The Colours of Music
“Listen with your ears; listen with your eyes.”
Here are a few suggestions about how you might listen to the music on the CD, while you are painting or drawing. Remember that listening to music is a very personal experience, – everybody is unique; there is no right or wrong. It may even sound different every time you hear it. Music can make you feel happy or sad; energetic or calm. There are so many different moods in music. For some people these moods can be ‘heard’ as colours.
Draw or paint as you listen. It can be anything – a pattern, or a scene, even a line.
What colours do you hear in the music?
Listen again and tell us which colours you think represent which part of the music.
Draw or paint a picture using just one colour that seems to fit the mood or feeling of the music. Is it lively? Sad? Hot? Cold? Soothing? Energetic?
Brush Strokes
Using a paint brush or crayon, listen to the music with your eyes closed. In one part of the page draw use brush strokes to draw what you hear – it could be thick/thin straight lines, swirls, gentle curves, sharp/zigzags.
Listen again to a contrasting piece, and represent this in another part of the page.
Discuss the results.
What differences/similarities are there in the brush strokes produced?
What was it in the music that made you respond in the way you did?
Could you guess which brush strokes in someone else’s picture go with which piece of music?
Follow the Melody
Listen carefully to the tune in the piece of music – to the ‘melody’. Use your pencil or crayon to follow the melody, as it goes up or down, around or wherever it goes, fast or slow. Listen once without drawing and then draw as the music is playing. When you get to know the melody better, draw it again. Or draw it from memory.
Then, fill in other parts of the page with colours that represent the mood in the other parts of the music – the rhythm or the accompaniment.
I can sing a rainbow
Red and yellow and pink and green
Orange and purple and blue
I can sing a rainbow
Sing a rainbow
Sing a rainbow too.
Listen with your eyes
Listen with your eyes
And sing everything you see
You can sing a rainbow
Sing a rainbow
Sing along with me.
The sun is yellow, the grass is green
Look how the sky is blue!
We can sing a rainbow
Sing a rainbow
Surely you can too.
Listen with your eyes
Listen with your eyes
And sing everything you see
You can sing a rainbow
Sing a rainbow
Sing along with me.
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Dreams really do come true ooh oh
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,
Oh why, oh why can’t I?
Purple People Eater
Well. I saw the thing a comin’ out of the sky,
It had one long horn and one big eye, –
I commenced a-shakin’ and I said “Ooh –wee,
It looks like a purple people eater to me.”
Chorus
It was a one-eyed one-horned,
Flyin’ purple people eater,
One eyed, one horned, flyin’ purple people eater,
One eyed, one horned, flyin’ purple people eater,
Sure looked strange to me.
Well, he came down to earth and he lit in a tree,
I said, “Mister Purple People Eater, don’t eat me.”
I heard him say in a voice so gruff, –
“I wouldn’t eat you ‘cause you’re so tough.”
Repeat Chorus
I said, “Mister Purple people Eater, what’s your line? ”
He said, “Eatin’ purple people, and it sure is fine,
But that’s not the reason that I came to land,
I wanna get a job in a rock and roll band.”
Chorus
Well bless my soul, Rock’n’Roll, flyin’ purple people eater,
Pigeon-toed, under-growed, flyin’ purple people eater,
He wears short shorts, friendly little people eater,
What a sight to see.
And then he swung from the tree and he lit on the ground
He started to rock, really rockin’ around
It was a crazy ditty with a swingin’ tune
(Sing a boop boop aboopa lopa lum bam boom)
Chorus
And then he went on his way, and then what do ya know
I saw him last night on a TV show
He was blowing it out, a really knockin’ em dead
Playin’ rock and roll music through the horn in his head.
PROGRAMME will include :
Berlioz – Hungarian March
Shostakovich – Waltz from Jazz Suite No. 2
Anderson – Forgotten Dreams
Morricone – Gabriel’s Oboe
Gerhswin – Rhapsody in Blue Themes
Mussorgsky – Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition
Bach – Air in D
Procol Harum – Whiter Shade of Pale
I can sing a rainbow –- Somewhere over the Rainbow
Bizet – Toreador Song (Theme) –
O’Riada – Mise Eire (Theme)
Wilson – 76 Trombones (Theme)
Beatles Medley
Salute to the Big Bands
Purple People Eater
Plus Performances by Keith Hanley & D J Dashka
Composers Fact File
Hector Berlioz
Born 1803 La Côte-Saint-André, France
Died 1869 Paris, France
One of the most influential composers and conductors of the 19th century. Orchestras were increasing in size at this time, but some of his music was written for bigger forces than had ever been used in an orchestra before. He influenced many composers of the Romantic Era, e.g. Richard Wagner; Franz Listz; Gustav Mahler; and Rimsky-Korsakoff. Composers of the Romanitc Era often liked to have a narrative in their work – that the music would tell a story or depict a scene. Berlioz was very interested in literature, and especially the works of Shakespeare.
He wrote the Hungarian March for a tour of Hungary in 1846, and used a melody that had been written in honour of a Hungarian military leader, Ferenc Rakoczi. He later re-used the march in his opera, The Damnation of Faust, based on Goethe’s play, Faust. As the Goethe’s Faust did not have anything to do with Hungary, Berlioz had to change the plot slightly to make the march fit the play.
Recommended listening
Symphony ‘Fantastique’ (1830)
On the concert
Hungarian March
On the internet
Hungarian March – YouTube Orchestra (2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuqu_eNO51M
Hungarian March – with image of Hector Berlioz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4NG_NSXfIw
Symphony Fantastique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Kky5BC9Uk
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born : 1906 St. Petersburg
Died : 1975 Moscow
Shostakovich is considered to be one of the most important composers of the 20th century. His life was particularly difficult under the Stalinist regime, when composers were meant to write only music that was approved by the rulers. He often found himself in conflict with the authorities, but produced an output of great masterpieces, including 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets.
His Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’ was written while Russia resisted the Nazi invasion, and the city endured a horrendous 900-day siege. The music, which, was smuggled out of Russia on microfilm and performed in the West, became a symbol of heroic resistance.
Past of his film music output has a Cork connection. ‘The Gadfly’, a 1940s film for which Shostakovich wrote the music was an adaption of a book by Ethel Voynich, who was the daughter of mathematics Prof. George Boole, who taught in University College Cork, and for whom the Boole Library there is named.
The Suite for Variety Orchestra (or Theatre Orchestra) was re-discovered in the late 1990s, and became known as The Jazz Suite No. 2. However, it does not really use jazz idioms, but is written in the popular light orchestra style of the 1930s.
Recommended listening
The Romance from the Gadfly.
Piano Concerto No.2 in F 2nd movement – Andante
Symphony No. 7
String Quartet No. 8.
On the concert
Waltz from The Jazz Suite No. 2
On the internet
Waltz from the Jazz Suite No.2 (originally for a Theatre Orchestra)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYhZVqODYsI
Waltz from the Jazz Suite No.2 (with images)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9t8I50DjlY
Waltz from the Jazz Suite No.2 with large orchestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3pv2mAbQ7M
String Quartet No. 8 – programme notes/4th movement
http://www.quartets.de/compositions/ssq08.html
String Quartet No. 8. –complete Kronos Quartet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5ohobcKb8
Symphony No. 7 –‘Leningrad’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8TZjcqYhY
BBC Documentary ‘Leningrad and the Orchestra that defied Hitler’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKJ4gAoSqNs
Romance from The Gadfly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Xfyn0-YhU
Modest Mussorgsky
Born : 1839 Karevo, Russia
Died : 1881 St. Petersburg
Now considered as one of the most important Russian composers of the Romantic period, Mussorgsky was mainly self-taught when he began composing as a teenager. He was sent to the military, but later decided he wanted a career as a musician. He was a member of The Five, an influential group of composers, who were part of the Russian nationalist movement. They felt that Russian music should express the Russian soul. His opera Boris Godunov achieved fame and popularity during his lifetime. Unfortunately, he died as a result of his alcohol addiction at the age of only 42. Another famous Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakoff (also a member of The Five) revised and published many of his works.
Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures’ at an Exhibition’ dates from 1874. It was originally written for piano. Maurice Ravel made a very successful transcription of it for orchestra in 1922, bringing brilliant colour to the work. The composer’s friend, artist and architect Victor Hartmann, died aged 39. His paintings may have been forgotten, if not for Mussorgsky music, which was written to coincide with an exhibition of Hartmann’s work. Each movement features a different painting, and the piece is linked by a Promenade, which also opens the work. It depicts the composer ‘roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly, in order to come closer to a picture that had attracted his attention, and at times, sadly, thinking of his friend.’
Recommended listening
Night on a Bare Mountain
Pictures at an Exhibition
On the concert
Promenade (1) from Pictures at an Exhibition.
On the internet
Night on a Bare Mountain – New York Philharmonic Orchestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im258Ea5FJA
Night on a Bare Mountain – Fantasia 1941
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLCuL-K39eQ
Pictures at an Exhibition (with paintings)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXy50exHjes
Pictures at an Exhibition (original piano version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8z1_A-Zlbw
Leroy Anderson
Born 1908 Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Died 1975 Connecticut, U.S.A.
Anderson was one of the foremost American composers of light, popular music of the 20th century. Many of his pieces were popularised by the Boston Pops Orchestra, with which he had a close association.
He was also a brilliant linguist and served as a translator in the army during World War Two.
Film composer, John Williams, said of his work “Though we have performed his works countless times over the years at the Boston Pops, his music remains forever young and fresh as the very first day on which it was composed.”
Recommended listening
The Syncopated Clock
The Typewriter
Sleigh Ride
The Waltzing Cat
On the concert
Forgotten Dreams
On the internet
Forgotten Dreams (piano solo – with image of the composer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS2ue13A2PM
For this viewer, the music conjures up images of English country gardens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPJJKVt5-Y
Original version 1954/1957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6qnBuk3WDE
The Syncopated Clock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IboyHfL2jno&list=RDIboyHfL2jno
Sleigh Ride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDRFmn_KqfA
The Waltzing Cat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOlG8Ut-gTc
The Typewriter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LJ1i7222c&list=RDIboyHfL2jno&index=3
Ennio Morricone
Born 1928 Rome
He graduated as a trumpet-player in 1946, and was awarded a diploma in composition in 1954. It was his film scores for Sergio Leone’s Western movies that brought him international fame – A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966); Once Upon a Time in The West (1968) and A Fistful of Dynamite (1971). Among his other famous
film scores are Cinema Paradiso (1988); Malena; The Untouchables; and The Mission (1986). In 2015, he collaborated for the first time with director, Quentin Tarantino, on The Hateful Eight.
Recommended listening
Cinema Paradiso
The Mission –soundtrack
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
On the concert
Gabriel’s Oboe from the Mission
On the internet
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1PfrmCGFnk
Cinema Paradiso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSkyoyyvnAY
Gabriel’s Oboe – The Mission (clip from the film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAoT2ktM2H0&spfreload=10
Gabriel’s Oboe (in concert performance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVNmVSufv0A
George Gershwin
Born 1898 Brooklyn, NYC
Died 1937 Los Angeles
George Gershwin had a hugely successful partnership with his brother, Ira, who wrote the lyrics for their many Broadway hit tunes. Also a composer of classical music, Gershwin famously wrote an opera for an all-black cast, Porgy and Bess (which includes the classic song ‘Summertime’), as well as the ever-popular Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra.
Recommended listening
Rhapsody in Blue
Highlights from Porgy and Bess
On the concert
Rhapsody in Blue (excerpt)
On the internet
Rhapsody in Blue (soloist Lang Lang)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2GFGMu198
Summertime (Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA
George Gershwin plays I Got Rhythm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bKstQNsQKc&spfreload=10
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born 1685 Eisenach, Germany
Died 1750 Leipzig, Germany
Bach is undoubtedly one of the most important composers in the history of classical music. A leading figure in the Baroque period, he was also famous as an organist. See http://www.jsbach.org/biography.html
Recommended listening
The Brandenburg Concertos
Toccata and Fugue in D minor
On the concert
Air from the Suite in D for String Orchestra
On the internet
Air from the Suite in D – with graphic score and sheet music score
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2j-frfK-yg
Toccata and Fugue in D minor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnuq9PXbywA
Brandenburg Concertos No.1 -6
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehbar90jHz8
Louis Prima
Born 1910 New Orleans
Died 1978 New Orleans
Best known for his role as the orang-utan King Louie in the animated film of The Jungle Book, singing ‘I wanna be like you’, Louis Prima had a successful career in many different combinations since the 1930s. He started out in a New Orleans jazz band in the 20s; a swing band in the 30s; he was a big-band favourite in the 30s & 40s; and went on to Las Vegas cabaret and pop music in the 50s and 60s.
On the concert
Sing, Sing, Sing – as part of Salute to the Big Bands
On the internet
I’m just a gigolo/I ain’t got nobody – with Keely Smith – 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrJ7DQojzIY
Louis Prima with his Swing Band – 1938
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyirjsQZwb4
Louis Prima with Big Band – Sing, Sing, Sing – 1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLEqKqt_BC8
Benny Goodman Big Band – Sing, Sing, Sing with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
I can sing a rainbow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aouC56MPOE
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fahr069-fzE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BeKhlUzPUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XulvnXo6BJk
