How many wonderful potential mottos for a place of learning the folks at Whittier College could have found in this one poem of their namesake, if a little divorced from context? "Reclothe us in our rightful mind," "interpreted by love," "till all our strivings cease." All wonderful and poignant words!
Most of our slogans these days are hardly better than the grunts of cavemen. "Hur dur. Be you. Dream big." I wonder how the students at Whittier College feel, knowing that for all the money they likely spend to go there, the people in charge have so little originality when it comes to inspiring them...?
Dear David -- You are right. It is embarrassing, but they don't see it. I guess the whole matter has to do with slogans, as you say. Slogans are just for public relations and sales, quick and vulgar and usually empty-headed. Oh well ....
How true, indeed! It reminds me of those awful murals we saw once, in one of the buildings back at the College That Must Not Be Named. What were the slogans? Something like "Work Builds Character, Character Builds Work?" I don't know...some circuitous nonsense. We had a good laugh about it, at least!
This might be more appropriate for a different discussion elsewhere (and sorry if I veer too far), but I wonder if you have any thoughts about one of the "qualities" of "modern hymns" that may be my most despised aspect (out of many of course) of why they are so bad. It is the quality of -- I don't even know the proper word, I'll say "drifting" -- mid-word to the next note before getting on to the next word in lyrics (where that next word may very well also be sung to that ending previous drifted note, but not necessarily.) It's a quality that just says "laziness" in writing melody -- as well as in singing melody, but that's a different issue -- to me (as well as being pretty boring to listen to -- icky).
And I mention that because when it is done correctly and well, it is an admirable thing. And it is something I notice in this hymn you linked to (and I realize it was composed by someone other than the poet you were primarily talking about, but since you mention it in passing above, I'm gonna run with it just a tad *gulp*) -- and, I hope, even relate it to your comments at the end, we'll see.
It's not a "big" thing about the melody, but almost notable for that very reason. The first line has the two stepwise notes in a couple words (I won't refer to it here as "drifting" because it is done with purpose and not the lazy modern "I can't think how else to get there, so I'll just drift over, don't ya know..." method of what is called "composition" these days -- ugh). And the third line from the end has it too, and I could go on about those instances, but I want to get to the last occurrence that appears in the penultimate line of each verse.
Maybe I'm just focusing too much on such things, but its occurrence in that penultimate line of each verse seems so deliberately done (and yet stays "in the background" so as not to disrupt the flow too much). And (this is why I even mention it at all) its effect is distinctly "amplified" (again, to me, at least) by the fact that the last line (ie, that repeats the previous line) distinctly DOES NOT have two notes for one word -- and that "progression" happens in every single verse.
So it seems, oh, I don't even know exactly why or how to explain it best, but it seems meaningful. It is as though the effect of repeating the line is to emphasize not only the line itself, but also, well (and here's the tie-in to your commentary) to emphasize the very quality you describe in the last paragraph. In other words, it is sort of "backing off," in a deliberate but very gentle and soothing manner, of the emphasis initiated by the poet's repetition of the line. It is as though it is, in effect, a kind of "compositional" manifestation of the line you quote from Jesus that in the world we will know trouble, “but be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.”
I've gone on about a very particular example here in this hymn, but my opening sentence was of course about a more general idea of wondering what it is that makes a compositional melodic quality of hymns (but music in general I suppose) seem deliberate and wonderful in some few cases (which was far more prominent in the older hymns,) and utterly dreary and sloppy in 99% of the rest of modern hymns.
Stanley, have you read Tony's book, Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church?" I think that some of the questions you raise here are answered there, and others fall into the sphere of music theory which is beyond the scope of this publication. But really I think you are trying to ask what makes a line of music sublime? And specifically can we explain how a musician composes a piece of music which so perfectly fits -- and helps to establish in the ear -- the tone of a hymn lyric poem? And for that matter why is a POEM sublime? What makes it so? All of this reminds me of a class I developed when I was teaching at Providence College, "American Humor." There were no formal "prerequisites" for the class, but the obvious on was that students needed to already possess a sense of humor to benefit from being introduced to the works I was teaching. Most of the students (it was a School of Continuing Education class) were older adults, and they HAD a sense of humor. But a sad number of the younger ones were tough nuts to crack, because they frankly didn't get the jokes. OFTEN. An any time you have to explain a joke -- well, the humor is cut right out of it. That is how I feel about trying to explain the sublime in music. And Just as you develop that sense of humor by observation and good heartedness with a wee bit of mischief mixed in, so you learn to make (or simply to appreciate) the sublime in music by listening -- and by paying attention to beautiful music over a lifetime. Parry composed this piece of music to suit Whittier's poem. It was his choice to repeat the final line, for the wonderful effect of emphasizing it and bringing each stanza to closure, but peaceful resolution. There is something wonderfully quieting in following a line of music on a rippling gentle and melodious descent into peace.
Why we can't have hymnody like this now has to do with the general falling away of the arts generally. You can't produce art that you have no experience with, and the same is true of music. All of the songs I am out in "Sometimes a Song" were within living memory (mine, at least!) just "in the air" all the time, everywhere. When is the last time you knew that to be the case of any song, that it was widely listened to by a whole nation of people? I can write a decent folk tune not because I am an expert musician (though I play guitar reasonably well) but because from infancy on I was literally engulfed in music of all kinds and all the time. But it's not even enough to have someone with ability in music to keep the hymn tradition going; you also have to have an audience fit to comprehend the music -- or the poem -- or the work of art. We still have musicians who can give coherent explanations with terminology, even, to describe what is going on in a very sublime piece of music, but that's irrelevant to the cause of bringing music back as a prominent feature of society if the entire culture is tone deaf. You may explain away, but no one can understand what you mean. They literally can't process the music, just as those hapless students in my American Humor class (over 20 years ago, now) couldn't understand the jokes in the literature we read, or the inherent humor of Mark Twain's depiction of human nature. I'm sad to make this commentary, but there it is.
My (late) wife and I own the box set of the Stillman trilogy (Metropolitan, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco). Though all three have that distinct "Stillman quality," the three of them as a group are very distinctively different films from other mainstream movies certainly. Definitely on our top however-many (ie, not top three or top five perhaps, but certainly top 20, maybe even top less-than-20) list of favorite movies, though they require a certain taste, I expect and might leave some wondering what they just saw if they watched them. In any case, fun to discover others who have actually heard of them. "But I digress..." (that was the motto of an old pre-facebook forum I was on :-) )
How many wonderful potential mottos for a place of learning the folks at Whittier College could have found in this one poem of their namesake, if a little divorced from context? "Reclothe us in our rightful mind," "interpreted by love," "till all our strivings cease." All wonderful and poignant words!
Most of our slogans these days are hardly better than the grunts of cavemen. "Hur dur. Be you. Dream big." I wonder how the students at Whittier College feel, knowing that for all the money they likely spend to go there, the people in charge have so little originality when it comes to inspiring them...?
Dear David -- You are right. It is embarrassing, but they don't see it. I guess the whole matter has to do with slogans, as you say. Slogans are just for public relations and sales, quick and vulgar and usually empty-headed. Oh well ....
How true, indeed! It reminds me of those awful murals we saw once, in one of the buildings back at the College That Must Not Be Named. What were the slogans? Something like "Work Builds Character, Character Builds Work?" I don't know...some circuitous nonsense. We had a good laugh about it, at least!
This might be more appropriate for a different discussion elsewhere (and sorry if I veer too far), but I wonder if you have any thoughts about one of the "qualities" of "modern hymns" that may be my most despised aspect (out of many of course) of why they are so bad. It is the quality of -- I don't even know the proper word, I'll say "drifting" -- mid-word to the next note before getting on to the next word in lyrics (where that next word may very well also be sung to that ending previous drifted note, but not necessarily.) It's a quality that just says "laziness" in writing melody -- as well as in singing melody, but that's a different issue -- to me (as well as being pretty boring to listen to -- icky).
And I mention that because when it is done correctly and well, it is an admirable thing. And it is something I notice in this hymn you linked to (and I realize it was composed by someone other than the poet you were primarily talking about, but since you mention it in passing above, I'm gonna run with it just a tad *gulp*) -- and, I hope, even relate it to your comments at the end, we'll see.
It's not a "big" thing about the melody, but almost notable for that very reason. The first line has the two stepwise notes in a couple words (I won't refer to it here as "drifting" because it is done with purpose and not the lazy modern "I can't think how else to get there, so I'll just drift over, don't ya know..." method of what is called "composition" these days -- ugh). And the third line from the end has it too, and I could go on about those instances, but I want to get to the last occurrence that appears in the penultimate line of each verse.
Maybe I'm just focusing too much on such things, but its occurrence in that penultimate line of each verse seems so deliberately done (and yet stays "in the background" so as not to disrupt the flow too much). And (this is why I even mention it at all) its effect is distinctly "amplified" (again, to me, at least) by the fact that the last line (ie, that repeats the previous line) distinctly DOES NOT have two notes for one word -- and that "progression" happens in every single verse.
So it seems, oh, I don't even know exactly why or how to explain it best, but it seems meaningful. It is as though the effect of repeating the line is to emphasize not only the line itself, but also, well (and here's the tie-in to your commentary) to emphasize the very quality you describe in the last paragraph. In other words, it is sort of "backing off," in a deliberate but very gentle and soothing manner, of the emphasis initiated by the poet's repetition of the line. It is as though it is, in effect, a kind of "compositional" manifestation of the line you quote from Jesus that in the world we will know trouble, “but be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.”
I've gone on about a very particular example here in this hymn, but my opening sentence was of course about a more general idea of wondering what it is that makes a compositional melodic quality of hymns (but music in general I suppose) seem deliberate and wonderful in some few cases (which was far more prominent in the older hymns,) and utterly dreary and sloppy in 99% of the rest of modern hymns.
Stanley, have you read Tony's book, Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church?" I think that some of the questions you raise here are answered there, and others fall into the sphere of music theory which is beyond the scope of this publication. But really I think you are trying to ask what makes a line of music sublime? And specifically can we explain how a musician composes a piece of music which so perfectly fits -- and helps to establish in the ear -- the tone of a hymn lyric poem? And for that matter why is a POEM sublime? What makes it so? All of this reminds me of a class I developed when I was teaching at Providence College, "American Humor." There were no formal "prerequisites" for the class, but the obvious on was that students needed to already possess a sense of humor to benefit from being introduced to the works I was teaching. Most of the students (it was a School of Continuing Education class) were older adults, and they HAD a sense of humor. But a sad number of the younger ones were tough nuts to crack, because they frankly didn't get the jokes. OFTEN. An any time you have to explain a joke -- well, the humor is cut right out of it. That is how I feel about trying to explain the sublime in music. And Just as you develop that sense of humor by observation and good heartedness with a wee bit of mischief mixed in, so you learn to make (or simply to appreciate) the sublime in music by listening -- and by paying attention to beautiful music over a lifetime. Parry composed this piece of music to suit Whittier's poem. It was his choice to repeat the final line, for the wonderful effect of emphasizing it and bringing each stanza to closure, but peaceful resolution. There is something wonderfully quieting in following a line of music on a rippling gentle and melodious descent into peace.
Why we can't have hymnody like this now has to do with the general falling away of the arts generally. You can't produce art that you have no experience with, and the same is true of music. All of the songs I am out in "Sometimes a Song" were within living memory (mine, at least!) just "in the air" all the time, everywhere. When is the last time you knew that to be the case of any song, that it was widely listened to by a whole nation of people? I can write a decent folk tune not because I am an expert musician (though I play guitar reasonably well) but because from infancy on I was literally engulfed in music of all kinds and all the time. But it's not even enough to have someone with ability in music to keep the hymn tradition going; you also have to have an audience fit to comprehend the music -- or the poem -- or the work of art. We still have musicians who can give coherent explanations with terminology, even, to describe what is going on in a very sublime piece of music, but that's irrelevant to the cause of bringing music back as a prominent feature of society if the entire culture is tone deaf. You may explain away, but no one can understand what you mean. They literally can't process the music, just as those hapless students in my American Humor class (over 20 years ago, now) couldn't understand the jokes in the literature we read, or the inherent humor of Mark Twain's depiction of human nature. I'm sad to make this commentary, but there it is.
Someone should post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfOs6Mw-tmA
I wonder if our host has ever seen of the Stillman films. I think it is at least possible that he might like them. A high bar to clear, I know. 😊
My (late) wife and I own the box set of the Stillman trilogy (Metropolitan, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco). Though all three have that distinct "Stillman quality," the three of them as a group are very distinctively different films from other mainstream movies certainly. Definitely on our top however-many (ie, not top three or top five perhaps, but certainly top 20, maybe even top less-than-20) list of favorite movies, though they require a certain taste, I expect and might leave some wondering what they just saw if they watched them. In any case, fun to discover others who have actually heard of them. "But I digress..." (that was the motto of an old pre-facebook forum I was on :-) )