Something for #TuneTuesday which I have rarely tuned into. #PaletteMusic
Since this is on my favs list, it gets primacy of placement
Condition Green, by Hiroko Kasahara
https://animethemes.moe/anime/mobile_police_patlabor/OP2-NCBD
Watch Mobile Police Patlabor OP2 Version 1: Condition Green ~Kikyuuhasshin~ on AnimeThemes.
This #TuneTuesday 's theme is #MyGoldenOldie - the oldest song on your personal playlist.
Shamefully, even I can't weeb this one up!
I am going to count "things that there could have been an album of when they came out" because otherwise I'd have to spend a lot of time chasing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_composers_by_era 😝
Considering when the phonograph came out and commercial recordings could start being sold, it seems likely to be a John Philip Sousa or Scott Joplin?
I'll give it here, as I used to listen to Joplin basically on repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND2rMET4MVw&list=RDND2rMET4MVw
Apparently this #TuneTuesday theme is #NonLexicalVocals
Oh no! Another excuse to post Yoko Kanno and a track from some of the best OST of all time in Macross Plus? Heaven forfend!
For a #TuneTuesday that is #WideOpenSpaces I, for once, am compelled to start non-weebishly. (Which does not mean I will ONLY...)
A composer I leaned into heavily as a young'in, and basically "equates to wide open landscapes" is Aaron Copland. And while everyone knows at least a little from cultural osmosis (like Fanfare for the Common Man), I'm here to convince you to take in a ballet. (Well, the orchestral arrangement of a ballet he composed.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Qt0AIRK-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxd1cmenki8
It's only 25 minutes, what else you got going on? 😝
First link has marvelous wide-open imagery, and the second has Copland conducting, which is super-cool.
It is overall... a lot to take in. Mountains' worth! And well worth it.
Holy shnikes, with #TuneTuesday being #BigCrescendos it has happened upon one of my very favorite things, which I was recently discussing with a friend.
My form is not "volume" related, so much as "start out slow and soft, keep adding instruments and phrases, and top out right before the end of the song magnificently" and my first example of this is just a simple background track from Kimagure Orange Road
One others may have heard before is the ending music of Gundam F91, Eternal Wind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPw7lvzTY8Q (Movie version)
https://youtu.be/bPXS-74Vpnk (Kickin' Orchestral version)
...and the most-popular IP but probably a relatively-unknown album, Pray from Final Fantasy: https://youtu.be/glz2S-qWBZ8?si=vQ3bO5RCSGgOCuR5
I'll go hunt for more later, but these are my Big Three
So where did this specific enjoyment start, or rather... cement itself most-thoroughly?
If I were to apply "favorite piece" to a singular work, even today I would put forth Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave
~9 minutes of ebbs and swirls, a maelstrom of different instruments in different short movements, and multiple fantastic crescendos, some with varied held highs.
I will perhaps timecode break these down later, but in the meanwhile it's just a singularly complex but concentrated piece that shows things off uniquely.
An odd path from here to KOR? Probably. 😝
TO CONTINUE
I am not entirely sure where this attaches to other predilections, but I think it relates to my needing songs to have a sense... what I can only describe as "travel." Melodic and harmonic lines that go up and down the scales rather than staying centered around a particular point. Tempos that move, chord progressions that have some mean to them, and yes, appropriate loudness adjustments, including crecendos.
But I tended to look across movements in a single work and enjoy the high points all the more where they land compared to everywhere they've gone.
For instance, in Robert Russell Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances (which I played for Area Band in HS) it goes many places, and the crecendos in the end Rag hit more fully.
Plenty in jazz as well, but I'd want to focus on my favorite work, Central City Sketches by Benny Carter (which includes an amazing piece in "People"), the six songs it works through, and how it ends with Sky Dance (Direct links, but obviously I encourage listening to the Sketches all together, or even as part of the whole album.)
Not so notable within the single song, but much moreso when experienced as an overall work.
And if I were to give something to both a single piece AND the overall work, AND the final crescendo IN that...?
You really cannot do better than O Fortuna, in Carmina Burana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQjsX98iGQ
The lows-to-highs are mighty, even if it is not a gradual crescendo. And it's reappearance in the Finale...? Transcendent.
...but with #BigCrescendos we would be remiss to leave off what is literally the most famous and lengthy "absolute crescendo" all time.
Maurice Ravel can be a challenging listen at the best of times. But one of his last works would become his most famous, and is essentially the purest musical crescedo possible, with both instrumentation and loudness/dynamics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh9bUD-hC0A (Live Performance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_cHyB1qdM (Scrolling orchestral score)
A simple snare line that will be repeated for the rest of the work, played as softly as possible, alongside a flute melody and plucked low strings.
Two melodies alternating, with each repeat adding more and different instruments to the "percussion rhythm" and "bass rhythm line" and melody. Ending FULL. FUCKING. OUT.
Unmatched.
I have been watching orchestral videos, the score flow, studying the structure and generally listening to Boléro more than is perhaps healthy, since yesterday. That snare ostinato apparently seeped in and took control of my brain, man. (Also, that poor snare drummer, man. 😝 )
It is fascinating to watch the extremely slow crawl through orchestral instrumentation, and how different the melody sounds when played by which leads and then which combinations later on.
And it goes on, one might say... INTERMINABLY.
There is only FINALLY a modulation, a minute before the end!
The "ending" begins in earnest 2 minutes from the end, when Melody A is played only once (instead of repeated with an instrument and volume change), a modulated Melody B, then 30s of "conclusion"
At its very loudest
Also since it looks like this is going to stick in my brain all week, I'm going to add a hugely-formative one with a weird entry point. A lot of people know In The Hall of the Mountain King, but the reason why I got it dug in first was from the first "horror game" I experienced at like 7-8 years old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtCq53IouHk
The song was integrated into the gameplay, and got louder and faster and LOUDER AND FASTER as you were running out of time.
Meanwhile, the bottom level had a wicked-fast spider that would eat you.
So I had a close connection to this shortest-and-most-impactful-of-#BigCrescendos well before I heard it orchestrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpUWXz9ptcc
One of the true kings.
The original friend mentioned at the top added these two to the list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMfcGlHppc4 (parts of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMeXzqTfNcY (basically the whole movement)
Figured that had to be added to crescendodom. We continue to be looking explicitly for crescendos only, because I did not see the "songs with exciting high points" add-on context. 😝
Also when #Bigging the #Crescendos there is an "it should go without saying" but I figure I'll say it at least once.
Call out to all the numbers--and especially the "medleys right before Intermission, leading into Act II"--of modern musicals, and who to highlight other than the perfect ur example of that, in Les Misérables?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5PzJhU8iI0 (Do You Hear the People Sing?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNNBrg4u9d0 (One Day More)
Also this has definitely not been an excuse for #NoKings posting, but hey while we're here...
CT