Bursting out in song.

[Linna Heartbooger]

When I was growing up, my dad, in cheerful moods, would burst out singing, or come down the hall singing some odd song.

There were a number of them.
Unfortunately, the only one I can remember at the moment is this one:
"Ohhhh.. I wonder, wonder wonder wonder who... who wrote the book of loo-oove..."
(Thanks to Sarge!)

Or he'd have some wry non-sequitur like,
"Here's some music to type by." (?)
And then put on CCR, "Bad Moon A'Risin'"

And any time the song "Tequila" was on, he would not fail to say:
"They don't write 'em like they used to. Thank goodness."

Also funny when he'd purposely set you up (and you were like his 10-year-old kid) by asking you a question, and he'd be like, "No. It's..."
(and the "answer" was a song lyric; often a totally inaccurate statement.)


This call anything to mind for anyone else?

[peter]

Hi Linna. My dad, in our early days while driving us to school would sing 'A Frog He Would a Wooing Go [Hey Ho Said Rowley]!' and we would accompany him. It was all very loud and cheerfull. Haven't thought about it for years to tell the truth - thanks for bringing it back to me!

[deer of the dawn]

We would make songs up about stuff we saw. One great memory is a fugue we composed on the spot about what we might have for dessert. Most of them were very repetitive and it became a game of "how long can we do this before Mom begs us to stop". Good times.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hi Linna. My dad, in our early days while driving us to school would sing 'A Frog He Would a Wooing Go [Hey Ho Said Rowley]!' and we would accompany him. It was all very loud and cheerfull. Haven't thought about it for years to tell the truth - thanks for bringing it back to me!

Yay!
And that is a funny song.

We would make songs up about stuff we saw. One great memory is a fugue we composed on the spot about what we might have for dessert.

But isn't a fugue, like...?
I'm sure you guys were not terrifying children at all.
A fugue...

[aliantha]

You're thinking of a dirge, Linna. A fugue is several different melodies that are braided together into a complex composition. J.S. Bach wrote a bunch of them. Here's one, performed by the Canadian Brass. With the brass instruments, you can hear the different melody lines more clearly than you can on an organ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvc4955x_W8

And Deer, creating an impromptu fugue is an impressive feat!

[Linna Heartbooger]

Naww, I had what a fugue was explained to me a few years ago.
I was like, "huh... whoah."

I frequently describe intelligent children as "terrifying."
...just haven't done that here so much yet.

[Orlion]

I will spontaneously sing to my cat. They are usually variations of songs I happen to be listening to.

So David Bowie's "Oh! You Pretty Things" becomes "Oh! You Kitty Things"

[peter]

My already high opinion of you jumps to a new and previoulsly unconsidered level Orlion!

[sgt.null]

I sing lots of stuff at work (at the prison) but tops would be rap, showtunes and prison songs.

people think i am odd for some reason.

[peter]

You're lucky Sarge - people think I'm odd for loads of reasons!

[Linna Heartbooger]

Orlion- hilarious.

Growing up, we had a beagle/bassett hound mix that adopted us.
Long floppy ears and an wheezing howl.
My dad would on occasion sing a few lines of <b>"You aint nothin' but a hound dog!"</b> to him.

null- be specific. (at least as much as you think I could bear.)
Folsom Prison Blues?
I wanna hear about the showtunes.
(rap... less so, personally. about the only 2 rap songs I remember are "Stan" and this one with lyrics that include "boom, boom baby... yo-street and a rainbow" (?) (?))

Well, not including the one that goes:
"Like I'm gonna be a daddy whose in the mix, /
And I'm gonna be a husband who stays legit, /
And I pray that I'm an artist who rises above, /
The road that is wide and filled with self love," and

"America has no more stars, now we call them idols /
You sit idle, While we teach prosperity /
The first thing to prosper should be inside of me."
But I kinda don't think it quite counts as rap, 'cos it's TobyMac.
(Thought you'd like it if you haven't heard it.)

More from me:
Remembering more:
My dad would sing Johnny Cash's "Jackson":
"We got married in a fever /
Hotter'n a a pepper pod /
And we've been talkin' 'bout Jackson.. /.
Ever since the fire went out... /

I'm goin' to Jackson."

[sgt.null]

prison songs - Folsom Prison Blues, I Fought the Law, Jailbreak (AC/DC), Jailbreak (Thin Lizzy), Mama Tried, Chain Gang, Jailhouse Rock, Tie A Yellow Ribbon, Band on the Run, Renegade (Styx)

show tunes - Trouble (Music Man), Memory (Cats), Hair, 2-5-0-0, What A Piece of Work is Man, Aquarius, Let the Sun Shine In (all Hair), Time Warp (Rocky Horror), There's A Light (Rocky Horror), Tomorrow (Annie), One Night In Bangkok (Chess), Money Makes the World Go Round (Cabaret), Send In the Clowns (A Little Night Music)

rap - Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang), Miss Jackson (Outkast), Gangsta's Paradise (Coolio), It Was a Good Day (Ice Cube), Mama Said Knock You Out (LL Cool J), Just A Friend (Biz Markie), Gin & Juice (Snoop Dogg), OPP (Naughty By Nature), Purple Stuff (Big Mo), the Breaks (Kurtis Blow)

that is a sampling...

Linna - we are DC Talk fans. saw them in the Woodlands a while ago. Jennifer Knapp and the W's opened for them.

[Menolly]

Mom didn't sing, but when daddy did, it was inevitably either They Call the Wind Mariah, the theme from Rawhide, or Cool, Clear Water.

...and on the extremely rare occasion, he's the only one I've ever known who knew all of the lyrics to the theme from Bonanza without looking them up.

[Fist and Faith]

Linna, your father sounds like a riot!!

We would make songs up about stuff we saw. One great memory is a fugue we composed on the spot about what we might have for dessert.

But isn't a fugue, like...?
I'm sure you guys were not terrifying children at all.
A fugue...

Well said, Linna!

Actually, a fugue is usually just one melody, performed beginning on different notes. Initially, in the exposition, it's usually first performed beginning on the tonic note (in the example ali links, beginning on G, in the key of G minor), then the dominant (D), and back and forth. In the development sections, all best are off. It could come in on any note in the scale. In Bach's case, the melody will sometimes be upside down, sometimes backwards, twice as fast, half as fast, any combination, and on and on. Bach wrote fugues in his sleep and ate them for breakfast.

There are fugues with more than one melody, though, as ali says. Double fugues, triple fugues... The Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem is a double fugue. Starting at 4:39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d88xIIRDI9U

One particularly fun fugue is the last movement of a Beethoven string quartet. It starts at 27:18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYbcP0c872Q

Here's something extraordinary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRx-4Kj5-KE One of Bach's fugues for unaccompanied violin. Yes, just one violin playing a fugue. The understanding of the instrument and fugues necessary to compose something like this staggers the mind. And being able to perform it ain't bad either!

[sgt.null]

I did not know that there were lyrics to the Bonanza theme

you can hear Johnny Cash there.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Mom didn't sing, but when daddy did, it was inevitably either They Call the Wind Mariah, the theme from Rawhide, or Cool, Clear Water.

Nice! It's like I don't have to even remember which ones my dad sang for myself... those are the same as my dad on all three counts.

Linna - we are DC Talk fans.

I really enjoy "In the Light."
When looking for that one TobyMac song on YouTube, I found this video of "Speak Life."
It is beautiful. I think you'll really like it Sarge.
Just re-watched it. Hadn't caught that it starts out with a little boy attempting to plink away on a piano and getting mocked by two older boys.

Also I saw-
Trouble! (Right here in River City!)

2F- Yes, he is a riot!
Wish I could think of a good example of one of those times where he'd bait my sister or me into answering a question with the obvious correct answer, and then, "No, it... <sings song lyrics>".

With your musical discussion, you lost me at G-major.
(The only keys I have played melodies in so far are like... C, A, D-major, and D-minor. I think.)

Just kidding - yep, I'd heard about the "flipped around" thing and the different wacky ways of transforming them.
And about Bach writing fugues in his sleep and eating them for breakfast. (or composing them before breakfast!)

Okay, okay, I get it you guys... I'll listen to some fugues.

[Menolly]

I did not know that there were lyrics to the Bonanza theme

you can hear Johnny Cash there.

Thanks, sarge!
That brought back some good memories. <3

[sgt.null]

Linna - did like. thank you.

for you -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SORlrn0eYyg

his version of a Plankeye song. if you like check out the other songs he has there. covers of DC Talk, Audio Adrenaline, others.

Menolly - you are welcome.

[Vraith]

My dad didn't sing whole songs, or when he thought anyone could hear [though according to my mom he did Elvis stuff before my memory and birth] but he did hum and doo-be-doo and occasionally sotto voce along with the choruses of Cash and Haggard and Williams [Sr. he didn't like Jr. so much] and the like.

Me and my sisters didn't fugue around, but we did do lots of rounds on car rides...especially the one:

There was a man [there was a man] [ditto]
Now please take note [ ditto] [ditto]
There was a man [ dit...oh, you get the idea]
who had a goat.
He loved that goat...
indeed he did...
he loved that goat...
just like a kid [[[there's a joke there...get it? huh? ya get it?? ]
etc.

I've heard that rounds are one of the ancestors of fugues, but I don't know it for truth. It seems reasonable, though.

Sarge: is LL still popular amongst the prison population? Or just popular with you when you're amongst the prison population? [[that thing is one of the dozen or so rap pieces I like. Don't know why, exactly...maybe it's just cuz I was overly influenced by the rumor that the hot dog place up the block from me in L.A. was his favorite hot dog place, IDK. I think I recall the video being pretty good as vids went back then.]]

[Fist and Faith]

I've heard that rounds are one of the ancestors of fugues, but I don't know it for truth. It seems reasonable, though.

It does. I haven't looked into this particular question, but it makes sense. Doing the melody repeatedly on the same notes would seem to come before going back and forth between tonic and dominant. But it's more than that. There wasn't a tonic and dominant much before the Baroque period. Tonality solidified into what we now have as the Renaissance became Baroque. (We use 1600 as the date.) There was certainly imitation, including rounds, all along. But a fugue would be difficult, to say the least, when one composition might jump through several tonal centers, and even end on a different one than it began on.

Bach was born in 1685, by which point the tonality that we're most familiar with was firmly in place. His Well-Tempered Clavier was a demonstration of how this tonality worked. And fugues came about.