The Isley Motif

Back in November, I listened to a two-disc compilation album of the Isley Brothers.  I'd recently been reminded that a musical phrase in "Shout" is present in one of the other songs on the album (I'd discovered this during an earlier listening), but as I couldn't remember which, I had to listen to the whole album to find out which song it was.  In listening to the album, I actually found three other songs that contain that phrase.  Along with "Shout," it's present in "Twistin' with Linda" and two different versions of "Respectable" (one is specified as the single version, and I'm assuming that the other is an album version).

I compared the phrase as it appears in all of the songs, and I discovered that it's not just the same intervals, it's the same pitches:

I started calling this musical phrase "the Isley motif."

Because the phrase is made up of the same pitches in each instance, I postulated that the songs were all in the same key, so I figured out the chord progressions for "Shout," "Twistin' with Linda," and both versions of "Respectable."  Unsurprisingly, all four songs are in F major.  More interestingly, much of each song just goes between F major and D minor.  Except for the middle part ("Now, wait a minute..."), "Shout" is entirely F major and D minor; "Twistin' with Linda" occasionally adds a C major; and "Respectable" uses the "50s progression" in F major - F major, D minor, Bb major, and C major.

I thought it interesting that - along with that phrase - the songs are linked by the key and the chord progression.  Until I'd looked into them, I had no idea that they were so musically similar.  Except for "Twistin' with Linda," which is from 1962, they're all from 1959.  So they're related chronologically too.

At the same time I was investigating this, I listened to a Christmas album by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and found the Isley motif at the end of "Christmas Everyday," written by Smokey Robinson.  It's in a different key (D major), but the chord progression is similar.  It alternates between D major and B minor with an occasional A major (comparable to alternating between F major and D minor with an occasional C major).  It was originally released in October 1963, which isn't too long after the Isley Brothers' "Twistin' with Linda."  While the chord progression, that specific phrase, and the chronology would seem to suggest some connection to these songs, I'm not sure if there really is one.

Bach's Gavottes

In listening to pieces from my Classical Music Queue (explained here), I recently listened to Bach's partitas for solo violin.  Or at least I listened to what excerpts I have; I have complete recordings of the first and third, but only one movement from the second.  In listening to the gavotte en rondeau of the third partita, I found a similarity to the gavotte in Bach's third orchestral suite:

(notation found here and here)

There are three groups of trills (with the first two notes as eighth notes and the third as a quarter note), and while the note groups of the two works aren't in the same intervals, the general position pitch-wise is the same.  That is: in both works, the first group of notes is the highest; the second is the lowest; and the third is in between the first two.  Both are capped with a (relatively) lower half-note.

There are a lot of threes here - the number of notes in each group, the number of groups, the movement number, and the classification number (No. 3).  Apparently, Bach didn't put the suites in a set though, so the "No. 3" part of "Suite No. 3" is just a coincidence.

In researching the pieces, I haven't found any dates of composition that agree with each other (the partita seems to be 1720, but I've found both 1717 and 1730 for the third orchestral suite), so I can't tell whether the partita or the orchestral suite was written first.

When I add a piece to the Classical Music Queue, I also write down where I found a reference to it.  Interestingly, the partitas were mentioned in some interviews given during a performance of all four of the orchestral suites that I listened to on NPR in November.  However, neither of the times it was mentioned was really a comparison between the partitas and the orchestral suites.

Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman"

Last week, I happened to hear Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman" while at the store, and it occurred to me how parallel two of the lines are:  "Oh--and she never gives out / And she never gives in."  Except for the "out" and "in" (prepositions acting in verb-adverb combinations with "give"), which are opposites, the lines are virtually the same.  It's interesting that those two words can provide such an opposition while - individually - the lines are saying distinct things.  So you can understand that "she never gives out," "she never gives in," and - like the language used to describe her - she's seemingly contradictory and embodies opposition.  The next line ("She just changes her mind") confirms this.

I looked in the liner notes of The Stranger (the album on which "She's Always a Woman" appears) to find the lyrics (it's faster than transcribing them myself, although I did notice some small discrepancies between the printed lyrics and the sung lyrics), and I found two other similar instances.  The first is the first two lines:  "She can kill with a smile / She can wound with her eyes."  Both lines are structured the same way and indicate the woman's hostility.  Later, there're the lines "She is frequently kind / And she's suddenly cruel," which - along with their structural parallelism -  demonstrate her erratic nature.  However, I don't think either of these pairs of lines has the same sort of implication as "Oh--and she never gives out / And she never gives in."

2015 Musical Projects

I've given myself musical projects for the last two years, but usually I'm sick of them by the fall.  So I'm going to try to give myself simpler projects this year.

The first project is to listen to a concerto from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, one of Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, and one of Bach's orchestral suites everyday.  I've mentioned doing this in a few places.  I've amended it a bit so that I'm listening to the whole piece and not just individual movements.  Here's a chart of how I'm cycling through them:

In the fall of 2014, I started thinking about doing an-other project where I try to learn every part to every song by a particular band.  I've been doing this with the Zombies' music since 2012, and - while I'm still a long way from finishing (and probably never will) - it's been a really interesting experience and often enlightening.  Even though I haven't learned all of the parts yet, I've discovered a lot about the music that's made me appreciate it a great deal more.

So I started doing this same thing for the Alan Parsons Project and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and SMiLE (at some future point, I might include other Beach Boys' albums too).  Like my corresponding project with the Zombies, I'll probably never finish these, but if they turn out to be even sort of similar, they'll definitely be worth doing.

I'm also going to try to get better at piano by learning a piano piece every month (or some other keyboard part).  Lately, I've been practicing a piano transcription that Grieg did of a Norwegian folk song, but I'll probably also learn some more recent things.  (I've had my eye [ear?] on the piano part in Buddy Holly's "Think It Over" for awhile now.)  I might try to use more keyboard instruments in my own music too, although probably just in a doubling capacity.  I think this same sort of thing (using keyboard instruments, particularly piano, to strengthen some parts) is done on some Kinks songs, a few Beach Boys albums (like Today! and Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)), and the Beatles' Help!.

The only other projects I'm going to do are continuations of projects I'm already doing - annual participation in FAWM and 50/90, Hymnal Habitation, and the Classical Music Queue.  Starting on 10 May, I'll listen to all of the LPs in Funk & Wagnalls' Family Library of Great Music, like I've done for the last two years.  And I'll probably end up writing a lot about music too.