A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops, and Pauses

by rg Sat Jun 14th, 2008 at 07:12:41 AM EST

A belated bump for the series finale! - In Wales

STARTS

Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone (2:24)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPq9tF1FbnA

With pop music, there has to be that initial whoomph! The thing that grabs the listener. Each to their own tastes, and the more one delves into a particular soundworld, the more one becomes habituated (familiarity breeds contempt) to the obvious openings, so there will be the "jazz drummers' jazz drummer"--the one who has something--wham bam--that can be appreciated by a newcomer and an old hand alike.

The introduction in a pop song might last 10-20 seconds. By 1 minute it's either grabbed you or it hasn't. In classical the same applies, but the development times are longer, usually up to three or four minutes for the first themes to appear, and then there's a development section--though there will always be the pieces, be they pop, folk, rock, classical, reggae, whatever the style--there'll be a piece that grabs you in all kinds of strange ways.

A general rule, though: the less you listen to music, the more you need something special right at the beginning to hook in your hearing centres--everything else gets blocked, turned into a more-or-less pleasant soundtrack to other activities.

The next piece has a memorable start. Apparently this would have been a bizarre sound to audiences of the day. An orchestra in unison, the first four notes, then the stop. Then the next four notes. Stop. Then the melody development, the crescendo, and another stop. Then the unison again... Note how at around 4 minutes we're back to the first theme, the super-loud opening notes, then the theme again--all the while being worked and re-worked...

Also, note the change at 00:43, another theme, which builds to a recapitulation and a lovely pause (stop) at 01:22.

Karajan - Beethoven Symphony No. 5 - Part 1 (16:13)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo

The other kind of start is the slow and steady--build build--here's a piece by Brahms, the anti-Wagner. Whereas Wagner was all for spectacle (he was the one who asked for the lights to be switched off in the concert hall--he wanted the audience to stare at the stage--to focus on this theatrical explosion--or so I've misremembered!) Whereas Brahms was following the "development of a theme" tradition--state the theme, develop, state another theme, compare and contrast, etc. The theme is played right at the beginning. Do Re Mi, Fa-Mi-Do-Mi-Sol (pause)--then the other way, from the octave above going down. "What's amazing," said someone, "is what he makes of it."

Brahms - Piano concerto n°2. Mov 1 (part1) (10:00)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D18AujwrQb4

--------------------

STOPS

Now, it's rare that a person concentrates to the very end of a piece--the mind wanders, comes back again, in classical music there's that rousing moment: tonic, fourth below (=same as the fifth above), tonic, fourth, toniiiiiiiic!!! Ba da bam! Applause!

With pop songs, there's often the fade out, the DJ talks over as the song disappears. But not always. There are pieces where the ending stays with you because--it does something sudden or strange. Here are two examples I've come up with.

First, the sudden stop. This is the piece I listened to over and over when I first got it, but it was only on a re-listen that I realised one reason I could keep going over it was that--the ending was so abrupt, while the beginning is very sloooow--lots of guitar scrapes, with echo (this was the sound to emulate when you got your first echo unit when you were young and impressionable); so it builds and builds and builds, there's a solo, then there's more building to the end and a sudden stop.

Put it back to the beginning, and there's the slow rise again....

Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia (4:39)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcjzoydyQIY

The other ending that came to mind is by the Beatles, A Day in the Life, where they employed an orchestra to rise, rise, rise the note, up and up until finally..the piano chord--which empties into the silence. A long way from the acoustic intro. But...they do it twice. The first time is at 01:48. Oh, oh, it's getting weird...and then the orchestra reaches its peak and--another ditty, which will build until there's the second and final orchestral moment, which starts at 4:00.

The Beatles - A Day in the Life (5:03)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgQrI-crnUk

----------------------

PAUSES

In written music, you have the notes, different ones to show that the note should be held for a specific amount of time. And you have rests. Sometimes you're supposed to not play for a specific amount of time.

Here's a list, working from the top we have a note/rest of 4 beats length, then 2, then 1, then half, quarter, and an eighth. If you want someone to play or pause for three beats, you add a dot to the two beat note/rest. The point being that you know how long to stop/play for. If, as a writer of music, you want someone to play/pause for a beat and a half, you add a dot to the 1 beat note/rest.

--------------------

A pause builds tension--the dramatic pause for effect. Here are three pieces which use the stop/start (which is the pause) to great effect.

Eddie Cochran - Somethin' else (2:02)

Full of stops and starts. The famous stop--where you'd point at someone and try out your rebel accent--first appears at 00:25.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyHXKZIKS0Y

This next one has two types of pause. The first is at the beginning where the drum goes THUMP and then the sound is muffled, as if...the song is about to leap out at you any moment now--the pause before the storm. Then--yes! The drums leap at you, but now there's another pause--done after every second THUMP--you can hear it at 00:25/26, though it's very quick. After the THUMP the drums stop (no hi-hat) and then pick up for the rest of the four--it creates the tension--

The Prodigy - Firestarter (3:45)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28ow4TLMTqM

And finally, good ol' Tom with his raspiness and his carnival tones--note the pauses after each repetition of "the ship is skinking" (from 00:27); and in the chorus ("God's away on business--business (snap!(00:55.))" With emus (well, they might not be emus!)

Tom Waits - God's Away on Business (3:04)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExyRMqX8eOA

-------------------

STARTS, STOPS, & PAUSES

Okay, every piece starts and ends, and every piece has at least some kind of pause (the singer stops singing, for example)--some pieces throw them all in there in one crazy stop start pause start stop pause stop start...some have a smoother flow.

Spikey and fruity:

STRAVINSKY - Rite Of Spring (10:40)

(I got lulled into it on a re-listen, after the stops and starts it settles into a lilt...but then notice what happens at 3:17!)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJPXFPPV6Y

Then there's smooth, where the notes flow, just the one polyphonic instrument with the ability to change its tones--and the note sounds and if you stop playing it, the sound stops--only the resonance resonates...powerful!

J.S.Bach-Toccata e Fuga BWV 565-Karl Richter (9:30)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_oIFy1mxM

And finally, short, sharp, to the point: start, stop start,stop, a solo--and a sudden stop!

The Stranglers - Shut Up! (1:06)

Great keyboard solo at 00:48.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQHkDBqnvwE

-------------------

Okay! The end of the journey, back where we started with music in all its strange forms. This evening at the pub, it was proposed that language came before music and the visual arts. That the cave paintings were instigated by thoughts, which would be thinking--which would be language.

But everyone has a tone, our voices rise and fall, we stop and start, we use dramatic pauses.

----------------------

Bonus Tracks

In this one, you can see the pauses in the score.

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana - O fortuna (2:31)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF7_PhB9coo

In this one, you have Jimi's stops, starts and pauses--rhythm is about stops, starts, and pauses: music is...note duration....

heh! Maybe not!

Jimi Hendrix & Band - Freedom (3:14)

Great solo starting at 00:53.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qezM-Ly5dYM

Romantic pauses in the next piece. I really enjoy the way Julian Bream plays the classical guitar.

Julian Bream - Villa-Lobos - Preludes 3 & 4 (4:55)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbW4rYYKxhg

--------------

Okay, thank you for listening and reading--most of all for listening. I hope you got to hear some enjoyable music you hadn't heard before. I enjoyed writing these diaries; a lot of the time I was learning as I went along, hoping I'd got at least some of it right, looking forward to comments which might expand my musical knowledge, horizons, ideas, enjoyable music--so I must thank DoDo in particular for his commitment, his interest, and of course and most importantly--the music he has given us!

heh....!

And of course--and as importantly--thanks to all of you who enjoyed and participated in the series!

A Final Track

No, there can't be. Stops, starts, and pauses. EVery song has at least two of them!

A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops, and Pauses | 30 comments (30 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 5)

And, of course, I must thank In Wales for starting this series off--and for supporting it through its strange journey!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Jun 4th, 2008 at 07:39:01 PM EST

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 5)

Thank you for your tremendous effort with this series, rg! Lucky me - I am not done yet, so for me it is not yet over for quite a while. :-)

by Fran on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 01:28:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 2)

Ta RG, its been anentertaining journey.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 07:10:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Essential to this diary ;-) (4.00 / 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HypmW4Yd7SY

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 07:06:17 AM EST

Re: Essential to this diary ;-) (4.00 / 5)

If I squint one way, it's a piece with no stops, no starts, and no pauses. If I squint the other way, it's a piece made up only of starts, stops, and pauses.

;)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 08:59:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 3)

Another wonderful collection of connections rg, thanks.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 07:07:18 AM EST

Thanks (4.00 / 4)

A nice series, and I guess it is appropriate to end it with the concepts of start and stop.

As usually, a couple of other points.
In addition to the notated rests there is the fermata:

which is placed over a note that is to be held until the performer feels like going on. This leads to the area of non-notated performance issues.

The most important of these is the concept of rubato. Which means slightly speeding up or slowing down notes within a piece while keeping the basic beat constant. Chopin's music is usually cited as a good example of the use of this expressive technique.

In jazz musicians speak of playing "ahead" or "behind" the beat. Most good singers use this technique instinctively. By delaying the start of a note slightly it gets more emphasis since the listener (subconsciously) hears the delay as a focus of attention.

One of the problems with performing music from earlier eras and cultures is that the notation always leaves many details out and it is the oral (aural?) tradition that explains how to fill in the missing information. Perhaps recorded sound will make up for this lack and future generations will be able to understand earlier performance practices more clearly.

On the other hand, the use of studio techniques now means that much music can't be "performed", only created and the electronic version is all there is. The concept of recreating a piece with a new interpretation has been degraded. Now new performances are dismissed as a "cover" rather than being seen as a new artistic effort.

There are now tools available which allow any sound desired to be created, but musicians are still learning how to use them. The future should be interesting.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 10:27:35 AM EST

Re: Thanks (4.00 / 3)

One of the problems with performing music from earlier eras and cultures is that the notation always leaves many details out and it is the oral (aural?) tradition that explains how to fill in the missing information.

Still, the music fares here much better than, say, ballet. Many ballets were created, especially in the XIXth century, but almost all of them are lost hopelessly, because adequate dance notation was never invented. What remains is a handful of classical ballets that continue to exist through continuous rehearsal, led by a few theaters.

by das monde on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 08:21:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Thanks (4.00 / 2)

The most important of these is the concept of rubato. Which means slightly speeding up or slowing down notes within a piece while keeping the basic beat constant. Chopin's music is usually cited as a good example of the use of this expressive technique.

Interesting pauses and many tempos in this Chopin's piece.

by das monde on Sun Jun 8th, 2008 at 06:42:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 3)

Beethoven's 5th sounds really cool, under Karajan.

An always pessimistic question: is there any risk of peak music, as an army of composers, improvisers, pop/rock bands and Eurovision wannabes try out every combination of beats and chords of the standard scale?

by das monde on Thu Jun 5th, 2008 at 08:32:49 PM EST

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 3)

I think you can have peak musical forms. There will always be another great pop song, but the low-hanging fruit were picked in the late forties to the early seventies (I think.) With classical, there was continuing development up to--okay, up to 4'33".

My optimistic thought is that new ways of proposing the world to ourselves and each other naturally genetate new musical forms. Someone said the other day that if you took current television programming, plonked a plasma screen in the middle of a nineteenth century street and switched it on...no one would watch--it'd just be noise to them, too quick, unintelligible. Maybe a very slow moving image would capture their attention...

Moving that thought into the future, new musical forms are presumably developing now, but we may not be able to hear them--

How would Prokofiev have sounded to the ears of a troubador back in the (?) thirteenth century...but there'd be a couple of musicians who might think, "ah, hmmm, okay, hmmm. Ah! Okay!"

(I'm working on the theory that not every brain is optimised for its current cultural traditions--hence some brains are more adapted to picking up ideas from other cultures--whether they be past or present...)

Heh! Not sure if that answers the question!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 04:13:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 3)

Re: the idea of a person finding it easier to enter different cultural worlds, take Debussy and Picasso, Picasso with african art, Debussy with asian music--

For most people these are still exotic--and in the case of the Gamelan most people (including me) find it hard not to just hear CHANG CHANG CHANGCHANGCHANG...(5:01)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldPMifPbngc

You play the same music to Debussy, and his ears pick up all kinds of patterns and intonations--enthused, he writes a piece like this (so good I want to post it again!) (5:03):

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fON4EddElU

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 04:20:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 2)

There was a discussion in an earlier part of the series, for which I came too late to participate, about form constraints in composition. I saw a few people argue, basically, that "let sounds be free!".

I thought that was a silly discussion (sorry). With absolutely no constraints, there would be no styles, and in fact no music. Music is about recognising some patterns in sound, so there will always be some constraint in there. Furthermore, creativity can get further if operating with a lesser number of variables - and the constraints of styles provide for that. Even musical rebels only kick a few of the prior constraints on form at a time, to get variation in a few more dimensions.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 05:21:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (none / 1)

I think that must have been the classical/romantic discussion. Classical works within a form, the play is within (this is my model, anyway); romantic kicks out--into the freedom of...the lack of maybe as you say just the one constraint or maybe more--either form, instrumentation, harmonics. But yeah, there are natural limits.

I have two friends who are into Free Jazz. It's not my music--Sun Ra is as close as I get; it took me a long while to understand the sound world (the way I see it: I'm walking through a market of musical sounds, I can concentrate on one bancarella or another, they're not necessarily playing in unison--so it's not a from-many-make-one style of music--it's the overall sound world that counts...that's my take, anyway!

Both are big fans of Eric Dolphy (3:34):

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuiIyDxa750

I don't know what the maximum number of constraints kicked in one go might be, but I always--when thinking of this distinction--come back, not to a musical example, but rather poetry, Kubla Khan, which is, I think (or so far as I have read), unrepeatable in structure--it does all kinds of strange things (it's great to memorise, that way I found all the different rhythmic movements)...I think with "classical" (in my model), at the very minimum you have a standard form to attach to. The worst it can be is boring. With romantic, the best it can be is mind-expanding (there are limits, but they are Waaaay out there compared to what the public is used to--think Star Spangled Banner by Jimi), but the worst is....formlessness--a sort of musical sludge...but hopefully the mind-expanders expand enough minds and those minds create forms, structures such that what was once "out there" becomes "in here"--and vice versa, with classical, if the internal innovations are great enough, they break out--the form can't contain the contents so it becomes natural for a next wave of music to break out, following directions indicated by the internal movements...something like that!

Anyways, here's the poem. Note in particular the way the rhythm completely changes after the ancestral voices have prophesied war.

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 05:56:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (none / 1)

DoDo:

I thought that was a silly discussion (sorry). With absolutely no constraints, there would be no styles, and in fact no music. Music is about recognising some patterns in sound, so there will always be some constraint in there.

Um, no. That wasn't the point.

One point was that was an arbitrary constraint like serialism isn't particularly interesting, and certainly no more inspiring than any other arbitrary constraint.

Another was that before serialism constraints were based on musical experience, not on playing with numbers. There was no reason not to continue in that direction - which is what eventually happened anyway.

Another was that it was a deliberate attempt to invent a new musical language for the sake of it, and as a deliberate attempt it had very little of interest to say. Artistic languages evolve organically, blending all kinds of influences. When that isn't the starting point, there's no delight and few surprises.

And also - serialism was mostly a political statement about the politics of composition and the exclusive status of the composer and the 'educated' listener. The sound was a footnote to the sociology.

These are all reasons why styles are not the same as constraints. Styles are organic things composers grow up listening to, copying and riffing off. Constraints are deliberate and conscious intellectual games which sometimes help with good music, and sometimes don't.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 11:55:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops (4.00 / 2)

The term [Gamelan] refers more to the set of instruments than the players of those instruments. A gamelan as a set of instruments is a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together -- instruments from different gamelan are not interchangeable.

Quite possibly, Indonesian Gamelans are purely tuned or pitched by Western standards of sound purity, so all we hear is hammering tinkering. But interested professionals like Ravel may distinguish in there great tunes and harmonize them.

by das monde on Sun Jun 8th, 2008 at 10:01:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Stops (4.00 / 2)

A great finish!

One kind of stop, when the entire music grinds to a halt and then all instruments "break out again" in the same instant, has been a very "commercial" aspect of rock music in the early part of this decade [BTW how do you call it in English? The Zeroes?]. I believe the trend was kicked off by Garbage's 1998 single I think I'm Paranoid, but nanne can correct me.

Garbage: I think I'm Paranoid (03:40, the famous stop is at 02:26):

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 04:56:14 AM EST

Pauses [NOT Stops] (none / 1)

Er, the title, I meant Pauses...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 04:59:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Pauses [NOT Stops] (4.00 / 2)

Listening to the Garbage track, I remembered Butch Vig was the drummer--Nirvana, I wondered if they'd done any stop-starts, but on a re-listen they did more soft-LOUD as the break. Then I thought PJ Harvey (getting Butch Vig confused with Steve Albini!)....but I was thinking, hmmm, that Garbage sound...for me comes from the early nineties--ah, The Breeders! Cannonball, from The Last Splash (1993). This is the track I remember full of stops and starts. In particular at 00:19, 00:25, (sort of another as everyone but the drummer stops at 00:37), 00:57....(whole song is 3:33)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RiJMZQXa2o

....thinking of Polly Harvey got me thinking to Patti Smith--did she use any important pauses? I'm not sure, but this next is worth hearing because it has a memorable intro (start) (and because I like the song! ;) (3:10):

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0brHGJ6xqbk

Okay, a last piece, Polly Harvey, I'm going to suggest the first 11 seconds (on an embedding disabled version it lasts 32 seconds) are a long pause--you can hear a crackle, so the track has started; when will the instruments or her voice enter the soundspace? Great pause at 00:32 to introduce her voice, the song builds, up with the volume, then down (soft LOUD soft), then a build again, then a drop, and a sudden stop on the guitar at 3:02, bass stop at 3:08, voice stop at 3:24.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ZE6XK89YA

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 05:42:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Pauses [NOT Stops] (none / 1)

Ah, The Breeders! Definitely a connection in sound, though Garbage's musical roots are in grunge and My Bloody Valntine.

I missed The Breeders when it was new. Maybe because it was a time I thought "alternative" stands for "wants to differ from the mainstream but doesn't have the foggiest idea what to do instead", based mainly on the attitude and music of some Budapest student acts; though I believe part of it is that my hearing developed since...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 10:53:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Pauses [NOT Stops] (none / 1)

DoDo! I offer you....(8:09)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 07:43:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Pauses [NOT Stops] (none / 1)

Ah, the change to another theme at 1:51, considering the build up....Excellent!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 07:53:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Pauses [NOT Stops] (none / 1)

Speaking of changeovers, a parting shot:

Joaquín Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, 2nd movement (10:01):

The piece has constant changeovers between orchestra and acoustic guitar, but the peak is the lead-up to and the abrupt changeover at 07:50. (Despite ample choice, hard to find a good interpretation on YouTube, BTW)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jun 9th, 2008 at 05:20:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Transitions (4.00 / 2)

In a longer multi-part piece, stops and starts can follow upon each other, and be connected. Thus in symphonies. Here is one I like, the transition from movement 2 to movement 3 in Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony. Regrettably, I found no continuous version on YouTube (what's more movement 2 is cut in half), so here are the two movements separately:

2nd Movement part 2 (07:45)

3rd Movement (07:55)

(I like the latter more than the more famous 4th movement, BTW)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 05:54:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Transitions (4.00 / 2)

There are transitions on rock albums, too. A quite obvious one is from track 4 to track 5 on Midnight Oil's Diesel And Dust album: the end of Arctic World and the start of Warakurna. I found a concert version of the latter where they start with the end of Arctic World:

Midnight Oil: Warakurna Live in Sydney (04:51, the 'stolen end' of the other song is 00:12-00:28):

(For comparison, the studio versions: Arctic World [only album art still] Warakurna [only music!]; if only YouTube could play back-on-back.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 06:15:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Transitions (4.00 / 2)

"Transitions" would make another great diary theme!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 06:50:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Stops (now for real) (4.00 / 2)

Something I hate is when songs end with a fade-out (if I use the word correctly: the song goes on but the volume is slowly reduced to zero): for me that means the composer just had no idea how to finish. Now, a lullaby would lend itself ideally for a fade-out. But John Lennon knows better (and he had the good sense to get Ringo Starr to sing it) -- here is Good Night from the White Album (03:10) [apparently with takes from the movie Baraka]:

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 06:31:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Stops (now for real) (4.00 / 2)

Fade out is the right term. Radiohead, "Fade...out...again...")

In the Beatles song (I hadn't heard it before), the voice fades out to a whisper (like you said, a lullaby), while the music has a definite last string chord...

That idea of the voice fading out ties (in my head!0 into the idea that as you drop from hynagogic into slow wave there's a point where the external inputs are shut off, an actual moment, but the conscious mind doesn't notice because its faded out from external inputs as the internal stimuli come louder.

And I've ordered the film to watch--I really enjoyed the images, the film got a panning from a critic and high praise from two viewers, so we'll see!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 06:49:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Stops (now for real) (none / 0)

Fade out is the right term

I'm still not sure we mean the same thing. What I meant is that the song goes on repeating itself like before, but the sound editor slowly turns down the volume. Say, like any Madonna song from the eighties, or this classic from Cindy Lauper:

the voice fades out to a whisper

I would say: the voice gets lighter, ends, and then there is a whisper.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 11:07:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Stops (now for real) (4.00 / 2)

What I meant is that the song goes on repeating itself like before, but the sound editor slowly turns down the volume.

That's what I mean.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 07:34:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops, and Pauses | 30 comments (30 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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A Journey into Sound, Part XII - Starts, Stops, and Pauses

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