a life a mess can be
I'm sitting here thinking of you
Won't you give a few thoughts to me?

Well time won't wait, better open the gate
Get out and start, it needs to be done
It's winding down, there's much you miss
Working on that graveyard shift

But I'm not saying things won't go wrong as each day comes along
If what I see is true I could learn to believe
Can't look away, the powers that be might take it all away
Together we'll burn, together we'll burn it away

Some say land of paradise
Some say land of pain
Well, which side are you looking from?
Some people have it all
And some have it all to gain

Well a man in a tie'll bum your dime
Before he'll break his twenty dollar bill
There's plenty of reasons in this world
For movin' along or standing still

But I'm not saying things won't go wrong as each day comes along
If what I see is true I could learn to believe
Can't look away, the powers that be might take it all away
Together we'll burn, together we'll burn it away

There's too much time spent looking for a reason
Seems the simple ones beat the most truth
Oh, what a life a mess can be
I'm sitting here thinking of you
Won't you give a few thoughts to me?

Well, time won't wait, better open the gate
Get out and start, it needs to be done
It's winding down, there's much you miss
Working on that graveyard shift

But I'm not saying things won't go wrong as the day comes along
If what I see is true I could learn to believe
Can't look away, the powers that be might take it all away
Together we'll burn, together we'll burn it away

FACTORY BELT

Well it's funny how it all works out
Mad men in suits walking about
I'd like to change their point of view someday
But I feel my patience slipping away

Looks like it's time to lay this burden down
Stop messing around
Don't want to go to the grave without a sound
Give the soul a place to rest
Not to ride on the factory belt
Not to ride on the factory belt

Well you do what you can to just get by
With poison all around
It needs no disguise
You can see it on faces
From the barstools to the door
With no equal chance our respect is no more

Looks like it's time to lay this burden down
Stop messing around
Don't want an early grave in the ground
Give the soul a place a rest
Not to ride on the factory belt
Not to ride on the factory belt

Well it's funny how it all works out
Mad men in suits are walking about
Well I've heard it said
That after seven years of factory belt
It gets in your head

Looks like it's time to lay this burden down
Stop messing around
Don't want to go to the grave without a sound
Give the soul a place a rest
Not to ride on the factory belt
Not to ride on the factory belt

The most obvious difference between the music is The Carter Family and Uncle Tupelo is the addition of newer timbral elements of electric guitar, electric bass, and drum kit. The use of drums allows for a greater level of rhythmic complexity. The Uncle Tupelo songs are homophonic with the vocals still being the most important element. The melodies are mostly conjunct and, like The Carter Family, are delivered without excessive ornamentation, falsetto, or vibrato. The dreary lyrics are once again juxtaposed with a major harmonic structure – this time, however, more complex than just two or three chords. By rebelling against the overt sentimentality and polish of modern country music Uncle Tupelo was able to revive the story telling roots of The Carter Family and add to it a modern viewpoint and denser instrumentation, creating the alternative music genre.


Post Script:

After releasing four albums in five years Uncle Tupelo disbanded due to a conflict between the group’s two main songwriters. Jeff Tweedy went on to form Wilco and Jay Farrar created Son Volt. Wilco has since moved into more experiemental territory, using samples, loops, synthesizers, and obtuse lyrics. Son Volt has remained closer to the original Uncle Tupelo sound and still explores traditional folk themes such as religion, death, and politics: