Blue Skies All Day Long

This song has been in my head for at least a week! Composer-lyricist Irving Berlin wrote "Blue Skies" in 1926 for the Broadway show Betsy. Like so many of the best popular songs of that era it went on to become a standard of jazz singers. Here's Ella Fitzgerald doing it in a classic recording. First she sings the main chorus of the song, and then she goes off into one of her signature extended scat improvisations on the tune (scat is singing nonsense syllables in jazz). If you listen a couple of times, you might be able to hear the way she uses the tune as the basis for her improvisation--she just embellishes and adds to the tune, but you can still hear the essence of it. It's sort of (kind of) the same idea as theme and variations, in which you just repeat the original tune with some changes. At the end she returns to the words of the song. The chords played by the band are the same for the scat part as for the regular tune.

Here's another version I like.

"Sailing" from A New Brain

This is a song from one of my favorite musicals, A New Brain, with music by one of my favorite musical theater composers, William Finn. I hope you appreciate that I spent a good half hour searching around YouTube for a performance of this that I liked, wasn't poor sound quality, and wasn't just the track from the cast recording! I think this is a really nicely crafted song. The lyric and melody are straightforward, direct and simple, while the pop-style piano accompaniment is immediately appealing. The chords and the texture help the song build to a nice climax, and the final thought always leaves me feeling a little mushy-in-a-good-way on the inside. I also really like this singer's voice. Finn's other musicals include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and he's currently working on a musical version of the movie Little Miss Sunshine, which I can't wait to see!

Barefoot and Soulful

One of my voice students who's interested in exploring her soulful side has been listening to Joss Stone lately and sent me this video as a suggestion for a song we might work on together. Stone is one in a long line of British singers and musicians with a strong feeling for a certain type of American music--specifically the blues and soul-influenced genres with deep roots in African American culture (the Rolling Stones, Elton John, and Adele come to mind as other examples of these Brits with an affinity for American roots music).

This video really shows the dynamic that can exist between a performer and her audience. The audience is very much a part of this performance. The screams and other vocal demonstrations of approval, though not technically part of the music as written and rehearsed, do contribute to the sound environment and context of this event as captured on video. Audience members add to the rhythmic performance as well by clapping to the beat. This song is in quadruple meter (ONE two three four, ONE two three four . . . ). The claps go on beats two and four of the measure--these are called upbeats because they are usually unaccented. (the accented ONE at the beginning of the measure is called the downbeat).

It's fun to listen to the interactions between Stone's vocal (which provides the melody in this performance) and the solo guitar that seems to answer back as though in wordless conversation with her. Add in the harmonies of the backup singers and the other instruments of the band and you've got a nice homophonic texture here--a prominent melody line (sung by Joss Stone) supported by harmonic accompaniment.

Fun fact: Joss Stone often performs in bare feet. Not a bad idea! I've seen voice teachers demand that students remove uncomfortable shoes so they can sing better!

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett -- Brilliant!

There's so much I love about this--a classic song, the pairing of a legendary singer with a current diva, the big-band sound with blaring trumpets and tinkling piano--but most of all, these two just seem to be having so much fun making music together! The performance is high energy and shows great chemistry between them. This clip also reminds me that Lady Gaga was trained as a musical theater singer, and it shows in her impeccable vocal technique and artistic mastery of this kind of song ("The Lady Is a Tramp" originated in the 1937 Broadway musical Babes in Arms). That part of her background also explains why all her performances are so theatrical. I also like the part near the end when they start scatting and dance to the big saxophone solo.

Unit Two -- Melody, Rhythm, Form and Expression

John Williams, "Raiders March" from Raiders of the Lost Ark

Big Mama Thornton, "Ball and Chain"

Janis Joplin, "Ball and Chain"



Unit One -- Instruments and Ensembles

Ravi Shankar (and Anoushka Shankar): Raga Anandi Kalyan

Leonard Bernstein conducts Symphony No. 9 (Choral Symphony) by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company: Ball and Chain

Leonard Bernstein in Rehearsal

Metallica, "Enter Sandman" from Monsters of Rock, Moscow, 1991.