A COMPENDIUM OF COMPOSITIONS
M.J. ARCHER
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO
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1*1 Canada iv ABSTRACT
"A Compendium of Compositions" is a collection of jazz-pop compositions exploring the
Buddhist concept of the disturbing emotions or "mind poisons", and the corresponding wisdoms which, according to Buddhist philosophy, we can achieve by working with these emotions.
All but two of the songs have lyrics, each dealing with a specific emotion, either directly or obliquely. The music of these compositions is an attempt to suit the music to the mood
of the lyric, whether serious or satirical. The two instrumentals are attempts to evoke
aspects of the theme which did not seem as well suited to a vocal treatment. The compendium as a whole is a vehicle not only to examine these concepts, but as an exercise in exploring a variety of compositional techniques. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank the following for their invaluable assistance with the preparation of this thesis and the development of the compositions described herein.
Bill Westcott
Michael Coghlan
Sundar Viswanathan
A1 Henderson
Roy Patterson
Gabrielle McLaughlin
Barry Elmes
Courtney Quebec
Matthew Clark vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction and musical context 1
CHAPTER TWO My musical background 9
CHAPTER THREE: Compositional parameters 11
CHAPTER FOUR
Market considerations 17
CHAPTER FIVE
Compositional method: overview 19
CHAPTER SIX Conceptual background: The Five Disturbing Emotions 23 CHAPTER SEVEN Conceptual background: The Five Wisdoms 25
CHAPTER EIGHT Mister Bad Dude 28 Smash The Glass Girl 32 The Noble Cat 36 Imaginary Fanclub 38 You're Just Jealous 41 Skin +Bone +Silicone 44 Superlucky 47 Melsa 49 Darling Let's Never Quarrel Again 52 Indoor Jungle 53 How Very Kind 56 Sleeping Buddhas 57 Dear Caroline 60 Last Day of Summer 62
CHAPTER NINE Conclusions 66 CHAPTER TEN
Plans for Future Study
APPENDIX A Music Charts
APPENDIX B: Lyrics
Bibliography
Discography 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND MUSICAL CONTEXT
My thesis is a compendium of jazz-pop compositions exploring the Buddhist concept of the disturbing emotions or "mind poisons", and the corresponding wisdoms which, according to
Buddhist philosophy, we can achieve by working with these emotions.
All but two of the songs have lyrics, each dealing with a specific emotion, either directly or obliquely. The music of these compositions is an attempt to suit the music to the mood of the lyric, whether serious or satirical. The two instrumentals are attempts to evoke aspects of the theme which I felt weren't as well suited to a vocal treatment. The compendium as a whole is a vehicle not only to help me and others understand these concepts, but as an exercise in which I hope to continue finding my musical "voice", by focusing on the genre of jazz-pop.
Perhaps, then, it would be opportune to begin by attempting to answer the question: what is
"jazz-pop" (or "pop jazz")? Obviously it must be some kind of mixture of "jazz" and "pop music". While both these types of music have been studied and defined to death, resources defining the mixture are scant. Scouring the libraries and the internet, I came across few existing definitions. I'll comment on two of the more useful ones below:
"This music tends to be either vocal-based simplified jazz songs or orchestrated (often string backed) jazz targeted toward a broader based popular audience than the formal jazz idiom tends to hit. 2
This style was often driven by recording companies in the 70's to provide a more marketable approach for jazz to counteract the decline in sales of jazz albums. Strong hard bop artists from the 60's such as Wes Montgomery and Grant Green unfortunately made some of their last recordings in the format." 1
As we can see by the use of the word "unfortunately", this definition categorizes pop jazz in a pejorative way, as some kind of deviation from the path of real jazz genres such as hard bop.
It might also be more favorably viewed as an attempt by a performer to connect with a larger audience by adding some songs with which the audience is already familiar to their repertoire. A melody that is robust enough can be harmonized in many ways. Turning a
IV / V/1 progression into a ii / V /1 makes it sound a little softer for example; going to iii / vi /ii / V after the first "A" rather than straight to "I" is another common device that achieves a similar jazzy effect. At present-day jazz clubs during any given week one can see young performers - usually singers - using devices like this to "jazz-ify" pop tunes by writers such as Bruce Springsteen or Prince. Pat Boone's "No More Mr Nice Guy" CD, in which he performs jazzed-up versions of hard rock classics, is a more sophisticated example of the same phenomenon.2
Looked at this way, jazz-pop can be seen as part of the long-standing trend among jazz
30l "Jazz pop" discussion / definition: http://www.smallsiazz.com/popJazz/index.html Boone, Pat. (1997) In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy (CD). USA: Ilip-O 40025 3 musicians to breathe new life into the repertoire by recording atypical pieces. Miles Davis' recording of "Someday My Prince Will Come" and John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" were initially viewed with scepticism, as pieces not serious enough to warrant serious artistic expression. 3
It may also point to the larger fluidity between genres that can conversely be seen in the many Tin Pan Alley songs rearranged for pop or rock. Notable examples include:
• Dubin & Warren's 1934 composition "I Only Have Eyes for You", which became a 1959 hit for the Flamingos (whose record was also revived note for note in 1975 by Art Garfunkel).4 • Cole Porter's 1936 composition "I've Got. You Under My Skin", which became a smash for the Four Seasons in 1966.5 • Peter DeRose's 1933 composition "Deep Purple", which became a number one hit in 1963 for Nino Tempo and April Stevens.6 (It also provided the name for the legendary British hard rock act - it was their guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother's favourite song .)7 • Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1949 song "Happy Talk", which was revived in 1982 by Captain Sensible.8
Porter, Lewis. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998 Flamingos. (1991) Flamingo Serenade (CD). USA: Collectibles 5424 Four Seasons. (1990) Anthology: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons (CD). USA: Rhino R2- 71490 Tempo, Nino & April Stevens. (1996) Sweet & Lovely: The Best of Nino Tempo & April Stevens (CD). USA: Varese 5592 Thompson, Dave. Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story. Toronto: Ecw Press, 2004, p.35 Captain Sensible (1982) Women and Captains First (LP). USA A&M 68548 4 • Mercer and Bloom's 1940 composition "Fools Rush In", which was revived in 1963
by Ricky Nelson. 9
All of which point to the categorization of music not as an identifier of musical characteristics so much as a way to market product. Will Layman invokes Norah Jones' success in his definition of pop jazz, which focuses squarely on its function as a marketing tool:
"The trick, it seems, is to carefully balance the jazz content of the music with a non- jazz pop sensibility. Or, put another way, to mix just enough jazz into a pop artist's bag to give it the Norah spark. NPR listeners and jazz fans are drawn in, but the reg'lar folks ain't scared off by crazy saxophone solos. You cultivate some confusion, just like Norah and her predecessors have." 10
Nebulous labels are of course nothing new in the music industry. We have been conditioned to think of "rock 'n' roll" as having begun in the 1950s, but of course artists such as Louis Jordan were producing raucous-sounding records in the 1940s long before the term was coined.11 After "rock 'n' roll" became the music of teenage rebellion, some of Nat
"King" Cole's fans would likely have been repelled by it, but the musical elements of his
"Return to me" are essentially identical to contemporary rock 'n' roll records (it contains a shuffle beat, instrumentation that relies heavily on electric guitar and a blues-based chord progression).12 Conversely, "Rock 'n' Roll Waltz" by Kay Starr, though it was a
9 Nelson, Ricky. (1990) Best of1963-1975 (CD). USA: MCA 10098 10 http://www.popmatters.com/music/columns/layman/050607.shtml 11 Jordan, Louis. 1999) Let the Good Times Roll: Anthology 1938-1953 (CD). USA: MCA 11907 12 Cole, Nat "King". (1990) Capitol Collectors' Series (CD). USA: Capitol C2-93590 5 successful attempt to appeal to the teen market, fits squarely in with the middle-of-the road pop tradition purveyed by artists of the time such as Perry Como, Doris Day and Frankie
Laine.13-14
The paucity of information dealing with the characteristics of the music itself seems to speak to the validity of this analysis, as does the fact that most of the internet search results for "jazz pop" and "pop jazz" were for music retailers attempting to categorize their inventory. 15
"Jazz-pop", then, is not something that we are able to categorize as exactly as biologists can categorize flora and fauna. Broadly:
• It is concerned more with the basic melody of the song than with instrumental improvisation. • It is likely to contain rather less rhythmic variance than jazz proper. • The instrumentation may differ from that used in mainstream jazz - for example, electric bass is likely to be more prominent. Or, in the case of a traditional jazz combo, the sound may be smoothed out with a prominent string section.
To subcategorize further, it seems to me that there has been a tradition of artists working in the "jazz-inflected pop" idiom such as Steely Dan, Sade, Melissa Manchester, and another group of people working with "pop-inflected jazz" such as Michael Franks, Martin Mull
13 Starr, Kay. (1999) The Essential RCA Singles Collection (CD). USA: Taragon 1056 14 Starr's success with teen market: http://home.earthlink.net/~v 1 tiger/kstarr.html 15 http://music.download.com/2001-8483 32-0.html (MP3 site) http://www.vourmusic.eom/browse/genre/010_D—446.html (CDs for sale) 6 and Norah Jones. The former seem usually to incorporate jazz harmonies over rock rhythms. The latter seem to either use pop song forms such as ABABC rather than the traditional AABA or A, A1 jazz forms (like Mr Franks), or to inject a pop flavour by means of their delivery (like Ms Jones). Diana Krall has begun to go the way of Nat King Cole, soloing less on the piano and singing more, adding string sections to many of her recordings, notably "The Look of Love".16
Among the latter, I would include"Smooth jazz" artists such as Dave Koz,17 Kenny G,18 and Boney James.19 Though more squarely in the jazz camp largely due to their mainly instrumental repertoires, they have dispensed with the swing rhythms so characteristic of much jazz, resulting in a beat that, once established, remains relatively steady for the rest of the song, much like pop - especially modern rhythm and blues - music.
Some people who wouldn't be thought of as primarily "jazz-pop" artists have also created certain works within their repertoire which would fit into this category. Billy Joel, for example, has alternated between grafting jazz sections wholesale into pop compositions
("Zanzibar") and integrating jazz elements with the pop ("Just the Way you Are", "Big Man on Mulberry Street"). Hence, while his own recordings have been filed under "rock" or
16 Krall, Diana. (2001) The Look of Love {CD). USA: Verve 549846 17 Koz, Dave. (1993) Lucky Man (CD). USA: Capitol CDP-98892 18 G, Kenny. (1997) Greatest Hits (CD). USA: Arista 18991. 19 James, Boney. (1997) Sweet Thing (CD). USA: Warner Bros 46548 7 "pop", certain of his songs have found popularity among jazz artists. "New York State of
Mind", for example, has been recorded by such jazz artists as Carmen McRae, Diane
Schuur and Mel Torme.
Other artists, for example Joni Mitchell, have changed their stylistic focus at different points in their careers. Ms Mitchell established herself as a performer of folk music over her first five albums, began incorporating jazz elements in middle-period records such as "Court &
Spark", "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" and "Hejira", then produced entire albums that were heavy on jazz - both in terms of the material and the delivery - such as "Don Juan's
Reckless Daughter"20 and "Mingus".21
The marriage of jazz and pop has been an awkward one at times, and one goal of this thesis will be to identify some of the difficulties, with an eye to avoiding them in my own compositions. At times, the mixture of the two genres has resulted in monotony (for example the many ABABAB forms with no bridge that some writers have produced) and blandness. I can think of far blander recordings than Steely Dan's "Aja", but it is one album which was heavily criticized at the time of its release. In the excerpt from the review which follows, the reviewer is displeased that the jazz elements of the music are present in a diluted form:
20 Mitchell, Joni. (1977) Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (LP). USA: Asylum 101 21 Mitchell, Joni. (1979) Mingus (LP). USA: Asylum 505 8
Aja', their most jazz-like album to date, fails because it cannot overcome, try though it might, a distance it mostly pretends not to recognize. There's no tension here between warring opposites, for instead of juxtaposing rock and jazz, Becker and Fagen have attempted to homogenize them. Sure, Wayne Shorter plays one solo, but this doesn't mean diddly-shit when the horns have been "arranged and conducted" by a schlock-meister like Tom Scott and the rhythm charts "prepared" by Larry Carlton, Dean Parks and Michael Omartian. Once distinguished by the quality of their sidemen, Steely Dan are now using the same drones everyone else in LA employs. "Aja" doesn't combine the best of both worlds; it reduces rock and jazz to supper-club pablum. Much of this album could have been recorded by Chicago." 22
Similarly, in cases where the mix of jazz and pop is less evenly split, attempts to spice up a pop record with jazz elements do not always work well. Due to the disparity in the various musicians' styles, David Bowie's song "Aladdin Sane" ended up being a sonically awkward
mix. The virtuosic, jazzy piano playing of Mike Garson undercut by the rhythm section, the Spiders From Mars, who sounded plodding by comparison.23
Finally, "fusion" is one subcategory of rock-influenced jazz which has been widely
discussed and debated, but since my music bears no relation to this type of music, I will
gladly leave any further mention of it out of this paper.
22 Emerson, Ken. Review of Steely Dan's "Aja ". The Boston Phoenix October 18, 1977. Reprinted at: http://www.granatino.com/sdresource/16fool.htm (Retrieved Dec 12 2007) 23 Bowie, David. (1973) Aladdin Sane USA: RCA LSP-4852 9
CHAPTER TWO: MY MUSICAL BACKGROUND
My musical background has been oriented more towards pop than jazz - the Rolling Stones were the first musical act that appealed to me as a child. I spent many years listening to almost everything but jazz: country, hard rock, 1970s "art rock", punk and new wave, disco and classical.
But by listening to vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Bing Crosby (who remains my single greatest vocal influence to this day), I was also attuning my ear to jazz.
The horn riffs and musical interludes from many of Sarah Vaughn's early discs are embedded in my musical consciousness from having listened to the records so many times.
The "white telephone" pictures of the 1930s, especially the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies and the great Warner Bros musicals directed by William "Busby Berkely" Enos were also a way to familiarize myself with much of the standard repertoire. However at the time, I never really thought of the music which adorned the soundtracks of these movies as jazz, simply as the pop music of its day.
Though I enjoyed instrumental music to the extent of the Glenn Miller orchestra, as a youth my interest in improvised solos was minimal. Even on relatively short recorded performances by artists such as Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman I would sometimes going so far as to lift the needle over the "blowing" and find the head out. When I belatedly began to enjoy instrumental jazz and came to York to take the "intro to Jazz Improvisation" 10 course in Fall 2000,1 still found certain artists such as Bud Powell difficult to absorb - there were just too many notes for me to follow. I soon developed a strong affinity for the great jazz melodists such as Ellington, Monk, Silver and Shorter though.
As a composer I am basically self-taught, having learned mostly by playing through old songbooks and analyzing records of songs that I liked. The one book on the topic of songwriting which I have read many times is "If They Ask You, You Can Write a Song" by
A1 Kasha and Joel Hirschorn, best known as the writers of "The Morning After".24
Via my mother who was working at the publisher, I received an advance copy which didn't contain the musical examples. In order to hear what the authors were talking about I ended up seeking out many of the recordings cited on vinyl. Or, if the examples related to discussions of how to write to a sequence, deducing what they meant from the text. The gradual ear training acquired by having learned to compose in this way got me started on constructing simple melodies of my own and choosing the song structure appropriate to the story (melodic or lyric) being told.
Still, coming into York's M.A in Composition program without much formal study under my belt, I felt at some disadvantage compared to those who had studied composition - especially classical - for years.
24 Kasha, A1 and Joel Hirschorn. If They Ask You, You Can Write a Song. New York: Fireside, 1979 11 For one thing, my melodies went to "one" too soon and then emphasized the tonic too often in many pieces, robbing them of some of the tension they needed to sustain forward momentum. For another, my lyrics weren't always written with the utmost attention to care and craft. My rhymes were sometimes approximate, and I was hesitant to remove lines that
I perceived as funny or clever even though they in some cases impeded the overall flow of the lyric.
The main problem with having taught myself to write in this way is that I was seldom faced with writing to a deadline. Many of my songs took five, ten or twenty years to come to fruition. One of the main things I began to learn while taking undergraduate composition courses was how to complete songs more quickly. That is one of the main skills I hoped to solidify when I enrolled in the Master's programme. There is no substitute for time, of course, and a song which may seem fully satisfactory at the moment of completion may later reveal opportunities for improvement. I have learned, though, that the sooner one has at least completed a draft of the song, the more fruitful the eventual revision process will be later on.
CHAPTER THREE: COMPOSITIONAL PARAMETERS
The music I have composed for this thesis is pop , as heard in many of the song structures and in the arrangements, which feature set lengths for the solos and limited scope for improvisation. 12 It is jazz in the sense of the rhythms used: usually swing or some type of "latin" rhythm, as opposed to a rock "backbeat" - though this is more apparent when the compositions are performed with a full rhythm section. When performed on just voice and guitar, the guitar has to take on some of the "anchoring" role that would normally have been performed by the bass and drums. Still, there is at least an implicit "swinging" component to the tunes that much pop music does not contain.
When crafting a melody or lyric, there are some guiding principles which apply to all these songs.
With the music, I strive for simplicity and catchiness. I invariably prefer to state the melody, lyric, harmony and rhythm in a straightforward manner and let any subtleties come forth in performance My hope is that in so doing I will produce music that is easy to perform, whether as a solo artist or in a group situation, and that the simplicity will facilitate some kind of connection with the audience. Hopefully the two goals will work in tandem: if a melody is easy for a performer to sing, one hopes that it will be easy for a listener to remember.
Over the years I have mostly been involved in musical situations which did not involve performing much of my own material. As a result, I sometimes felt that I was composing in a vacuum, not getting feedback from an audience. A passage in Horace Silver's book "The 13 Art of Small Combo Jazz Playing, Composing and Arranging" resonated with me when I read it recently:
"Egotistical music has no thought of gratification for the listener. It sounds and vibrates only self-gratification for either the composer or the performer of sometimes both. The unselfish composer and performer either consciously or subconsciously bring forth elements in the music that will bring gratification to the listener... Compose and perform your music free of egotism and with a conscious desire to gratify the listener. This conscious desire in time will become subconscious and a part of your natural way."25
Writing without a live performance outlet, I have indeed sometimes produced music that felt cold and intellectual, music that didn't always have the capacity to resonate with the listener. Lately I have resumed solo acoustic performances and am in the habit of gauging audience reaction carefully.
When it comes to writing lyrics, I try to make the lines scan at least approximately, although there are some instances of "pick-up" syllables.
I try to stay in the vernacular without being too slangy or using bad grammar. Among modern poets, I prefer the easily understandable writing of Raymond Souster and Milton
Acorn to that of some of their more abstruse peers. Among poets who wrote back in times when language tended to be more ornate, the work of Shelley appeals to me more than that of some of his more long-winded contemporaries.
25 Silver, Horace. The Art of Small Combo Jazz Playing, Composing and Arranging. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995. pp. 10-11 14 I don't aspire to be a published poet, and recognize that over-concern with technical details may in fact be counter productive for song-oriented music that is in some ways part of a minstrel / bard tradition. However, it is also part of a tradition stretching from "light verse" to Tin Pan Alley, and which includes great lyricists such as WS Gilbert, Lorenz Hart, Irving
Berlin, Dorothy Fields, Cole Porter et al. Therefore, on the principle that it makes sense to know the rules before breaking them, I consider it important to find out why certain
approaches are thought to represent better craft. (As Kasha and Hirschorn point out in their book, the aspiring songwriter is not competing for a listener's attention with the local barband but with established professionals at the top of their game. In their book, first published in 1979, they use the example of Billy Joel.)
One of the main things the ASCAP writers of old all seem to have had in common is their
use of true rhymes, contrary to the trend among most forms of pop music since the 1950s
towards "almost" and "near" rhymes. Though I also respect lyrics that do not rhyme
whatsoever -in fact I find them far preferable to awkward "slant" rhymes - no songs written
in this manner appear in this compendium. Since the point of studying composition is to
develop my craft, at least for the purposes of the songs in this thesis I will attempt to use
only true rhymes.
Many of my musical influences such as the Rolling Stones have been able to get away with
almost-rhymes, largely due to the voice being buried in the pounding mix. However as I've
delved deeper into the craft of songwriting the constant almost-rhymes in other forms of
music where the voice is more exposed (for example country music) have recently begin to 15 grate on my ear. Hence I've turned away from the country hit parade and become more attracted to the songs of composers such as Dave Frischberg, who write according to more rigorous standards.
I used to write syllabically, but now pay more attention to emphasis, taking the poetic "feet" into account, rather than just counting syllables. I will provide examples in discussions of specific songs.
My lyrics tend to be as much influenced by prose writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, as by other lyrics, and often begin a composition as Mick Jagger does, with a summation in prose of what the song will cover. The risk with this of course is that one's songs can come • across sounding more like an essay than a musical work, full of polysyllabic words that don't exactly trip off the tongue. This is a tendency of which I am aware and am trying consciously to counter. The benefit of writing in this fashion is that, armed with a mass of notes before one begins to even think about rhymes, one is able to cram a song full of details and specifics. As Lehman Engel writes:
"The desirability of the specific as opposed to the general should be obvious. General descriptive words and phrases can hold little interest for the listener because they are vague, and they will almost certainly also be repetitive, resembling every other lyric in the marketplace" 26
Perhaps the over-influence of prose writing also accounts for the fact that in recent years I have been coming up with volumes of lyrics and having to trim them down to size. I
26 Engel, Lehman. Their Words are Music. New York: Crown, 1973. p.9 16 recently encountered Bob Snider's advice to take a different approach, to:
"Write the way you speak. Then it will be you writing the song. You will build it around your natural breathing patterns. You won't have to consider so-called "style". You won't even have to figure out how to write."27
Easy as Snider makes it sound, writing as one speaks is a choice the writer has to make consciously. It is all too easy to slip into one's prose "voice" when putting words to paper.
This underscores the importance of singing the lyric at every stage of its development and, again, of getting the song out for a public airing as soon as feasible.
Especially when writing lyrics that are intended to be funny, it is essential that the audience gets the joke, that one's meaning doesn't become unclear in the process of trying to be clever. I personally enjoy a lot of music that might be considered rather "dry." (One of my favorite singer-songwriters, for example, is A1 Stewart, of "Year of the Cat" fame, who produces extremely cerebral music that is not very soulful, but is very intellectually satisfying nonetheless). However an audience that isn't there to see me specifically - i.e., most of my current gigs - will no doubt include those who share Horace Silver's opinion:
"Emotional, intellectual and physical energies must be balanced to bring forth the best music from within oneself. Music lacking in emotion fails to soothe the soul of the listener. Music lacking intellect fails to stimulate the mind of the listener. And music lacking in physical energy fails to invigorate the body of the listener. As a listener and performer, I prefer all three of these energies to be balanced, but I must confess that I thoroughly enjoy music that lacks intellectual energies, providing the emotional and physical energies are strong. On the other hand, intellectual music
27 Snider, Bob. On Songwriting. Kentville: Gasperau Press, 2005 p 20 17 lacking emotional and physical qualities leaves me cold."
Since my sense of humour doesn't involve a lot of belly-laughs, or broad comedy such as parody or vulgarity, and since stage patter alone can't draw an audience in if the music isn't connecting with them (helpful though it is as a way to enhancing a connection), the music itself needs to be easy to follow and relate to.
CHAPTER FOUR: MARKET CONSIDERATIONS
Finally, in terms of where I fit in on the "jazz-pop" continuum let me discuss what I see as the market for my "product."
I used to dream of making a living playing all kinds of music, but being involved with loud music (hence "top forty", blues and country bands) no longer interests me. Therefore in terms of performance, realistically I am left with jazz and solo acoustic music. There is still room for rock, blues and country elements, used sparingly as seasoning, but henceforth I plan to focus on quieter music.
Most of the jazz gigs I am on are private affairs where the musicians' function is to create a pleasant sonic background. These gigs are almost like being paid to practise. When I can get a "centre-stage" type of gig with a jazz combo, it is usually at a venue where our main
28 Silver, Horace. The Art of Small Combo Jazz Playing, Composing and Arranging. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995. p.22 18 function is to fill the place and sell lots of beer. My original jazz compositions are rarely heard, largely because pickup rhythm sections would rather play what they are familiar with. If I am ever going to ascend the ladder in this field, it will likely have to be by adding more original vocal numbers to the setlist. They seem to excite more of a reaction from the audience and thus offer a better return on the amount of energy expended, relative to performing unfamiliar jazz instrumentals. I see many opportunities for musical growth in following this path, but don't see it replacing the need for a day job anytime soon.
Solo acoustic gigs make up the bulk of my calendar. Performing acoustically at open stages is good for networking, getting gigs and trying out repertoire. When one gets to perform a full set, one might receive some pay, sell some CDs and have the chance to build one's stagecraft while speaking to the audience between songs. The main things I like about solo gigs are: the flexibility to abort a song if it is not going well; to change the setlist at will without leaving a rhythm section fumbling for charts; to do requests; and most importantly, to do some market research. The benefit from trying out new material in this setting is twofold: firstly, if a song doesn't fly I can revise it before presenting it to a combo; secondly, I can get a sense of which songs may eventually be worth recording.
To that end, programming a set is akin to programming a CD - there is a need to vary tempi, keys, moods, and time signatures (for example, if there are three waltzes in the set, it doesn't make sent to play them all in a row). It is good preparation then, for the next recording project, which is always on the horizon. As a solo performer it is easy to travel, 19 and if I can, I would like to get in on the folk club and folk festival circuit, which still seems to be a going concern. Again, I don't see this as a particularly lucrative career option, yet it is probably the most viable means I have to present my music to the greatest number of listeners.
CHAPTER FIVE: COMPOSITIONAL METHOD: OVERVIEW
From having read a biography of Gilbert and Sullivan as a youth, I was under the impression that the "proper" way to write a song was lyrics first, music second.29 I knew from the start that that wasn't the right way for me. Many years later I was surprised to learn that many noted lyricists such as Lorenz Hart, Mitchell Parish and Ira Gershwin usually wrote their lyrics after the composer had done his or her work. 30
In the meantime, I chose a middle ground. My usual starting point is to think of a title that encapsulates whatever concept I want to address in the lyric. At some point thereafter a melody fitting the title will occur to me, often while going for a walk. Next, I'll often sit down with an instrument (guitar or piano) to complete and harmonize the chorus melody.
For an AABA song, it is then a matter of finishing the lyric and coming up with the "B" section. In the case of an ABABC-format song, either the music or lyric can come first for
29 Pearson, Hesketh. Gilbert & Sullivan. London: Haragh Hamilton 1935 30 Furia, Philip. Poets Of Tin Pan Alley. A History OfAmerica's great Lyricists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 Pp4-12 20 the "stanza" or "verse" sections, though the music is often largely done before the lyric is complete. The bridge will almost always come last: sometimes appearing complete in
sudden flash of inspiration the night before a recording session; sometimes by experimenting with a completely different compositional method; sometimes by grafting an unused section from a different composition into the song.
One method I have recently been working with is to write the complete melody before considering how it will be harmonized, rather than creating the two in tandem. This technique can enable one to break out of habitual writing mannerisms. (See "Superlucky", later in this paper.) Another method that I have used infrequently in the past and would like to work with more is to record a performance and expand on ideas that arise spontaneously during improvisation. (For example, parts of "How Very Kind", later in this paper.)
Creating a new song as a contrafact of an existing composition is another useful technique, though no songs created using this method appear in this compendium. (The one contender, "If You Think You're Sexy Then You Are", based on the old standard "Street of
Dreams", didn't seem to fit with the rest of the pieces.)
I find that musical ideas for already-begun songs often appear in the morning, while lyrical ideas can happen at any time. If I go to sleep on a lyrical problem, often the answer will appear first thing the next morning. 21 Musical ideas that appear on their own, independent of a lyrical concept are likely to fall by the wayside unless I have the specific intent of composing an instrumental piece. Every year or two I go through the accumulated written fragments, but often they fail to resonate with me unless I can tie them to a lyrical idea, and they are discarded or put back in the bullpen. Going through my store of ideas for this project, I realized that musical ideas which had been recorded rather than written down - generally ideas which had occurred to me later in the day - are even more likely to be forgotten rather than revisited. Having learned this, I will henceforth make an effort to jot down the few bars of an idea even if it is almost time to retire for the night.
Historically, I have waited for inspiration to strike at every stage of the composition, and I believe this is a reason why my songs have often taken ten or twenty years to finish.
Having read "The Artist's Way" in 2004,1 took author Julia Cameron's statement to heart:
"Art is not about thinking something up. It is about the opposite - getting something down."31 In other words, rather than assessing each idea as it happens and determining whether or not it merits further consideration, it is better to write down every idea, and figure out which ones merit further work later on. I have made this my policy. Similarly, I have begun to at least finish a complete draft of a song, then polish revise or scrap it as necessary. In this way, once the song is conceived, the work comes first and inspiration follows. In addition, writing to a plan, as I have learned to do during my studies at York, has
31 Cameron, Julia with Mark Bryan. The Artist's Way. New York: Putnam, 1992.PI 17 22 helped me to finish the compositions more quickly.
In every case, I view the songs as collaborations with the audience. I no longer record anything that hasn't been road-tested first. When performed as a solo voice-and-guitar piece, does it hold the audience's attention? I watch for the tapping of hands and feet during the uptempo numbers, listen for the hush during a quiet, serious song, and accept feedback
in the spirit in which it is offered. As Snider says, "There is no editor like your audience.
It will tell you immediately what Time will take its own sweet Self to report."32 If people
ask me questions about a song which was intended to be straightforward, I know that either
the lyric or the musical context in which it is delivered needs to be revised.
To eliminate one unnecessary variable, I make sure first that the song is not so new that I
am too unfamiliar with it to perform it confidently. I began my season of gigs this year with
the habit of debuting at least one or two songs at every performance, until my singing
teacher advised me that this was counter-productive - that it is in fact better to perform only
material one knows well. I now introduce songs in public only after I have lived with them
for at least a few weeks, and in this way can be more confident that an adverse audience
reaction is due to a flaw with the material rather than its delivery.
32 Snider, Bob. On Songwriting. 2005, Kentville Nova Scotia, Gasperau press. P22 23 I will discuss specific aspects of my compositional methodology further in the sections for each song.
CHAPTER SIX: CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND: THE FIVE DISTURBING
EMOTIONS
In Buddhist philosophy, emotions are regarded as "aspects of our personality that interfere with the development of a spiritual life",33 "states of agitation or imbalance",34 and
"suffering-causing mind-states".35 To those accustomed to the Western view that emotions are feelings or states of arousal, some good (for example, happiness), some bad (eg., grief), this may seem odd. In Buddhism, all emotions are similar qualitatively in that they act as chains binding us to conditioned existence (that is, the world as we experience it now, where we see impermanent things as having an absolute reality). To wit: "...everything we experience in conditioned existence, including our friends, pleasures and possessions always contains...suffering." 36 Desiring some things and being repelled by others, and spending most of our time seeking that which we desire and avoiding that which repels us clouds our ability to see the absolute nature of reality and reach enlightenment.
33 De Silva, Padmasiri. The Wheel No 237 (Kandy: Buddhist publication society, 1976) 34 See, Rune Johansson. The psychology of Nirvana (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1969, p.24) 35 Shamar Rinpoche, Kunzig. Buddhism Today Vol 1, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 36 No author credited. "Ngondro meditation booklet", 2002, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 24 The names of the disturbing emotions sometimes vary: for example "attachment" may be referred to as "desire", as Lama Gendun Rinpoche prefers to call it.37
As well, the number of troubling emotions varies among different Buddhist schools of thought. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are generally thought to be five: Anger, Attachment,
Pride, Jealousy and Ignorance. Even in Tibetan Buddhism the number can vary; often Fear is counted separately as a sixth troubling emotion. An explanation which I like for excluding fear as a separate emotion is that fear is the underlying cause for all five emotions. Anger, for example, arises out of a fear of not being in control; Attachment, from fear of losing something that we value; pride, from fear of looking like fool, etc.38
A comparative study of how similar notions are treated among different Buddhist traditions could probably be written by someone with the right expertise. For the purposes of this paper I will simply state that my thesis is organized around the Karma Kagyu lineage of
Tibetan Buddhism's views on the subject. Most of their literature which I have seen lists five principal troubling emotions.
Anger, Attachment, Pride and Jealousy are concepts that are similar in both Buddhist and
Western thought, and as such will not require any explanation for a reader unfamiliar with
37 Lama Gendun Rinpoche. "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers)
38 Weigelt, Pit. "No Fear", lecture delivered at Ryerson University, Toronto, July 11 2005 25 Buddhist philosophy. However in the West we don't usually regard the fifth "mind poison",
Ignorance, as an emotion. One Buddhist explanation for classing ignorance as an emotion is that:
"...we can be influenced by ignorance just as well as by desire or anger. Ignorance is not a something neutral without effects or consequences; it is a definite state of mind which causes us to act in a certain way. Ignorance is when we are incapable of seeing things as they really are. This may be conscious or unconscious, the inability to recognize what is happening, sometimes lauded as innocence, or a definite feeling of indifference, even deliberately not wanting to know. It can range from general confusion about what is really going on, to the formation of definite wrong views. 39
Seeing ignorance as a "state of mind which causes us to act in a certain way" certainly has some commonality with the way the other Buddhist thinkers quoted at the beginning of this chapter on page 23 defined their views on emotions.
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND: THE FIVE WISDOMS
The concept of the five wisdoms and how they correspond to the five troubling emotions will likely be less familiar to those unfamiliar with the Buddhist perspective. Let us therefore take a look at conceptual framework on which they are built.
First, it is generally thought that dealing with the disturbing emotions, rather than avoiding them, is the way to achieve wisdom:
39 Lama Gendun Rinpoche "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 26 "To abandon the five disturbing emotions is to take a less direct path to enlightenment... But seeing into the true nature of the emotions as and when they occur is not an easy task. If we just allow ourselves to look at the emotions one after the other as they appear in the mind in the usual way, we are no different than before. Nothing has changed."40
For in fact, the disturbing emotions contain their corresponding wisdoms:
"If we do manage to look directly at the reality of each of the five poisons as they appear, we recognize them to be none other than the five wisdoms... On this path we do not seek to abandon the five emotions, only to look directly at their essence or reality, upon which they are automatically transformed right then and there into the five wisdoms."41
Specifically, the wisdoms that correspond with the five mental poisons are:
Love and Compassion, which replaces Anger:
"...one makes friends with the world anew, through the cultivation of Love and Compassion, and the understanding that the outer world only seems to exist. Love is after all the best means of dissolving the dualistic perception... We just need to train our minds to the point where this love expands to each and everyone. ...the wisdom hidden behind the Anger appears. It is the ability to see everything clearly like in a mirror. n 42
Attachment is replaced by Giving or generosity: "When we do want to enjoy the object of our desire, we wish that all beings may also experience something just as nice and offer everything to our Teacher or to the Buddhas. Or we give away that which we'd mostly like to keep, if not in reality then at least in our mind."43
40 Lama Gendun Rinpoche "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 41 Lama Gendun Rinpoche. "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 42 Boll, Gerd. "About Anger, Attachment, Pride, Jealousy and Ignorance." Kagyu Life Number 25, Vol 10 (April 1998) 43 ibid 27 Pride is replaced with "the wisdom of equality", that is, seeing the best in others: "The practice when working with Pride then is the concentration on the Buddha-nature and the qualities of others, and always thinking "We"... Then the wisdom of equality appears and one is surrounded by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, always in the best of company."44
Jealousy is replaced by "Good wishes":".. .one wishes all happiness in the world for everyone. Anytime when one would usually become envious or jealous, one makes really strong wishes. As the mind grows richer and more generous, the quality behind Jealousy shows itself in the ability of knowing what makes others happy." 45 The idea of "Good
Wishes" is -logically - sometimes taken further to include Good Works.
Ignorance is replaced by recognizing reality as it is. "...what helps is a better understanding of the inner and outer workings of the world, that gives one a proper view-point and a powerful motivation to work constructively with every situation. 46
44 Boll, Gerd. "About Anger, Attachment, Pride, Jealousy and Ignorance." Kagyu Life Number 25, Vol 10 (April 1998) 45 ibid 46 ibid 28 CHAPTER EIGHT: THE COMPOSITIONS
MR. BAD DUDE
"Mister Bad Dude' deals with the emotion of Anger. From a Buddhist perspective, "Anger is of course the strongest robber of good impressions in our consciousness-store. With anger the sharpest differentiation between experiencer and experience is made, so that feelings of one-ness, Love, and fearlessness appear less and less frequently, and more fear arises of the world, from which one has thus cut oneself off'.47
I decided to focus on characteristically male anger when exploring this topic with "Mister
Bad Dude". The title comes from a Robert J. Ringer book in which "Mister Bad Dude" is a recurring character who symbolizes societal collapse. 48
Throughout the song I link the anger of young males with the violence that so often seems to lurk underneath: "Glares and spits to challenge you"; "Turned on by the sight of blood";
"When he's not in jail".
47 Boll, Gerd. "About Anger, Attachment, Pride, Jealousy and Ignorance." Kagyu Life Number 25, Vol 10 (April 1998) 48 Ringer, Robert J. How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization. New York: Harper Collins, 1983 29 Writing this song was an opportunity to reconsider my ideas about lyric writing. I tended to write syllabically, and as long as the number of syllables was the same, used to bend the phrasing to suit. (For example an eight-syllable line in verse one might be grouped 4,4 while the corresponding line in verse two might be grouped 5,3.) When writing this song, I decided that having set up pattern of emphasis in the first verse I would try to follow through with it for the rest of the piece. Thus when finding a line to correspond to "back of the bus, back of the class", "Loves to spoil other people's fun", didn't work, as it would have to be phrased: "Loves to spoil oth, er people's fun". I came up with "Happiest when spoiling your fun", which can be phrased the same way. (Both were later excised in favour of another idea, though.)
I did however resort to using a different emphasis for corresponding lines at the end of each of the "B" sections. "Him a place in the GENE pool" and "His cologne's an ACT of war" are patently different in terms of how they scan, but in neither case could I come up with matching lines that I liked as much. "Sprays cologne to deCLARE war" scans but doesn't have the same pith to it. If the discrepancy doesn't sit well with me over time, I'll bear it in mind for possible future improvement.
In some verses I use lyrical parallels which do not occur in others. For example "Wears a stone face, he's a hard case" contains an internal rhyme that does not occur in the following verse "daring you to call him on it". In this case, I felt that painting a vivid picture of the titular character was more important than following the rhyme scheme rigorously. 30 Contrarily, on the principle that a word should not begin with the consonant that ended the preceding word, I was able to add more polish to the lyric by changing: "Screamin' 'Notice me'" to "Got to notice him".
Musically, "Mister Bad Dude" began life as an instrumental in 7/4. I tried to tailor the lyric to fit the meter, but found myself gasping for air when I tried to sing it. Therefore I changed the body of the song to 4/4, in order to allow myself room to breathe. There was no reason to change the bass riff which introduces each chorus as no singing occurs over this section, so it remains in 7. The retention of this odd-meter fragment seems to add further to the unsettling mood created by the lyric. Perhaps upon reflection I will come up with a plan to integrate longer 7/4 passages into the piece, including some of the vocal sections.
At one point I was stuck on the lyric and thought to use Cole Porter's "Night and Day" as a template for the length of the lines and rhyme scheme. I soon deviated from this idea, once the ideas got flowing, but using this plan as a starting point at least broke me out of writer's block.
Much of the music may seem rather blithe and cheery considering the subject matter, but the point is to show Mister Bad Dude's complete unconcern with others, his disconnection from everyone in society other than those with whom he has some kind of personal bond.
Perhaps I was influenced in this regard by some of the writings of Rodgers and Hart, who 31 were known for "sentimental melody and unsentimental lyrics"49
The music is not all sunshine and roses, though. For example, though the melody note for the last two bars of the bridge is the not-necessarily-dissonant major ninth, it is made to sound sinister due to being harmonized as a tritone (bars 29-30). Tension is also created in the descent from Ebmi7 to Db via the D7sharp9 chord - the tension inherent in the latter chord is accentuated by the melodic drop from Bb to F. This is intended to show the unsettling effect Mr. Bad Dude has on those around him.
The melody to all sections except the bridge ends on the tonic, Ab. The underlying harmony prevents this note from sounding too "final", though. For the first "A", the chord is a B13 (bars 19-20); at the end of the second "A" the chord moves up to the tonic chromatically from the flat seventh (bars 21-22); and at the end of the "C" sections there is a bar each of B13 and D#11 (bars 37-38). (The ending of the "C" section, and by reduction the ending of the first "A" was derived from a compositional method presented to an undergraduate class in jazz composition presented at York by Roy Patterson in Fall 2004: dividing the octave into equal parts - usually three or four - and working out the harmony from there.)
49 Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages. New York: Random House, 1975 p.201 32 A final note on the melody: Bars 33-34 originally contained combined leaps of a ninth, contrary to usual practice. ("Consecutive leaps in the same direction should not exceed an octave", as Ted Pease states the principle.) 50 However, although the melody felt like it needed more excitement than an exact repetition of the corresponding phrase in the "A" sections (bars 15-16) would have provided, and although we can think of the Bb as an embellishment to the Ab, which is the ultimate destination of the phrase, I rethought the matter and recast the melody in stepwise motion with a smaller leap at the end. On reflection, the combined leaps in the original draft sounded just too jagged.
SMASH THE GLASS GIRL
"Smash the Glass Girl" was written to explore the disturbing emotion of Attachment. I originally envisioned this song as a straightforward pop song, but realizing that the lyrical theme fit within the concept of this thesis altered some of the harmonies so that it would fit within a jazz-pop context. For example, bars 57-60 and 65-68 of the song's bridge, where a pretty step-motion phrase is interrupted by a tangy tritone leap downwards, are intended to lend dissonant weight to the words "whine" and "line". This effect is also enhanced by the use of dynamics - the dissonant note is the loudest in the phrase. Another example of the original harmony being altered to make the song "jazzier" occurs in the middle point of the chorus, where an Ab diminished chord precedes the G7 which in a straightforward "pop"
50 Pease,Ted. Jazz Composition Theory and Practice. Boston: Berklee Press, 2003. p 12 33 song would ordinarily have been the only chord leading to the tonic - see bars 23-24. (The descending movement in the latter example also provides some contrary motion relative to the ascent in the melody.)
Before piecing together the final lyric, I found that the form felt a bit too long. Therefore I divided the verse into two sections. I tried using both sections in the first verse, with the first eight bars appearing as the entirety of the second verse and the latter eight making up the third verse. Good as this looked on paper, though, the third verse just did not seem to work without the first eight bars. Therefore the final form of the verses is:
Verse 1: all sixteen bars Verse 2: first eight bars only Verse 3: all sixteen bars.
The net savings ended up being only eight bars rather than sixteen, but the small cut definitely seemed to improve the flow of the song.
I used an Irving Berlin lyric as a partial template: while writing this song. Watching the old
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie "Follow the Fleet" one day I was entranced by the song "I'm putting all my eggs in one basket", especially the cascading effect achieved by the way the rhymes occur at shorter and shorter intervals:
I've got a large amount In my love account But I've decided Love divided by two Won't do 51
51 Astaire, Fred. (1989) Starring Fred Astaire (CD) USA: Columbia 44233 34 This became, in my lyric:
Settled in with resolve But it doesn't take long to dissolve It just crumbles, trips and stumbles And falls When he calls
- though the durations of the corresponding music differ somewhat from those in the Berlin song. The phrase in bar 14 is an approximate rhythmic diminution of the phrase in bar 13, which is intended to produce an accelerating, "stumbling" effect. This effect is additionally heightened by having the first syllables of "crumbles" and " stumbles" as well as "falls" all land on upbeats. (NB - Berlin did this too on occasion in songs such as "Alexander's
Ragtime Band". Philip Furia calls this technique "ragging the rhyme".)52
The chorus for "Smash the Glass Girl", came quickly; the verses took rather longer. A technique I like to use in cases like this, where I begin to feel stalled, is to mix and match unfinished fragments and sections of other incomplete songs. My original attempt at a verse melody (a "pivot-point" exercise with the first phrase ascending from a given note, with the second phrase descending from the same note) didn't seem strong enough to be used as a recurring section. It was therefore excised and later found use as the bridge of another song outside this compendium, "It Might Even Be Fun". (In that context - used as an eight bar section which occurs only once - it seemed sufficiently interesting.)
52 Furia, Philip. Poets Of Tin Pan Alley. A History Of America's great Lyricists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 pp 49-57 Looking for the music that did end up being the verse for "Smash The Glass Girl", I took part of an instrumental composition written for Bill Wescott's Seminar In Composition
II, Fall 2006 - Winter 2007, and smoothed it out harmonically to fit into this jazz-pop context. One harmony which remains from the solo piano piece is the Eb9/G chord which occurs in bars 7 and 8, where it creates an unsettling premonition that the woman's night is not likely to go as planned.
A final note on the music: at least since the 1930s it has been considered "corny" to telegraph the arrival of the chorus with a dramatic pickup. In "Smash The Glass Girl" I do it with the intent of furthering the comic effect. Since the verses are somewhat rubato and the chorus goes into strict time, the pickup is all the more glaring.
Writing the lyric was an opportunity for me to consider the importance of using different rhyming sounds. Bob Snider speaks of the importance of using different sounds between verses: "I tend, if possible, to distinguish adjoining verses by choosing rhyming sounds as distinct from each other as possible. If one verse has an "ee" sound I will try for an "o" sound, say, for the next, rather than an "i" sound"53
Differentiating between vowel sounds can also be an issue within a section of a song.
The first draft of my lyric for the bridge of "Smash the Glass Girl" was:
53 Snider, Bob. On Songwriting. Kentville Nova Scotia: Gasperau press, 2005. pl7 36 How many times Can you listen to him whine About the wife he's going to leave, soon but not yet How many times Will you fall for that old line While he's with her you settle for what you can get
Lest the "whine" / "line" rhyme became obscured by the assonance of "times", I amended it to:
Come on, how long Can you listen to him whine About the wife he's going to leave, soon but not yet Come on, how long Will you fall for that old line While he's with her you settle for what you can get
The rhymes in this song are all "proper" in that the sounds in the last syllables of the rhyming words correspond. However, in this song there are a couple of "imperfect" rhymes
- for example "be" and "conveniently" - where strictly speaking, the rhyme does not fall on the emphasized syllable. To my mind this is more acceptable in a polysyllabic word than in a two-syllable word, where it would be more glaringly obvious.
THE NOBLE CAT
While "Smash the Glass Girl" exclusively examines attachment "The Noble Cat" explore both attachment and its flipside, aversion. One verse celebrates cats, the other lambastes dogs and their owners. Writing this song afforded me the opportunity to use the same tensions in both verses and make the point that both emotions are flipsides of the same coin.
(Attachment contains suffering, just as Aversion does, because though we want our friends, 37 pleasures and possessions to stay with us, they are all temporary and we will suffer when we no longer have them. Aversion, obviously, causes suffering because it is an inherently unpleasant experience. From the Buddhist standpoint they both prevent us from developing equanimity.
".. .everything we experience in conditioned existence, including our friends, pleasures and possessions, always contain... suffering. They are just like the last meal prepared for somebody who is going to be executed. Therefore we should cut through attachment and joyfully strive for enlightenment." 54
Therefore both the "Slash" chords which I use to create tension in the first "A" section can be thought of as applying to the lyrics of both verses. The dissonance caused by the relationship of some of the chords to their Ab pedal tone (the Eb diminished and A chords, particularly) are applicable to the verse about dogs because the singer finds dogs unpleasant to be around, and also to the verse about cats because the cat is a free creature that resists attempts to control it. It won't be "led around on a leash'''' (Eb diminished over Ab) or made to do "tricks on demand" (A/Ab). (Though not present on the demonstration recording, I plan in future to include extra bars ( 5 & 10) which will delay the resolution that we expect in a 4-bar phrase paradigm.)
Writing this song gave me the opportunity to consider English as a tonal language. In
"How to Write Lyrics", after noting that while only certain languages such as Chinese are considered "tonal", Gene Lees opines: "I suggest that the Western languages, and certainly
54 No author credited, "Ngondro meditation booklet", 2002, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers. 38 English, are a good deal more tonal than is generally supposed... In really brilliant lyrics, you will often notice that the intervals of the music vaguely approximate the natural intervals of the words as they would sound if spoken."55 I went over my lyric drafts with this thought in mind, and have made one change so far. In "The Noble Cat", where the first two syllables of the words "just what it pleases" corresponded with an Eb dropping to a
C, it seemed to me that in speech "what" is sounded at a higher pitch than "just" or "it".
Therefore I changed the "C" to an "F", which seemed more appropriate. I plan to consider this type of "tonality" in more detail when working on future lyrics.
IMAGINARY FANCLUB
The song "Imaginary Fanclub" deals with the disturbing emotion of Pride. It was handed to me on a plate when I happened to look at the website of a friend and musical colleague.
Though his site is entirely self-created, various sections are credited to different writers, and as a whole it is billed as having been put together by a list of fictitious fans. It also contains some outrageous falsified press quotes, and right away it got me thinking about a song.
Many people nowadays seem to need to see themselves "mediated", most commonly on the internet, in order to feel validated. Witness the quest to have the most friends on sites like
Myspace and Facebook. The remotest association with a celebrity seems to aggrandize people's sense of self-importance.
55 Lees, Gene. The Modern Rhyming Dictionary: How to Write Lyrics. Port Chester: Cherry Books, 1981, p.26. 39 I wrote the lyric "in character", in the first person, to heighten its comedic aspects. When the character fantasizes about his involvement with his "famous peers" and offers the listener the opportunity: "You can be part of it too", what is he actually offering? While setting himself up as better than the common herd of humanity, he the same time reveals the flip side of pride, his feelings of insecurity. If the character had true self-worth, he would expect that people will accept him as he is, rather than on the basis of his tenuous involvement with show business and the media.
From the Buddhist perspective, in either case he is setting himself apart from the rest of the human experience: If he considers himself better than everybody else, he will always be in bad company; If he considers himself inferior, he will not believe that he has the capability to benefit others. 56
The song is basically in B minor, sounding like it moves to the relative major, D for the bridge. The chorus and bridge go back to B minor with a deceptive cadence (IV, V, vi) which is intended to sound slightly anti-climactic and undercut the character's self importance.
The melody for the first half of the verse ends on a C (bar 8), with the second half starting - as the first half did - on an F#. The dissonance of this tritone is intended to give the listener
56 Nydahl, Ole. Lecture on Buddhism by delivered at Ryerson University,"Toronto, Nov 5 2005 40 a sense that the character's fantasy is perhaps not so healthy.
Though, as stated earlier, I will try to use only true rhymes throughout the songs in this compendium, I don't make as much of a fetish of internal rhyme as some of Tin Pan
Alley's greats such as Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter or Irving Berlin. This is partly because my melodic phrases tend to be at least two bars in length, as opposed to the staccato one-bar- and-under phrases of some of the melodies those lyricists worked with. The other reason is that in a post country, blues and rock'n'roll world, it can sound too precious or out of context with the tone of a piece written in modern vernacular. The section of the song at bars 13-15 of this particular song seemed to lend itself to internal rhyme, though, both because of the short phrases and because of the flippant ridiculous tone of the lyric as a whole.
I was initially uncomfortable that the song's melodic high point (a B) occurs halfway through the stanza (bar 10) rather than in a more climactic point such as the chorus (where it occasionally occurs again in performance as part of an unscripted melisma) or bridge. The
"A" in the bridges is the true melodic high point, though. It is given more weight firstly because it opens the section, where it appears after the longest rest in the song, and because it is the sole note in the bridge's final four bars (13-16) where it occurs no less than twelve times, finally against a harmony which contains a highly dissonant note (Bb).
A note on the performance: it is common for a vocal melody to be reinforced in a piano accompaniment, less common when the accompaniment is a guitar. My "comping" style is 41 somewhat different from that of most guitarists in that - in solo performance at least -1 like to reinforce the vocal melody in almost every song. The reason I do this is to strengthen the vocal melody. My vocal range is right in the middle of where most of the chords fall, and I am not able to soar above the chords as a tenor could do. (As may be readily apparent to the listener, the Ink Spots are a major influence on my performance style, at least when I work as a solo act, although I don't have anything approaching their lead singer Bill
Kenny's range, power or projection.) The timbral differences alone between the voice and guitar should theoretically enable the voice to stand out from its musical backing, but I find that - perhaps due to some "crooning" aspect inherent in my delivery - it often gets buried.
Playing the melody an octave higher on the guitar makes the melody a lot clearer. Of course, in arrangements where a drummer and bass player are present, it is easy to make space for the voice simply by playing sparsely.
For "Imaginary Fanclub", in addition to doubling the vocal melody, I simultaneously keep a
"Bossa" type of rhythmic feel going with the bass motion and partial chords on the other strings.
YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS
With this song, I was faced with the challenge of addressing a common topic in a way that hadn't already been done to death. "Jealous Guy" and "My Best Friend's Girl" have staked 42 out their places in the public consciousness, and there seemed no need cover the same ground again unless I could come up with something at least slightly novel.
The solution that occurred to me was to impute motives of jealousy to the sanctimony and intolerance of some of society's moral guardians. It may actually be a valid dig; the idea to write the song came about after several cases where politicians and preachers were exposed as having indulged in the very vices they railed against. I thought of writing the song "in character", in the first person, but felt that "You're just jealous" was a more resonant phrase, more part of the received argot than "I'm so jealous" or whatever comparable first-person title would have replaced it had I gone that route. Having made that decision, the challenge then became writing a song that wouldn't sound like the earnest, strident "J'accuse!" type of folk music. Humour needed to be a component.
Historically I've written few songs in the second person, perhaps because in my youth I associated this type of writing with the po-faced, humourless polemics of groups that were active at that time such as the Clash (see "Tommy Gun" for an example).57 However as my performance becomes more geared toward solo acoustic work, I begin to see the value in this form of address, principally influenced by Bob Dylan, many of whose works are written in this way (Notably, "Like a Rolling Stone", "Positively 4th Street", and "Masters
57 Clash, The. (2003) The Essential Clash (CD). USA: Sony 89056 43 of War").58 At a folk club, after sitting through a night of first-person confessionals and third-person story-songs, hearing a few songs in the second person - even if they fall into the established accusatory mode - makes for a nice change. Therefore, this year I've purposely written several second-person songs in an attempt to get better at it.
In terms of the music, much of the melody is based on "motivic transformation", one of my favourite devices, in which the same rhythm recurs with different pitches. See the phrases which begin the song, in bars 1-2 and 3-4 for an example. We have already seen this technique used in "Mr Bad Dude", however this song contrasts with that song and the others we have examined so far in that its melody is smoother and less syncopated. Though the song still swings gently, both these example phrases begin and end on the downbeat of "1".
Alone among the first group of songs - the "troubling emotions" songs - this one has a rather slow tempo (MM=108). Though it's not slow enough to be truly sinister, the relative slowness is intended not to produce a calming "adagio", effect but rather to depict the deliberate and gradual encroachment of the theocrats into more and more areas of daily life.
I felt a fast tempo would have been inappropriate for the subject.
Most of the song was composed according to my usual method of hearing a tune in my head then working out the details and harmonic setting at an instrument. The first half of the
58 Dylan, Bob. (1998) Masterpieces (CD). Australia: Sony International 462448 44 bridge, though, began as an exercise in trying out a compositional method offered by A1
Henderson, when he was a guest speaker at the Jazz Composition course in the Winter 2007 term. A1 explained that he likes to begin with a rhythm and assign pitches to it afterwards.
I tried this method out a few times, and when I was stuck for a middle eight in this song, took one of the ideas and simplified it to what we see in the score, bars 21-28.
The net result may not sound that different from something I would have composed in my usual way, but perhaps I wouldn't have arrived at it at all had I not tried Al's method. The more complicated original rhythm could still be played by the drummer behind the vocal; or, with a budget sufficient to realize these compositions with a full combo, might suit a fanfare-type introduction for the song. Absent the demands of coming up with music for a thesis, I would like to explore this method in more detail in future, preferably as it was intended, as the basis for an instrumental composition.
SKIN + BONE + SILICONE
In Buddhist thought, ignorance is being "incapable of seeing things as they really are", especially when we see transitory things as permanent.59 In this song I explore the ultra- transitory world of image, maintaining a youthful appearance at all cost, couched for the second time in this collection in a celebrity filled setting (this time using a ((non-specific))
59 Lama Gendun Rinpoche "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 45 celebrity as the main character), for after all what could be more transitory than fame?
This song is very much of its time, making reference to recent tabloid fodder. It may therefore turn out to be somewhat disposable and evanescent. But although one cannot be writing for posterity - it is not up to the composer which of her or his works, if any, will endure -1 avoid naming specific celebrities. As soon as one does that, one enhances the risk of putting an expiry date on the piece. In an earlier era Cole Porter, particularly, was fond of naming actual people in his songs with no detrimental effect on their longevity.
However one notes that the earlier refrains of a song like "You're the Top", for example, contain only the names of people who had already established their iconic status such as
Mahatma Gandhi and Garbo - not to mention deceased persons whose renown had already endured for multiple generations, such as Strauss and Shakespeare - while figures whose fame turned out to be less enduring such as Bishop Manning and Irene Bordoni are consigned to later choruses. Nowadays showbusiness careers don't seem to last as long and the risk with naming a Lindsay Lohan in a song is that she might drop from the radar mere months from now, while a Hilary Duff might figure at the centre of the next scandal.60
A lot of this song's subject matter may be thought of as pertaining to Attachment rather than
Ignorance, but if we look at some more of Lama Gendun Rinpoche's thoughts on the subject we can see how Ignorance is the underlying emotion under discussion:
60 Porter, Cole: "You're the Top" in Chuck Sher, editor: The Standards Real Book. Petaluma: Sher Music Co, 2000 pp559-560. 46 "There is also a certain element of attachment. Ignorance can even feel quite comfortable ("Ignorance isbliss...") If we look at ourselves closely we will find this attitude in a lot of our behaviour. From the Buddhist point of view ignorance is anything but bliss and innocence. Indeed, it is the main cause of our suffering, which is why we find it firmly included in the five poisons."61
Musically this song appears on the surface to be perhaps the simplest composition in the collection so far. The most notable "jazzy" element is the bridge, which in addition to using some substitute chords (AbMaj7 in place of the iv chord and DbMaj7 for the V chord - see bars 26-28), changes meter to 3/4 time, in contrast to the rest of the piece. The end of the bridge could have been difficult to sing due to the notes involved (C, Bb and B natural in succession), so during bars 31-33 I reduced the melody to one note per bar:
Housemaid finds you (C) Passed out on the (Bb) Floor (B natural)
Other features to note in the rest of this relatively straightforward song are: • the extra bar which occurs just before the chorus, delaying its arrival and adding tension (bar 17); • the melisma which occurs over this bar, a device which stands out due to its middle- Eastern sounding Ab and Bb, which constitute flat and sharp ninths relative to the G chord; and • the fact that the IV chord changes from minor to major when the chorus comes in, a change emphasized by using "A", the major third of the chord as the first melody note of the chorus (bar 18).
Contrarily, some phrases which end on the tonic C chord are followed by phrases which begin on the same chord. This is intended to add to the relentless impetus, driving home that the lifestyle chosen by the song's main character is a runaway dumptruck headed for
Lama Gendun Rinpoche "Seeing Into the True Nature of Emotions." Buddhism Today Vol 2, 1996, (San Francisco, Diamond Way Buddhist Centers) 47 certain disaster (bars 4-5; 12-13).
While repeated notes can be used to create a soothing "drone" effect (see "Last Day of
Summer" at the end of this collection for an example of this use in my work), here repeated notes - "G" and "C" - are used to create a restless, obsessive quality. Tension is also built due to the fact that much of the time these notes are the fifths of the respective chords over which they appear.
SUPERLUCKY
It is central tenet of Buddhism that meditation is the way for beings to liberate their minds from troubling emotions, first by calming the mind, then by enabling one to dwell in a joyous state, liberated from care. Rather than jumping from the five troubling emotions directly into their corresponding wisdoms, at this point I have programmed two pieces which are attempts to evoke the power of meditation to transform consciousness from conditioned existence to liberation and enlightenment. These two pieces, "Superlucky " and
"Melsa" the only instrumental works in this compendium. The reasons for this are twofold:
For one thing, not being a fully enlightened being, how would I know what words to use to express the experience of being enlightened? For another, in the absence of lyrics the melodies are more open to interpretation, which contrasts with the other pieces, particularly since my words tend to be very concrete in their meaning. 48 The first instrumental, "Superlucky" is a sprightly piece in 3/4 which is intended to evoke joy, specifically the joy which one imagines would attend the experience of reaching liberation from troubling emotions and from there, enlightenment.
I composed this piece using the technique of thinking up the complete melody almost completely without reference to harmony, and then filling in the harmony after the fact.
While a large part of the melody suggested some fairly obvious chords, other sections could have gone several ways. For example the section from bars 13-15 has been spiced up with some unusual bass motion and a slash chord, and I hope that in the final result it is tangy without detracting from the happy feeling of the piece.
Additionally, while composing the bridge I experimented with some reharmonization.
Originally, the chords for bars 21-24 were: Eb-7, Ab7, DbMaj7, Cmi7-5, F7b9, Bb. I felt this was both trite and too convoluted for the simplicity the song seemed to require.
Next, I tried Ab-7, Gb and F7. This was more direct, but still seemed dull (At this point I also changed the last melody note from Ab to F).
Finally, I settled on some "slash" chord harmony: Eb-7/Ab, Gb7/Ab, F7/Ab and F7 (see bars 21-24 as they appear in the chart). This harmonization seems to combine the directness of the preceding attempt with a fuller, harmonically interesting sound. 49 At the end of the piece, rather than programming a II-V-I, I substituted a III7 for the V (bar
30). This is based on the be-bop concept, espoused by Barry Harris, that all four of the
Dominant 7 chords arising from a diminished scale are equivalent. The other three
Dominant 7 chords arising from the diminished scale that produced F7, are of course B7
(the tritone substitute), Ab7, and D7. I chose the latter because it is probably the least commonly used substitute.
MELSA
The second instrumental, "Melsa" is a wordless composition intended to evoke the feeling of peace and calm that can arise through the practise of meditation. This is partly achieved through the slow tempo (MM 70) and partly through the frequent use of long notes (half notes and longer in duration).
The harmony is intended to be somewhat "otherworldly", for example the unusual Cmaj7/9 over Ab chord in bar 9, and chromatic chordal descent in bar 24. The tensions produced by these unusual sounds are resolved quickly though, so that the listener will be glad of the resolutions which soon follow, and listening to the piece will be a relaxing experience.
In order to create enough tension to make the music interesting but not so much as to detract from the overall sense of peace the tune is intended to create, some small, subtle changes occur as it unfolds. This is accomplished in various ways. On one hand, the 50 melodic high point "D" is harmonized differently both times it occurs. The first time it occurs as the top note in the unusual C/Ab chord in bar 9; the second time it sounds much more soothing as the top note of a G chord in bar 29.
On the other hand, creating varying degrees of tension is also accomplished by changing the melody note in different places where the same chord occurs. For example, the first time we hear the "V" chord in bar 14, there is an F natural in the melody. This is intended to prevent the cadence to the "I" chord from sounding too restful, as we have yet to hear the next section of the song which contains the climax. The next time we hear the "V" chord though, in bar 30, the melody contains an F#, which helps to bring the song to a calming close.
Also between the dramatic section in bars 17-20 with its ascending bass motion and the climax in bar 24, the tension is balanced with the descending motion under the G minor chord (the so-called CESH - contrapuntal elaboration of static harmony). This is intended to give the chord an airy, "floating" feeling; a momentary ebb before the climactic flow of energy.
I usually play in two quartets, one featuring drums and stringed instruments, one led by a saxophonist, in both of which the leaders prefer to stick with the standard repertoire.
Hence, perhaps unusually for a composer of jazz tunes, I am relatively inexperienced in writing for horns. A previous draft of this piece, written for Michael Coghlan's Jazz 51 Composition course at York during the Winter 2007 term, suffered from having the melody divided between two horns. It sounded empty rather than pleasantly sparse, and some intervals that sounded good on piano sounded ugly when played by horns. For the next draft, I gave all the melody to the trumpet and had the tenor sax harmonize as seemed appropriate. I was guided to this intermediate draft in part by the advice of Horace Silver:
"A good rule to follow in deciphering which harmonies sound the fullest is to use only the bass line on the piano (that is, the roots of the chords) when trying out harmonies for a small group of horns. The harmonies that sound the fullest with the bass line alone (in the absence of the full chord you are harmonizing) will surely sound fuller when the pianist adds the full chord. In writing your small combo arrangement, you should say to yourself, "If the piano player doesn't show up for the gig, would this arrangement still sound reasonably full?"62
For this thesis I decided to perform it as a solo guitar number, as it seemed more in keeping with the meditative feeling I am trying to convey. However I arranged it so that the essential harmonies from the previous draft are kept intact - note the parallel triads (which, when arranged for two horns were parallel roots and thirds) which occur in bars 4-5 and at the previously-noted descent at the climax of the piece, bar 24.
This song was intended to have preceded "Superlucky", but I repositioned it as otherwise three songs in a row ("Superlucky", "Darling Let's Never Quarrel Again" and "Indoor
Jungle") would have been at almost identical tempos.
Silver, Horace. The Art of Small Combo Jazz Playing, Composing and Arranging. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995. p.22 52 DARLING LET'S NEVER QUARREL AGAIN
This song explores the Wisdom of Love and Compassion, which according to Buddhist philosophy can be reached by working with the troubling emotion of Anger. I wanted there to be a lot of space in this song, to reflect an atmosphere of calm and peace. Therefore there are fewer, longer notes than in some of the songs dealing with the troubling emotions. In order to make the tune easy to follow, the melody also uses a couple of sequences. The first is quite simple: three repetitions of the ascending scalar motif in bars 9-14, followed by a concluding phrase which is an embellishment of this phrase, ending with similar rhythm and slightly different intervals (most significantly, the third note is the lowest rather than the highest in the phrase) in bar 15. It may be noted that the lyric is a loose match for the melodic sequence: in the first "A", "Let's" is the first word of each segment; while in the second "A", "be" is contained in two successive segments.
The second sequence occurs in the bridge, and through slightly more complicated melodically, containing both a leap and some chromatic motion (three or more semitones in a row), is constructed similarly. In the bridge two repetitions of the sequence are found at the beginning of the section (bars 17-21), with a couple of connecting notes between. A variation occurs at the end of the bridge where only the two final chromatically ascending notes appear, both quarter notes this time (bar 24). I intended this to tie the A and B sections of the song together rhythmically, while offering some contrasting melodic information: the second sequence contains the flat third on a downbeat, moving up to the expected major 53 third. In this way I try to evoke the tension of the quarrel which preceded the singer's realization that the lovers shouldn't do it again.
The "C" section begins with four soaring bars which I intended to offer as a vision of how wonderful the proposed quarrel-free lifestyle could be (bars 25-28), brought to a sense of closure in the next four bars through the use of the same melody that ends the "A" sections, and in the last "C", using the title of the song - which has previously only appeared as the first line - again as the lyric of the last line (bars 29-32).
Originally the melody fell to the third of the chord at the last note in the fourth bar of each
"A" section. I wanted to change this in order to reduce the range of the song (then an octave and a tritone), and in keeping with Richard Rodgers' preference for avoiding chord tones at the ends of phrases, rose to the ninth of the chord instead. I believe the melody now has more forward motion as it sounds more unresolved at that point.
INDOOR JUNGLE
"Indoor Jungle" explores the wisdom of Giving, which corresponds to the troubling emotion of Attachment. I began this song in 2004, but it went nowhere for several years. It was stalled by over over-complex attempts to delay the rhyme, which resulted in awkward lyrical constructions such as:
Sweet scent of each flower, green of fern 54 For all it gives my jungle don't Ask much in return and the concomitant difficulty in finding parallels for the other sections. When I realized that the piece would fit in with the group of songs that were to comprise the music for my thesis, thinking of it in terms of the overall concept enabled me to finish it quickly. This particular section, for example, became:
Sweet scent of each flower, green of fern Jungle don't ask much in return My indoor jungle don't ask much in return.
The simplicity seemed more appropriate to the overall theme of the compendium, and the repetition of the word "jungle" creates, in some small way, a meditative, chanting effect.
Though the song is far from being country music, it reminded me that the straightforward approach taken by many country songwriters is generalizable to many kinds of music.
Waylon Jennings accounts for how he came to complete his "Good 01' Boys (Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard)": ".. .1 wrote the song, and sent it out, and they called me back and said, "We need something in there about bein' modern-day Robin Hoods and fightin' the system." I just changed a rhyme line, and said, "fightin' the system like two modern-day
Robin Hoods," so they were happy."63 His story seems to speak to the simple approach that needed to be taken with "Indoor Jungle".
It may seem odd to use a plant as an example of generosity, since plants are not usually
63 Roland, Tom ed. The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits, New York: Billboard Books, 1991. p.270 55 thought to have concepts or volition or being consciously capable of generosity. I extrapolate my song from the stark reality that although plants could get along fine without human beings, the reverse is certainly not true: plants are "kind" in the sense that they keep us alive!
For the bridge I thought it appropriate to use the same simple rhythm four times in succession. This is intended to support the lyric in building a meditative, reflective effect.
Also it provides contrast to the A section, which is more rhythmically diverse. The first eight bars of the A section are made up of four two-bar phrases with rhythms that we may designate as A, B, C, B (bars 1-8). The next twelve bars are made up of six two-bar phrases, the first three of which correspond to the preceding segment, the last three of which introduce new rhythmic information. We may designate these rhythms as: A, B, C, D, E, F.
Not only does the latter section contain new material introduced, but it is four bars longer.
This seemed all the more reason to keep the corresponding lyric simple.
A performance note: in "Indoor Jungle" some of my early training will be apparent in the accompaniment, as heard in the classically-influenced folk-style arpeggios. The guitar also has a slight lute or dulcimer sound due to the use of a capo, enabling lots of Gs and Ds to ring, as they would not be open strings otherwise. 56 HOW VERY KIND
In "How Very Kind" I seek to create a meditative effect similar to that sought in "Indoor
Jungle" by letting many of the guitar notes ring as each successive note is sounded (bars 11-
16 of the "B" section and the entire "C" section, bars 17-24). My aim in so doing was to create an ethereal, otherworldly feeling, perhaps akin to that of being in the presence of a
Buddha.
Part of the latter section came out of hearing something I liked in a recorded improvisation
(on "Stella By Starlight", to be specific) and integrating it into the composition (bars 21-23).
By doing this I was bearing in mind the advice given by at least two York instructors, A1
Henderson (in MUSI 3059 Jazz Theory III Fall 2002 - Winter 2003) and Michael Coghlan
(in Seminar in Jazz Composition Winter 2007), who counsel students to record their improvisations for later analysis.
Originally this song was intended to be a vocal number, but as the listener will notice, only the last eight bars contain singing. The song was sparked by a call from an old school friend of my sister's, who wanted to get in touch and thank my sister for being nice to her many years earlier, when many of the other kids had been unpleasant. It seemed very kind of her to remember and take the time to call so many years later. I plotted a lyric out in point form and began performing the song as an instrumental in the meantime. After some time had elapsed, it began to seem as if the song should remain an instrumental. However I 57 noticed that the audience wouldn't always remain entranced throughout, and would often be talking by the end of the song. Therefore I conceived of the idea of singing the last eight bars as an unexpected surprise which would regain the casual listener's attention. So far, it has seemed to work. When performed entirely as an instrumental, the end of the piece would sometimes be met by silence or sporadic applause; with the vocal tag at the end, those members of the audience who tuned out during the instrumental passage seem to be re-engaged, judging by the increased amount of applause the song has latterly received.
"Song for Guy" by Elton John and "True Companion" by Donald Fagen are among the very few other examples of compositions arranged in this way that I can recall, though the latter has a more extensive lyric once the singing finally begins.64 65
SLEEPING BUDDHAS
The Wisdom of Seeing the Best in Others is represented by "Sleeping Buddhas."
This is the only song which contains overt references to Buddhist philosophy, beginning with the title (a "Sleeping Buddha" is anyone who isn't enlightened yet). The first draft of the lyric was loaded with cliched Buddhist sayings such as: "Let the thief come to an empty
64 John, Elton. (1978) A Single Man (LP). USA: MCA 3065 65 Steely Dan. (1991) Gold (CD). USA: MCA MCAD-10387 58 house" but these were quickly excised. I didn't want to "narrowcast" the song to a specialized audience, and felt that using common parlance would be more effective in getting the song's message across.
This song contains some of the "jazziest" music of the second group of pieces. For example, instead of using a straightforward ii-V under the Bb, C melody at the end of the first A, the harmony consists of a couple of "outside chords": Ab9 and Gb-5 (the latter chord being a tritone substitute, at least in terms of its root, to the V chord - see bars 11-12).
This harmonization came out of a harmonization technique which Lome Lofsky taught in a guitar lesson (MUSI 3054 Guitar Lessons Fall 2003 - Winter 2004). While it is accepted in jazz that it is not necessary to stick to the written harmony while improvising, Mr Lofsky's specific advice was to try every kind of chord having the same root note as the one specified by the composer, and seeing what sounds best. In this case, where a Gb7 was originally specified, a GbMaj7-5 ended up sounding more sophisticated.
The form ends with a chromatic descent in the accompaniment which creates a "swirling" effect through its use of one-and-a-half beat figures against the predominant 4/4 rhythm
(bars 35-36).
The lyrics for the bridges rhyme according to the following scheme: A, B, C, C, B. Thus the "A" line in the first bridge does not initially appear to have a rhyme, since it doesn't come until 32 bars later, at the same point in the second bridge. The casual listener may not 59 even be aware of it, but my hope is that is will at least resonate on an unconscious level.
The lyric for the second bridge was written first, and contains for its "C, C" rhyme a pattern
(syllables 3 and 4 rhyme with syllables 8 and 9) that I was not able to replicate when completing the lyric for the first bridge. I tried many options, but wasn't able to find one that wasn't too convoluted to convey the intended meaning. Instead, I tried replacing the last line in the second bridge with something that corresponded with the pattern in the first verse (Syllable 5 rhymes with syllable 7). "Illuminate joy, destroy any doubt" was the best
I could come up with, and though it scanned correctly, the language itself seemed not to match with the rest of the lyric. (Perhaps it would fit better in a song relating to Hinduism, if Shiva, the destroyer of harmful habits and actions, was referenced.). Therefore I decided to go with the bridges as they appear below. They are not exact matches and would probably incur the disapprobation of a Lorenz Hart or Noel Coward, but not contorting the lyric to fit an identical rhyme scheme seemed the better way to say what I wanted without sounding too precious and while maintaining a relatively conversational tone.
First Bridge: Sleeping Buddhas, make up a community (Rhyme A) The noisy neighbour who bugs you no end (B) Believe it or not (C), has got (C) a best friend (B)
Second Bridge: Sleeping Buddhas, what an opportunity (Rhyme A) For compassion to come bursting out (B) Illuminate (C) joy, eliminate (C) doubt (B)
This may be thought to indicate a deficiency of craft on my part, or an unwillingness to subsume my attachment to a favourite line to craft. However, I can find some justification in the words of Lehman Engel: 60
"Music and lyrics do not actually exist except as listening experiences. If it is necessary to examine them visually in order to comprehend them, then in my opinion they have failed. They must have been structured for listening and what they have to say must be clearly accessible as an auditory experience."66
DEAR CAROLINE
The concept of Good Wishes or Good Works is represented by "Dear Caroline."
I was initially somewhat uncomfortable presenting this song for academic grading as its primary purpose is as a tribute to a wonderful woman who died at a tragically young age. I hope that the real-life Caroline would not have minded her tribute song being a part of this compendium. Though not a Buddhist she embodied the value of Good Wishes and Good
Works, being well-known for her charitable activities.
This song was mostly composed on the piano, rather than by my usual method of strolling and humming tunes until something strikes me as interesting. Also a large portion of the melody was written before the lyric was added. Therefore it contains some melodic elements which though well within the scope of an instrumental composition might not otherwise have come into play in a vocal one. The first example is the chromatic passage which introduces the song and the succeeding "A" section bars 1-2, 17-18. When I realized that the song was going to be a vocal number, I tried replacing this phrase with the phrase in
66 Engel, Lehman. Their Words are Music. New York: Crown, 1973, p.152. 61 bars 5 & 6, transposed down a fourth. However, even though this provided more unity, I felt the original idea was stronger. The tritone leap found in bars 6 and 7 is also something that may not have been written had I initially conceived the song as a vocal piece from the start, but I feel that it suits the pensive mood of the song.
Composing this piece, the importance of singing the lyrics during every stage of the process was again brought home to me. Writing to the original melody for the bridge, I came up with lyrics that were perhaps stronger than what appears in the final draft. For the first bridge: "Your joie de vivre was party sized, your smile outshone the sun" (versus "You loved to throw a party, your smile outshone the sun"). Second bridge: "Your passion for a good cause showed the way for everyone / And that life's too short to waste time when there's so much to be done" (versus "Your passion for a good cause inspired everyone")
If the song were an instrumental, I would rather have emphasized the sharp eleven by hitting it one more time, but the melody did not allow me enough space to breathe and so a few notes - and syllables - had to be dropped. In both cases the latter lyric is a bit more prosaic. This is especially the case in the second bridge, where I had to drop the elegant notion of having one verb ("Showed") with two objects ("the way" and "that life's too short"). However that's what it took to make the song singable. The words of Horace
Silver, this time from his autobiography, again seem to be applicable:
"It's not how many notes you play but the value of the notes that counts. If you can play a lot of notes and make a valid statement, fine. But just a display of technique 62 doesn't mean you're saying something. There should be some space in the music. Music has to breathe, just like we do"67
On that note, I didn't want the song to be maudlin, because Caroline was a very cheerful and positive person. Therefore the lyrics went through several drafts, each one having more references to sadness excised until the song was reduced to its essence: a celebration of
Caroline's many good qualities. The tone of the music, too, is intended to be more wistful than morose. Hence the fact that it is written in a major key, and the nostalgic feeling, which is perhaps akin to that of a "parlour-song" of the first two decades of the twentieth century.
LAST DAY OF SUMMER
The Wisdom of Recognizing Reality is represented by "Last Day of Summer." Of all the songs, this is the least rigid in terms of having lyrics that scan. However this was due to conscious decision, rather than an inattention to craft.
"Last Day of Summer" had to be finished off rather quickly in order to make the closing date for a radio song writing contest. Up to the moment of recording the contest demo, several lines were still at issue. "We feel that special kind of tired at the end of a perfect day", in the first verse, for example, concerned me as it contained two more syllables than
67 Silver, Horace and Phil Pastras. Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty: The Autobiography of Horace Silver. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, p. 145. 63 the corresponding line in the second verse, "But close your eyes and feel the heat, you'd think it was still June". An alternative suggested itself: "after a perfect day" which matched in terms of the syllable count but which would have entailed using a trochee ("After") rather than an iamb ("You'd think"), as was used in the previous verse. At this point I solicited the opinion of the singer as to which lyric she preferred. That singer, Courtney Quebec, is a far more gifted vocalist than I, and her sung demonstration of why "at the end of a perfect day" felt more natural to sing, regardless of the extra pickup syllables, convinced me that the deficiency in scanning was not of primary importance. What mattered more was providing the performer with the raw material which would enable her to deliver a compelling performance.
I tend to follow the principle of "one syllable, one note" espoused by Gene Lees, however there are a few more examples of melisma than usual in this song, at the end of each verse where the melody rises to the chorus for example. ("Mister Bad Dude" is another case - the words "crude" and "brood" that near the end of their respective choruses, in bars 32-33.) In both cases I think the melismatic passages are justified because 1) since they occur at climactic points in the song, a bit of melisma adds a bit of "soul" to the proceedings, at least insofar as I am capable of delivering it, and 2) where a final consonant is delayed (as it is in
"Wake") the perfect scheme has already been established in several antecedent examples, and the listener should be left in no doubt as to what word is intended. 64 As there have been no lengthy musical compositions in this compendium, neither are there any lyrical epics or extended allegories. Nature has previously appeared in "Indoor Jungle" and animals, particularly, in "The Noble Cat". "Last Day of Summer", though, more than any other song in this collection dips into the store of pastoral symbols common to poets from time immemorial. Though the song is not particularly dense in the amount of information it imparts - it is comparatively spacious in fact, relative to many of the other songs -1 wanted every shred of the lyrics that are included to be in keeping the feeling of the song, and it felt like this was the one for which to pull out the stops with regards to the standard poetic references: to the weather (specifically, the blue sky), to represent the mood; the soaring gulls as a reference to joy; and the other nature imagery such as ducks, water, trees and seasons.
On the other hand, I did not want the song to become a cliche. One device I used to avoid making it sound trite was to have the choruses contain only internal rhymes:
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta
Kite shares sky with butterfly
Last day of summer
And:
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta
Bead of sweat, volleyball net
Last day of summer
I felt that using exact rhymes throughout might concretize the lyric too much and detract 65 from the dream-like feeling I was trying to achieve. What is a "satin delta"? It is open to interpretation. In place of rhyme there is the "Sandcastle Dragon, Satin Delta" alliteration which gives some unity to the chorus, in addition to heightening the impact of the upbeats on which the syllables starting with "D" land.
The music for "Last Day of Summer" began as an instrumental piece written on a guitar tuned to an open D chord. Hence the droning, soothing effect. If this song was subjected to Shenkerian analysis, it would likely reduce to "I" throughout. This is intentional - the piece is as a whole intended to bring the collection of songs to a feeling of rest and finality.
However, looking at the harmonic motion for the individual sections we can see that the activity level accelerates as we move from the "A" section to the "B" to the "C", before slowing down again:
• In the A section, chords change every 2 or 4 bars (the latter duration producing the "drone" effect). • In the B section the chords change every 1 or 2 bars. This is intended to contrast with the A section and prevent the song from becoming too monotonous. • In the C section the chords change as often as twice per bar, with the other changes in the first four bars coming once per bar. This accelerated harmonic motion combines with the lyrics describing the transitory nature of life as we experience it. The last four bars consist of two chord changes of two bars each, producing a slowing effect leading back to the rest of the song, which consists of repetitions of sections we have already heard.
The end of the song consists of the same perfect V-I cadence over and over again, arranged as a "fade-out", intended to further the calming effect the song as a whole strives for (bars
35-36). The bridge is the only "jazzy" section - these eight bars are probably just enough for the song to qualify as "jazz-pop" (bars 25-32).
A performance note: the guitar accompaniment is on the one hand sparse and simple, in keeping with the "spaciousness" of the lyric; it is also somewhat percussive due to the strings being partially muted. I was inspired to play the song this way by hearing a couple of young people playing their guitars this way on their front porch one night last summer. It seemed to create an "outdoors" feeling, appropriate for a campfire or some other summer activity.
CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSIONS
Having written all the songs, I examined them to see if there what trends differentiated the music written to explore the disturbing emotions from that written to explore the five corresponding wisdoms.
None of the songs are particularly dissonant, and the use of dissonance is not much more prevalent in the songs exploring the emotions than the songs exploring the wisdoms. (For example while "You're Just Jealous", written to explore the mind-poison of jealousy contains an ugly VIIb9 chord at the end of the first "A" bar 16, "Indoor Jungle" written to explore the Wisdom of generosity, features a couple of beats of harsh-sounding alternating 67 eighth notes a semitone apart, each continuing to ring as the other is sounded (as heard in the accompaniment at bar 48).
While the melodies are relatively uncomplicated throughout, the melodies of the songs representing the five wisdoms are perhaps slightly more straightforward. Even so, the melody for the bridge of "Darling Let's Never Quarrel Again", which explores the wisdom of Love and Compassion contains some elements that are a bit jagged for such a simple song (for example the Eb, F, Eb, Gb, G natural phrase in bars 23-24), while the bridge of
"Sleeping Buddhas", contains a three-beat figure which gives a slight "rushing" effect (bars
27-28.) I account for this with the thought that even when focusing on the wisdoms, the recognition remains that they are to be reached only be working with the mind poisons, so a certain amount of tension will permeate even some of the "calmest" songs. This is explicit in the previously-mentioned swirling chromatic passage which appears at the end of
"Sleeping Buddhas".
Neither did meter end up being principal among the differentiating factors. Two of the
"wisdom" pieces ("Darling Let's Never Quarrel Again" and "Dear Caroline") are in 3/4, which is often thought to have a more soothing effect than 4/4. Perhaps this perception is due to its association with childhood lullabies. However, one of the "troubling emotion" pieces ("You're Just Jealous") is also in 3/4. I had intended to write at least one piece in an odd meter, but as previously discussed "Mr Bad Dude" ended up being principally in 4/4 rather than in 7 throughout. So, though the 7/4 section does add tension to this piece, meter 68 did not turn out to be a significant factor overall.
The common means by which tension (for the pieces exploring the five troubling emotions) or calm (for the pieces exploring the five wisdoms) was created was, surprisingly to me, tempo. Looking at the "wisdom" pieces as a group, they are generally slower and inherently less frenetic. While "Last Day of Summer" and "How Very Kind", particularly, contain less harmonic motion than their "troubling emotion counterparts", the soothing effect is enhanced because, due to the slower tempos in this group of pieces, the harmony moves at an even more measured pace.
The main things I have learned from putting this compendium of songs together are:
• The importance of singing the melody every step of the way, rather than coming up with something that looks good on paper, then finding flaws late in the game by singing it only when it seems "complete". • The importance of having a plan: it enables one to write to a deadline and still come up with something coherent. • The importance of writing everything down. Seeing what one has composed so far on paper shows in cold black and white exactly how much one has accomplished, and forces one to confront and deal with grey areas. Of particular benefit to me during this project was having lyrics and melodies on the same leadsheet documents. (Previously, I was used to separate leadsheets and lyric sheets). It forces one to confront the vocal pick-ups, variations in scanning & emphasis, and makes one think hard about whether they are acceptable or call for further revision. • The fact that as different compositional methods are explored, it takes time to absorb each one. I feel there is validity to trying different approaches, but just as one's first 20 or so songs will usually not be very good, one's first few attempts at writing with new methods may not always be successful. I think using these methods to create small sections within a song was a good way to get my feet wet, and I'd like to explore them further to create entire works in a less time-sensitive situation. 69 CHAPTER TEN: PLANS FOR FUTURE STUDY
I plan to continue my quest for easy-to-sing melodies. Fred Astaire, who introduced countless standards, is said to have "had barely more than an octave's range", yet he always sounded at ease: the songs he performed were usually tailor-made to suit his voice.68 Rather than stretching my voice beyond its limited capacity or relying on better singers to get my musical message across, I plan to consciously write melodies in a narrower range.
Having been advised that the best way to improve my singing was to study with a classical teacher, I have taken a number of lessons over the last few months. Writing the melodies for the tunes in this compendium, I asked her advice about what a reasonable range was.
Her answer: a twelfth. I tried to keep all my melodies within this ambit (a couple, such as
"Sleeping Buddhas" and "Dear Caroline" extend an extra semitone), but still found several of the songs difficult to sing. I attributed this difficulty to my vocal weakness.
Recently it occurred to me that perhaps classical and popular singing differs in regard to what constitutes a wide range though. In Alec Wilder's discussion of the Vincent Youmans song "Without a Song", he says: "It has the wide range of an octave and a fifth."69 Then, during his discussion of Jimmy McHugh's "Exactly Like You", he says:
68 Philip Furia. Poets Of Tin Pan Alley. A History Of America's great Lyricists. New York 1990 p. 64 69 Wilder, Alec.. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972 p.305. 70 "For a pop song it's very rangy, an octave and a fifth. This vocal demand is seldom found even in a theatre song.... Most publishers in those days would have flatly refused to sign a contract for a song of this wide a range"70 This resonated with me, because in fact those of my own compositions which contain a range of only an octave ("Skin + Bone + Silicone") or a ninth ("Imaginary Fanclub", "Indoor Jungle") seem considerably easier to sing. After reading Wilder's book I recast the melody of one song, "Darling Let's Never Quarrel
Again", to reduce the range from flat thirteenth to a minor ninth, and this considerably reduced the vocal demand. I also found the book invaluable in listing many songs which contain small ranges, and as a matter of further study I plan to analyze some of these and see how the composers were able to create interest within a narrow range; also to keep a list whenever a song is mentioned for its narrow range in other books (such as "Moon River" by composer Henry Mancini, analyzed in the Lees Biography of Johnny Mercer). 71
In addition to writing melodies that in themselves are less taxing, I also plan to cast my lyrics more in sounds that are easy to sing - to balance the quest to convey the intended meaning with more attention to sonority. Going forward, I plan to pay closer attention to the "singability" of the sounds, as well as the meaning, scanning, rhyme, breath points etc.
70 Wilder, Alec.. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972 p 407. 71 Lees, Gene. Portrait Of Johnny. The Life Of John Herndon Mercer. New York: Pantheon, 2004, p.273. 71 Gene Lees provides some valuable pointers in his book "The Modern Rhyming Dictionary:
How to Write Lyrics". "When you sing, it is the vowels that carry the tone, and basically, the pitch." 72 He proceeds to go through the different sounds exhaustively: "Whenever possible, you should use long open vowels on the long notes at the ends of musical phrases, which as a rule will mean at the rhyme points. The ideal sound in such a situation is oo as in true... The next best sound is o as in go... .A good sound to use at such points in songs is the broad a found in draw.''''73 (Lees does note, however, that the above pointers are less important when the song is comedic, fast-paced, or both.)
One thing I have given little thought to in the past is the ending consonants. Engel makes the point: "the knowledgeable lyricist avoids hard consonants at the ends of phrases and especially at the end of a song when it is usually desirable for the singer to sustain the final note... Prolonging the vowel in spite of the hard consonant postpones definition of the word's meaning. "Brief' sustained would emerge for some time as "bree" and could presage "breeze", "breed", "breathe", "breech" or many other words".74 This is also something I will need to take into consideration in my future compositions (and the ongoing process of revising existing ones).
I would like to become more aware of the levels of activity within my songs. The Wilder
72 Lees, Gene. The Modern Rhyming Dictionary: How to Write Lyrics. Port Chester: Cherry Lane Books, 1981. (p 18) 73 ibid., pp 19-20 74 Engel, Lehman. Their Words are Music. New York: Crown, 1973. 72 book analyzes the number of notes per song (some of which contain only 60 or so notes over the course of the entire melody); Lees' biography of Mercer includes many lyrics reprinted in full which gives a striking visual representation of the fact that many are very brief indeed. Since my songs are as much a part of the more wordy storytelling / blues /
Chuck Berry / Bob Dylan tradition as they are influenced by the "standards", I find it challenging to write smaller, more elliptical lyrics, and would like to devote more time to this approach in future.
I plan to continue taking singing lessons. The main thing I want to work on is projection,
being able to make my voice stand out from and rise above the musical backing. I think this
will be important in and of itself, and it will also free me from having to reinforce the
melody on the guitar. (The guitar accompaniment is a double-edged sword in that, while it
does make the melody ring out more clearly, it also increases the degree to which pitch
errors in the voice stand out.)
I want to continue finding more space not just a as musical principle, but especially due to
its importance in getting the meaning of the lyrics across, especially in comedic songs.
Peter Matz recounts that when first working with Noel Coward on the arrangements for the
"Noel Coward at Las Vegas" performance and recording: "A couple of times he screamed
'Don't play when I am making a joke!'" 75
75 www.noelcoward.net/archive/hcactz/matz.html (Retrieved Jan 22 2008) 73 The pursuit of perfection is an illusion, and there's no point getting hung up on trying to create a masterpiece every time. One listen to anything by Bach, Mozart or Beethoven will generally put one's own achievements into perspective in any case! However, there is a place for craft even in "popular" art (as opposed to fine art), and it is important to continually revise, gauge audience reactions and always be vigilant for further ways to improve a song. 74
Mr. Bad Dude
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11 \ i - >., 1—j-^ _ZJl 1 —a —J LJM= i Screaming"not-iceme", Mis - ter bad dude dude. He's a buMy boy - Mis - ter bad Fmi eWti i7 D7 Dl>Maj7 42
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J -1'1 r P IF^ When a pret-ty girl ' walks by he calls out some-thing crude
Cm i7 F7 B^mi? EW B13 D7tt11 35 iy l— > •< « mm m 1 _ZJ2 h—m [— ^ >J— | —a « 1 * v u 4 He 's a cla s—sy guy Mis - ter bad dude 76 Smash the Glass Girl
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That's your plan, your re - solve but. |t does-n't take long mto dis — solve Fin — 'lly his late night voice Hear. liti /1ManHd irAlyoul VAAfeelI If/Ml'liyou'vea got rtno choicW rt I rtrte Akliim Emi7 A7 Dmi7 G7 13
It just crum-bles, trips and stum - bles and falls when he calls You're just his Gets you in-side your friends all said "Watch out" there's no doubt C F C 17 Ji J J"] bn J Ji f « « > Mf l Smash the glass girl in case of em-er-gen-cy_ That Ami7 A^7+5 Gsus A^dim G7 21
late night call is all you'll e - ver be. There'll be no Fmi
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Smash the glass girl, in case of em-er-gen-cy.
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Say good - bye, - qui et night at home. You're just his
C F C 41 > > > i—r >1 J0 N\Rm d MPf l J0 -H -6 —J • —• Smash the glass girl, he likes know-ing that you're there His
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*! \ \ Jl J | n *—*— * -) 0 0 I * • J—£— • • —J —J • -1 J © * L^U back-up plan - the man will ne - ver care .... If. . you . ev - Fmi
C/E Adim 42 ijJ J jl J j^ijjn j p r * er said "no" He'd just go. And you don't dare.
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«n i j i 1 i Smash the glass girl, he likes know-ing that you're there.
C G7 A^diim 57 * * u ir r p r ^jJ * Come on, how long- Can you li - sten to him whine. Ab-out the
Emi7 E^ttH Dmi7 G7 61
——»—^ -j0 Soon but not yet wife he's gon-na leave.
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Come on, how long- Will you fall for that old line.
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Know-ing he's with her. you take what you can get. 79
The Noble Cat
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No-ble cat - won'tbe tre ted as a slave to com — mand. You can keep ev 'ry ti ny Peke and Pom and Shar-Pei—
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The cat does just what it plea ses, A pit-bull's less pet than wea pon,
Db Db-Maj7 C-7 F-7
and when e - ver it wants_ Day-time snoo-zes in the sun. may-'be it's - too in bred How could you live with your self.
B!>7 Et7 Ab Eb-7 A^7 17 ^J n ite
out for its mid-night jaunts The no ble cat steal thy and grace- fulandfree mauled child on your head No dan ger-ex cept - to a bird 80
D^ F-7
X M — —— s S- — *—E—m" ~ •— m m 0— (fofr \f J J M Y n—L Ltr—^ H— O state-ly cat All that a crea - tureshould be - "Be-ware of cat", A warn-ingthat's so rare-ly
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The cat is us - 'ally quite ha - ppy to heard Parks are ob - sta cle cour - ses,
Dl> Dl'-Maj7 C-7 F-7 29 itM n * P — r J)| d d d m m ~ If ? u p r p1p r p r res! in re - gal re-pose If a ro-dentf dares in — trude The What's1 the rea - sonfor that - ? Hounds the size of old King Kong I'll
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cat will be on its toes stick with the no — ble cat 81 Imaginary Fanclub
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No - ticed in the pap er I'd got a bad re - view Hav-ing one - pretend fan was fine, but why stop there - ?
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n = — —^= = !f==z K [*= = = d d d' d d' ' d1 d J d d d They'd com-plete - ly missed my point, burned me through and through, So I im - ag- ined one to cook one to cut my hair. I
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y- a * M a V-a * M— a 1 M— f3 T 'J J J —j —j L-J —0—a —« I dreamt up some bog - y who would res - pond on my be - half, ne - ver did like house - work oh yes my fans are all such dears.
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fan clut>_ A1 ways stick-ing up for me. My im-ag-in-ar-y They're as help-ful as can be. G A 7 Bmi7Bmi7-5 E7 Bmi7 Gttdim A 21
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Fan - club. all the oth er stars love me. set an - oth er place for tea. Bmi Ftt7/A# Ami7 E/G# 51
Gon-na take it world wide, "street team" in ev — 'ry town. Fmi
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m j]r J±jj] ij__J 7,1 J J^Ll Han-gers-on and group - ies, too They'll nev-er let - me down- As
Bmi F#7/A# F#7 Ami7 G#mi7 59 r~T j 73 ev 'ry loc - al bar band hopes to out Roll the Rol — ling Stones-
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Fan - club What a way to get things done. An im-ag-in-ar-y
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Fan - club- The whole world will want one You're Just Jealous
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Some live full tilt, Fee —ling no guilt You can't join in 'cause it's a sin
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Ma king_ The most of ev 'ry day That's what. The ho — ly men all say
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Bt F7 B\> BMa7 13 ii * Lj 1r u i r 'Cause they do and you don't.
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V I \ i i i LJ i r dJ* 'Cause you don't and they do. Fmi
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25 Eb/Ab Bb/Ab Eb/Ab Bb/Ab Db/B
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Hea - ther has two mom mies What's it to you? call the sta — tion screa-ming That it's ob scene Emi7 Ab7 Abmi7 Db7 29 J J. f f f It goes be - yond just be — ing a prude Not both ered by what kids watch in stead
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Min - ding oth-er peo — pie's Bus — 'ness is rude, If Thugs with sub-mac — chine guns (blow) off some one's head. You'd
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It's a mis - take It's theirs to make like wo men veiled, Ur — ges cur - tailed
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Why not_ just wish them all the best Plea — sure- locked un — der house ar — rest Fmi7 Et A 1*7 45
s=t LJ 1 LJ " r p How's their gain your loss? You're just jea - lous Jea - lous No won - der you're pissed
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h i i t =n ' > » LJ ' r P lt i r No but you are not their boss, While some live you just ex — ist. 87 Skin + Bone + Silicone
C C/E Fmi C
Tint-ed con-tact len - ses Im-pos-sib-ly whiteteeth Got the bot- ox smile The der-ma-bra-ded face
C/E Fmi G7
Hair's been dyed so of - ten who knows what shade's ben-eath?_ Pic-tured with out pan - ties all ov — er cy — ber-space.
Fmi Fmi 9 J, * u p r rrp r > Lr kr Xt -Ji Cig ar - ettes and co cain? e that's your carb in - take. Try-ing to look sex yv You just look un- well
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There is- n't all the much of you and most of what there is_ is fake_ Who wants to see your bon-y butt, your em-ac - i at_ ed shell.
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Skin and bone. and sil - i,— conel. Fmi
G^diim C/G G7 42 r P r pi^fLTiprr m You're just skin and bon and sil-i-cone_
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Mid- night wav-ing to the cam - 'ras at your door
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Day — break House — maid finds you
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R R CJ 1 R passed out on the floor
G7 36
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Al-ways in the tab - loids Your ant-ics make tongues wag.
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Des-ign-er dog so tin - y in your de-sign-er - bag.
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You al-ways look s6 hun - gry The smell is on your breath.
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If you don't take a lit-tlecare you're gormastarve - your-self_ to death.
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world's bet - ter off be-cause of you. 106 Last Day of Summer
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All beau - ti - ful each in their way 108
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Mister bad dude, he's real bad news He leaves his mark, usually a bruise Wears a stone face, he's a hard case Struttin' attitude Got to notice him, mister bad dude
Mister bad dude, he's everywhere Foul cigar smoke pollutes your air Daring you to call him on it Knows he's being rude He's a bully boy, mister bad dude
Young and healthy, hard to tell just what he's so angry for Glares and spits to challenge you, his cologne's an act of war
When a pretty girl walks by He calls out something crude He's a classy guy, mister bad dude
Turned on by the sight of blood some girls think he's really cool They line up to guarantee him a place in the gene pool
When he's not in jail he'll help To raise a slack-jawed brood Generations of mister bad dude 110 SMASH THE GLASS GIRL
Friday night, all tired out Getting ready for an early bed One more page, then lay down your head That's your plan, your resolve But it doesn't take long to dissolve It just crumbles, trips and stumbles and falls When he calls
'Cause you're his smash the glass girl in case of emergency That late night call is all you'll ever be There'll be no wedding band, you're on hand conveniently Smash the glass girl in case of emergency
Running around, picking up Looking for your lipstick and a comb Goodbye, solitary night at home
You're just his smash the glass girl, he likes knowing that you're there His backup plan, the man will never care If you were to say no, he'd just go and you don't dare Smash the glass girl, he likes knowing that you're there
Come on, how long can you listen to him whine About the wife he's gonna leave, soon but not yet Come on, how long will you fall for that old line While he's with her you settle for what you can get
Weeks go by, not a word Time without him drags so slowly on But just when you're set to move on Finally, his late night voice! Hear it and you feel you've got no choice It gets in your head, though your friends said "Watch out", there's no doubt
You're just his smash the glass girl in case of emergency That late night call is all you'll ever be There'll be no wedding band, you're on hand conveniently Smash the glass girl in case of emergency THE NOBLE CAT
The noble cat won't be treated as a slave to command Led around on a leash, doing tricks on demand The cat does just what it pleases at and whenever it wants -Daytime snoozes in the sun, out for its midnight jaunts
The noble cat, stealthy and graceful and free O stately cat, all that a creature should be
The cat is usually quite happy to rest in regal repose But if a rodent dares intrude, the cat will be on its toes
You can keep every tiny Peke and Pom and Shar Pei Yapping incessantly when the owner's away A pitbull's less pet than weapon, maybe it's too inbred How could you live with yourself, mauled child on your head?
The noble cat, no danger except to a bird "Beware of cat", a warning that's so rarely heard
Parks are obstacle courses, what's the reason for that? Hounds the size of ol' King Kong, I'll stick with the noble cat IMAGINARY FANCLUB
Noticed in the paper, I'd got a bad review They'd completely missed my point, burned me through and through So I dreamt up somebody who would respond on my behalf So protective, their invective sure gave me a good laugh
My imaginary fanclub, always sticking up for me Imaginary fanclub, as loyal as can be
Having one pretend fan was fine but why stop there? I imagined one to cook, one to cut my hair I never did like housework, oh yes my fans are all such dears They're my work team, while I daydream chill with my famous peers
My imaginary fanclub, taking care of things all day Imaginary fanclub, my time's free for play
You can be part of it too In fact I'd like it if you were When Anna Kournikova is wrapped up in the thick of a Tennis match I'll let you scratch my back instead of her My imaginary fanclub, the other stars love me
When I give an interview I always use the royal "we" I award myself a prize and accept with feigned surprise 'member to thank the crew, but really it's just me My imaginary fanclub, set extra plates for tea
Gonna take it worldwide, "street team" in every town Hangers-on and groupies, too - they'll never let me down As every local bar band hopes to out-Roll the Rolling Stones We who trend-set will always get our share of would-be clones
My imaginary fanclub, what a way to get things done Imaginary fanclub, the whole world will want one YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS
Some live full tilt, feeling no guilt Making the most of every day Trying things you won't You're just jealous, jealous 'Cause they do and you don't
You can't join in 'cause it's a sin That's what your holy men all say None of that for you And you're jealous, jealous 'Cause you don't and they do
Life's too short to worry 'bout what others do If Heather has two mommies what's it to you? It goes beyond just being a prude Minding other peoples' business is rude
If it's a mistake, it's theirs to make Why not just wish them all the best? How's their gain your loss? You're just jealous, jealous No but you are not their boss
Tiny glimpse of nipple on your TV screen You call the station screaming that it's obscene Not bothered by what kids watch instead Thugs with submachine guns blow off someone's head
You'd like women veiled, urges curtailed Pleasure locked under house arrest No wonder you're pissed And you're jealous, jealous While some live, you just exist SKIN & BONE & SILICONE
Tinted contact lenses, impossibly white teeth Hair's been dyed so often, who know what shade's beneath Cigarettes and cocaine, that's your carb intake There isn't all that much of you And most of what there is is fake
Skin & bone & silicone You're just skin & bone & silicone
Got the botox smile, the dermabraded face Pictured without panties all over cyberspace Trying to look sexy? You just look unwell Who wants to see your bony butt Your emaciated shell
Skin & bone & silicone You're just skin & bone & silicone
Midnight, waving to the cameras at your door Daybreak, housemaid finds you passed out on the floor
Always in the tabloids, your antics make tongues wag Designer dog so tiny in your designer bag You always look so hungry, the smell is on your breath If you don't take a little care You're going to starve yourself to death
Skin & bone & silicone You're just skin & bone & silicone DARLING LET'S NEVER QUARREL AGAIN
Darling let's never quarrel again Let's be good to each other Let's make love, let's make peace Let's be calm and make this conflict cease
Darling we all have bad days sometimes Why let ours come between us You be right, I'll be wrong I don't care, just so we get along
Let the silence be one of contentment Not simmering anger and seething resentment
Did you ever know a lovelier night? Why go and spoil it? Why should we fight?
Drop the grudges, the cold of rejection Let the space that connects us be warm with affection
The world's full of war, why add to the pain? Darling let's never quarrel again INDOOR JUNGLE
Lovely indoor jungle in my room Tropical palms, orchids in bloom Brightening up this tower of concrete Nature's soft light, perfect, complete Indoor jungle, perfect and complete
Towards the sky they reach Towards the sun they turn Plants have lots to teach If we want to learn
Sweet scent of each flower, green of fern Jungle don't ask much in return Indoor jungle, don't ask much in return
Lonesome little flower Wilting in the heat Looking so forlorn Beside the dusty street
Brought you home and you looked near the end One little drink, you're on the mend Indoor jungle, my indoor jungle friend
Price tag seems so strange, saying what you're worth Don't you and I both belong to the earth?
Lovely indoor jungle HOW VERY KIND
How very kind of you to call How very kind of you to say That I was on your mind today SLEEPING BUDDHAS
Sleeping Buddhas, waiting to awake However many lifetimes it may take Liberated just as soon as karma will allow We make our future with the things that we do now
Sleeping Buddhas, restless like the tide We search the whole world for the light inside As we stumble, treading on each other's pride and toes Why not laugh and watch as patience grows
Sleeping Buddhas, make up a community The noisy neighbor who bugs you no end Believe it or not, has got a best friend
They each have to live with themselves the whole day through And aren't we all sleeping Buddhas too?
Sleeping Buddhas what an opportunity For compassion to come bursting out Illuminate joy, eliminate doubt
Maybe one day we'll awaken and, like the sun Have the light to shine on everyone DEAR CAROLINE
You wanted the world to be happy And you showed us how it might be done CC, with your loving heart And the warm embrace you had for everyone
So clearly we still hear your laughter Oh yes you were a treasure, no doubt CC, we remember you So beautiful inside and out
Your loved to throw a party Your smile outshone the sun Your life was a safari On a quest for super fun
You were so kind and sweet too Dear Caroline we sure miss you
Your passion for a good cause Inspired everyone, Showed life's too short to waste time When there's so much to be done
I wonder if you ever knew Dear Caroline, if you knew This world's better off because of you LAST DAY OF SUMMER
Picnic is done, basket's packed away We feel that special kind of tired at the end of a sunny day Gulls overhead swirl in the blue A perfect way to spend a day, 'specially with you
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta Kite shares sky with butterfly Last day of summer
Labour day's come and gone much too soon But close your eyes and feel the heat, you'd think it was still June Last few sailboats, sparkling lake They dance into the harbour now, ducks in their wake
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta Bead of sweat, volleyball net Last day of summer
Green leaves will soon turn to gold Winter wind will soon blow cold Time marches on
Families with kids have already gone Diehards throwing Frisbees keep their party going on All beautiful, each in their way Smiling as they all pass by on this lovely day
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta Kite shares sky with butterfly Last day of summer
Sandcastle dragon, satin delta Bead of sweat, volleyball net Last day of summer 121 Bibliography
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Coker, Paul. Hearin'the Changes. Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1997
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Lees, Gene. The Modern Rhyming Dictionary: How to Write Lyrics. Port Chester: Cherry Lane Books, 1981.
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Miller, Carl, arranger. The Good Old Days: Songs America Sang Between 1890-1906. New York: Chappell & Co 1975
Miller, Fred. Studio Recording for Musicians. New York: Amsco Publications, 1981.
Nolan, Frederick. Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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Riddle, Nelson. Arranged by Nelson Riddle: The definitive study of arranging by America's #1 composer, arranger and conductor. Secaucus: Warner Brothers Publications, 1985.
Ringer, Robert J. How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization. New York: Harper Collins, 1983
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages. New York: Random House, 1975
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See, Rune Johansson. The Psychology of Nirvana. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1969
Silver, Horace. The Art of Small Combo Jazz Playing, Composing and Arranging. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995
Silver, Horace and Phil Pastras. Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty: The Autobiography of Horace Silver. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998
Snider, Bob. On Songwriting. Kentville: Gasperau Press, 2005
Thompson, Dave. Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story. Toronto: ECW Press, 2004
Wilder, Alec. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972 123
Woideck, Carl. Charlie Parker: His music and life. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Articles
Boll, Gerd. "About Anger, Attachment, Pride, Jealousy and Ignorance." Kagyu Life Number 25, Vol 10 (April 1998)
De Silva, Padmasiri. "The Psychology of Emotions in Buddhist Perspective. " The Wheel No 237 (Kandy: Buddhist publication society, 1976)
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Internet Resources
Starr, Kay information: http://home.earthlink.net/~v 1 tiger/kstarr.html (Retrieved Dec 7 2007)
Blue, Tina. "A Beginner's Guide to Prosody: Part II (Meter)" http://tinablue.homestead.com/Prosody2meter.html (Retrieved Dec 7 2007)
Emerson, Ken. Review of Steely Dan's "Aja". The Boston Phoenix October 18, 1977. Reprinted at: http://www.granatino.com/sdresource/16fool.htm (Retrieved Dec 12 2007)
"Jazz pop" discussion / definitions: Anonymous, http://www.smallsiazz.com/pop jazz/index.html (Retrieved Dec 14 2007)
Layman, Will, http://www.popmatters.com/music/columns/layman/050607.shtml (Retrieved Dec 14 07)
Matz, Peter anecdote about Noel Coward: www.noelcoward.net/archive/hcactz/matz.html (Retrieved Jan 22 2008) 124 "Jazz pop" product sales sites http://music.download.com/2Q01-8483 32-0.html (MP3 site) (Retrieved Dec 14 2007) http://www.yourmusic.eom/browse/genre/Q 10 D—446.html (CDs for sale) (Retrieved Dec 14 2007)
Lectures / courses
Coghlan , Michael. MUSI5007 Seminar in Jazz Composition Winter 2007. York University.
Henderson, Al. Guest Speaker MUSI5007 Seminar in Jazz Composition Winter 2007, York University.
Henderson, Al. MUSI 3059 Jazz Theory III Fall 2002 - Winter 2003, York University.
Lofsky, Lome. MUSI 3054 Guitar Lessons Fall 2003 - Winter 2004, York University.
Nydahl, Lama Ole. Lecture on Buddhism by delivered at Ryerson University, Toronto, Nov 5 2005
Patterson, Roy. MUSI 3131 Jazz Composition: Small Ensembles Fall 2004, York University.
Weigelt, Pit. "No Fear" Lecture on Buddhism by delivered at Ryerson University, Toronto, July 11 2005
Westcott, Bill. MUSI5005B Seminar In Composition II, Fall 2006 - Winter 2007, York University. 125 Discography
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Astaire, Fred. (1989) Starring FredAstaire (CD) USA: Columbia 44233
Bachman-Turner Overdrive. (2005) Gold (CD). USA: Mercury 005475
Boone, Pat. (1997) In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy (CD). USA: Hip-0 40025
Bowie, David. (1973) Aladdin Sane (LP). USA: RCA LSP-4852
Camillo, Michel. (1994) One More Once (CD). USA: Columbia 662404
Captain Sensible (1982) Women and Captains First (LP). USA A&M 68548
Clash, The. (2003) The Essential Clash (CD). USA: Sony 89056
Cole, Nat "King". (1990) Capitol Collectors' Series (CD). USA: Capitol C2-93590
Dylan, Bob. (1998) Masterpieces (CD). Australia: Sony International 462448
Ellington, Duke. (2001) Complete Columbia and RCA Victor Sessions (CD). Spain: Definitive Classics 11170
Fagen, Donald. (1982) The Nightfly (CD). USA: Warner Bros 2-23696
Fitzgerald, Ella. (1956) Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (CD). USA: Verve 537257
Fitzgerald, Ella and Louis Armstrong. (1956) Ella and Louis (CD). USA: Verve 825373
Flamingos. (1991) Flamingo Serenade (CD). USA: Collectibles 5424
Four Seasons. (1990) Anthology: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons (CD). USA: Rhino R2-71490
Franks, Michael. (1977) Sleeping Gypsy (CD). USA: Warner Bros 3004
Franks, Michael. (2003) Watching the Snow (CD). USA: Sleeping Gypsy Music (No Catalogue Number specified).
Frishberg, Dave. (1991) Classics (CD). USA: Concord CCD-4462
G, Kenny. (1997) Greatest Hits (CD). USA: Arista 18991. The Ink Spots. (1998) The Anthology (CD). USA: MCA 11728
James, Boney. (1997) Sweet Thing (CD). USA: Warner Bros 46548
Joel, Billy. (1982) 52nd Street (CD). Japan: Sony 464
John, Elton. (197%) A Single Man (LP). USA: MCA 3065
Jones, Norah. (2002) Come Away With Me (CD). USA: Blue Note 32088
Jordan, Louis. (1999) Let the Good Times Roll: Anthology 1938-1953 (CD). USA: MCA 11907
Koz, Dave. (1993) Lucky Man (CD). USA: Capitol CDP-98892
Krall, Diana. (2001) The Look of Love {CD). USA: Verve 549846
MacColl, Kristy. (1995) Galore (CD). UK: Virgin 2673
Manchester, Melissa. (1997) The Essence of (CD). USA: Arista 18967
Mitchell, Joni. (1975) Hissing of Summer Lawns (LP). USA: Asylum ES-1051
Mitchell, Joni. (1976) Hejira (LP). USA: Asylum ES 1087
Mitchell, Joni. (1977) Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (LP). USA: Asylum 101
Mitchell, Joni. (1979) Mingus (LP). USA: Asylum 505
Mull, Martin. (1978) Sex and Violins (LP). USA: AVC 1064
Nelson, Ricky. (1990) Best of1963-1975 (CD). USA: MCA 10098
Parker, Charlie. (1997) Ydrdbird Suite: the Ultimate Collection (CD). USA: Rhino/WEA 72260
Sade. (1994) The Best of Sade (CD). USA: Epic 66686
Shorter, Wayne. (2002) The Classic Blue Note recordings (CD). USA: Blue Note 40856
Silver, Horace. (1999) Retrospective (CD). USA: Blue Note 95576
Starr, Kay. (1999) The Essential RCA Singles Collection (CD). USA: Taragon 1056 Steely Dan. (1991) Gold (CD). USA: MCA MCAD-10387
Swing Out Sister. (1987) It's Better To Travel (CD) USA: Mercury 832213-2
Tempo, Nino & April Stevens. (1996) Sweet & Lovely: The Best of Nino Tempo & April Stevens (CD). USA: Varese 5592
Troup, Bobby. (1995) Kicks on 66 (CD). USA: Hindsight 607