In 1924, George Gershwin (1898-1937), at that time an emerging Tin-Pan Alley “graduate,” needed someone to orchestrate his Rhapsody in Blue. Paul Whiteman, the famous bandleader, had just that someone. Ferde Grofé (1892-1972), a member of Paul Whiteman’s orchestra already gaining fame as an arranger, did the arrangement. The work was a huge success, and Grofé’s reputation spread rapidly.
Grofé (Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé), a New York City native, came from several generations of musicians. His mother was a cellist and his father was a singer. Ferde played several instruments, ranging from brass to strings. This helped him immensely as an arranger for Whiteman. (Grofé was also assistant conductor and pianist for the group.)
He put the wide range of knowledge he gained into every one of his works. The Grand Canyon Suite, the most popular work of this ingenious colorist, was composed in 1931 (and premiered by Whiteman) after Grofé had travelled extensively in Arizona. This grandiose music inspired by his travels shows he was profoundly impressed by the Grand Canyon.
Each movement, “Sunrise,” “The Painted Desert,” “On the Trail,” “Sunset,” and “Cloudburst” features a unique orchestral color. Many orchestrator’s tricks Grofé used became standard fare for Hollywood movies, especially westerns. This music may sound familiar even if you’ve never heard it before: its offspring are in countless westerns. However, there is another place you might have heard it – remember Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventure series? In 1958, the most spectacular film of that series was produced: “Grand Canyon,” which combined Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite” with some of the most astonishing cinematography of that era! It was one of Disney’s biggest artistic triumphs, and still well-worth seeing.
As to the Grand Canyon itself, whether you have seen it or not, go to the National Park Service Grand Canyon website and on the right hand menu, go to “In Depth.” Next page, from the lower-left menu, choose “Photos,” and then choose General Photos of Grand Canyon. From there, you can take your own photographic tour of one of our most awesome national scenic treasures.
Click here to purchase the orchestral score of this exciting work.
To listen to this music, check out the recording below:
Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra was written by Maurice Ravel, a composer who was born in the Basque region of France, and was of Basque and Swiss descent. The Basques are Europe’s most ancient people with a continuous history, culture, and language. By at least 8,000 years ago the Basque language was widely spoken, and well eastward into what is now modern-day France. There were several ancient languages similar to Basque (Euskera) spread throughout Europe, but by 3,000 years ago the Indo-European languages dominated the continent, and today only Basque is left. Basque cultural attitudes are very different from Indo-European cultural norms. Ravel was in part a product of this old and proud Basque culture, which gave him a certain natural empathy for another distinct and oppressed culture: the Gypsies (Roma, Romani). In 1924, he composed Tzigane, which means “Gypsy,” for the violinist Jelly d’Aranyi; Béla Bartók (1881-1945) also composed for her.
“Gypsy” life is stereotyped as happy, free, and devil-may-care, but their history is one of the saddest of all. By about the year 400 they left northwest India in large numbers, migrating toward Europe by way of Persia (even then they were in demand for their music). Along the way, some of them established a short-lived, small kingdom, destroyed not long after it was established. After that, they were stateless, as they remain to this day. Around the year 1000 they came to Turkey, then Greece. They arrived in Europe in the 14th-century, and got to Hungary, often associated with their music, in the 15th century – in time to be blamed for the plague. Right up until the 19th century they were persecuted and murdered in one country after another; from England to Spain to Sweden, everywhere; male or female, they were accused of witchcraft, cannibalism, or general criminality, and burned or hung without trial. In Austro-Hungary in 1721, the Emperor, Karl VI, decreed that all Roma in his empire should be exterminated. As late as the early 19th century there were “Gypsy-hunts” in Germany. After Hitler came to power, the Roma (Gypsies) were more persecuted than the Jews. Very few of them survived the Nazi death-camps; Auschwitz was a grim summation of their history to that point. For a detailed look, check The Patrin Web Journal – Timeline of Romani (Gypsy) History online. The name “Gypsy” came from them being mistakenly called “Egyptians,” corrupted eventually to “Gypsy.” There were few bright spots, but one was Hungary, during and after the reign of Empress Maria Theresa of Hungary – she made laws favoring Gypsies. Within a few years, Gypsy music flourished in Hungary, and János Bihari (1764-1827) and his little orchestra made the music widely popular. It became known as Hungarian music, and was the music that inspired Liszt, Brahms, Johann Strauss, and many others to compose “Hungarian” Dances, Rhapsodies, and so forth. Not until Bartók’s and Zoltán Kodály’s (1882-1967) folk-song research did true Hungarian Magyar come to light, music quite different from the highly ornamented and florid Gypsy style upon which Ravel based his very beautiful and powerful Tzigane.
In Tzigane he captures the essence of Gypsy (Roma, Romani) culture and history. All of that pain and suffering as well as the joy of Gypsy freedom is poured into their music, every time a Gypsy violinist plays. However fast and joyful Gypsy music might seem to be, there is always a tinge of deep sadness, and the slow music cries out with passion. One finds all of this, the entire Gypsy gamut of emotion, style, and technical wizardry in the fantastic and difficult Tzigane of Ravel. Listen, relax, imagine yourself in front of a campfire – perhaps a fortune-teller is there…a dance begins…for a brief time, share the sadness, happiness, and passion of the Gypsy life…
For an excellent recording, check out:
Musicians, songwriters and record producers always wonder what the most important ‘ingredient’ to a hit song is – there are several different views on this topic.
One thing most people will agree on is the fact that well written lyrics play a huge part in the success of a song. A great melody and hook-line (a melodic “chunk” that is repeated throughout the whole song) are certainly considered key ingredients to a successful song on the pop charts. But at the end of the day the phenomenon known as ‘the groove’ will ultimately decide the fate of most popular songs (just ask any bass player or drummer).
Wikipedia defines groove as “… is the sense of propulsive rhythmic “feel” or sense of “swing” created by the interaction of the music played by a band’s rhythm section (drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards). The term is mainly used in the context of genres outside of Western art music, such as funk, rock music, power groove, fusion, and soul.
While some musicians have called the concept of “groove” a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Funk and Latin musicians refer to “groove” as the sense of being “in the pocket”, and jazz players refer to groove as the sense that a jam session is really “cooking” or “swinging.”
Musicologists and other scholars began to analyse the concept of “groove” in the 1990s. They have argued that a “groove” is an “understanding of rhythmic patterning” or “feel” and “an intuitive sense” of “a cycle in motion” that emerges from “carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns” that sets in motion dancing or foot-tapping on the part of listeners. “ (Copyright by Wikipedia / excerpt from Wikipedia.com)
Although groove is very hard to explain, it is fairly easy to ‘feel’ whenever a band’s rhythm section is in it. A groove happens when the drummer and bass player , along with the rhythm guitar player and keyboard player (being the other two pieces of a typical popular band’s rhythm section) fall into rhythmic patterns that add up to one ‘undeniable feel’ that will make most audiences want to move (i.e. dance, snap their fingers, bop their heads, etc.). Although groove has been described as something individuals feel differently, the effect of a solid groove can be experienced when watching the audience’s reaction and movements at any good band’s performance.
Consider this: when you get closer to the stage of any open-air venue, what is the first thing that captures your attention? From a distance it is usually hard for anybody to make out the vocals or intricate facets of the lead players’ lines, but you will be able to hear the drums and bass hopefully creating the ‘groove’ that will draw your attention to the music. Coincidence? I don’t think so 
A good groove can make the difference between between a hit record and a regular song – just look at the liner notes in your record collection and you will find out that there are certain rhythm sections that could be considered ‘hit machines’ because of their undeniable grooves: in country music you can make the case for drummer Eddie Bayers Jr. and bassist Michael Rhodes being the No.1 team; reggae music featured Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar as their predominant groove machine; Motown music was heavily influenced by geniuses such as James Jamerson and Uriel Jones (The Funk Brothers); the Beatles were certainly blessed with the exceptional talents of bassist Paul McCartney and drummer Ringo Starr; rock music owes a lot to groove masters such as Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham or Toto’s Jeff Porcaro; popular music was heavily influenced by rhythm sections like Sting and Stewart Copeland; the Muscle Shoals Rhythm section has achieved worldwide recognition for their outstanding work – case in point, an awful lot of a song’s potential to be a hit is related to its potential to ‘groove’ or ’swing’ and record producers all over the world have been paying close attention to this fact throughout the history of popular music.
The next time you listen to your favorite music, try to pay some attention to the rhythm section work to ‘detect’ the groove – it is a lot of fun and might give you a whole new appreciation for your favorite artist’s work.
Until next time, keep groovin’ -
Robert DiBlanco
Anyone who’s ever had a performance or played a gig in a dimly-lit concert hall or bar knows that it’s nearly impossible to see your music or read your charts without some form of light. We purchased a couple of these stand lights for ourselves and friends – and decided that this product should definitely go under our “groovy products” category.
For about $20, you can purchase this telescoping Mighty Bright Triple LED Music Stand Light
We also suggest looking into getting the Mighty Bright AC Adapter
If you decide to get one of these lights – or if you already have one – please let us know what you think. If you have other suggestions for “groovy products” that we should feature on this site, please contact us and let us know. We’d love to hear from you!
Excerpt of a Nashville Number System chart
The answer to all of these questions lies in a little-known solution called the Nashville Number System. This fairly simple system to write down music is widespread in the Country Music field (especially in the studio/session world). Its origins can be traced back to Elvis Presley’s harmony singers, in particular Neil Mathews of the Jordanaires. He devised this musical number system to be used in the recording studio. After Charlie McCoy saw this method he and countless other musicians and session leaders adapted the system to their own needs and used it on many sessions. Today it has evolved into a complete method of writing charts for sessions (sometimes it is also referred to as the “Nashville Shorthand”).
One of the main advantages of the Nashville Number System is the fact that its way of notating a song is completely key-independent. This comes in very handy in the recording studio, where a lot of times keys have to be changed on-the-fly to accommodate singers’ vocal ranges and preferences.
As there are no standards and rules for the Nashville Number System, everybody can and has made their own little set of rules – therefore you can find charts written in different ways for the same song. Once you ‘get the picture’ of how the system works, you should be able to quickly adapt to anybody’s customized style and play any song (in any key) right away.
To find more detailed information about the Nashville Number System, please visit Chas Williams’ website and order his outstanding book on this very helpful way to jot down the songs you learn/play.
Robert DiBlanco, charts@diblanco.com
I found this great article on why to use session musicians for your demo recordings and wanted to publish the link for everybody:
http://tunecore.typepad.com/tunecorner/2008/07/the-advantages.html
It is so true …… and guess what, the time you save by having your songs recorded by professional session musicians will make up for the extra money you may have to budget.
Give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed.
PLUS, session musicians make great friends, too.
