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A horse walks into a bar, sits on a stool and orders a drink. As the bartender is pouring it, he says to the horse, "Hey buddy. Why the long face?"
I thought I'd start off with a little horse humor tonight, just for a change. The rest of the night was divided into fifths, with two-fifths going to study the Circle of Fifths, and three-fifths to the songs of Elton John, or maybe it was the other way around. (How would you express one half if you used five as the denominator? Would that be 2.5 over 5? Is that a proper fraction?)
At this session, Jack, Jen, Larry, Ken, Arlene, Suzan, Louise, Vin, Patricia, Charlene, Anne, Angie and Christy were in attendance, Anne for her second time and Patricia and Charlene for the first time. Patricia has experience playing on a west coast beach, music stands in the sand, with a hundred singing Californians, at the famous San Jose Uke Club.
The Circle of Fifths is a way of thinking about chords and notes and how they interact (Click here to link to the reference document used in this workshop / Click here for an interactive Circle). A guy at the Ashokan uke festival was stressing this to me, Jack, Larry, Suzan, Louise and Vin in an attempt to get us to throw away our chord sheets, listen attentively to how songs go, and see common chord patterns so that we can play them by ear. It was exciting when the teacher, Jim D'Ville, demonstrated it, but when I got home I found that I was lost. That's why I asked Ken to explain it to us.
Some of the basics would be that a common 3-chord song might be called a "I IV V." (That's 1 4 5. I don't know why they use Roman numerals.) If the I is a C, the IV is F and the V is G. When I was first learning the piano to try and jam with my guitar friends, one said, "Don't worry. Most of what we do is I IV V. It's simple." I probably understand what I IV V is, at least superficially, and could play a bunch, or recognize them when I see them. But this Circle of Fifths chart goes into amazing complexity. I'm going to have to have it demonstrated a hundred more times for just part of it to sink in. Ken added another couple of percent to my understanding. One fact he noted which struck me as pretty cool was that the notes in the key of C are identical to those in its relative minor, Am. They just start in a different spot. I guess the same would apply to a G and its relative minor, the Em.
I like to look at song chords and see how they're put together. Just to pick one guy, Tom Petty, it's a delight to see his friendly chords in the verse, chorus and bridge become a fabulous song like Yer So Bad or You Got Lucky. How does he do it? Is he a magician? I kept probing Ken and Vin on how one goes about constructing such a thing. I narrowed my question down to, "How do you come up with an original melody?" Therein lies the magic. Dion and the Belmonts put C Am F G7 together and got Teenager in Love. The Drifters put those same chords together and got This Magic Moment. They sound nothing alike. How is that possible? What constitutes a melody? How can one remember a new melody if one cannot read music or make musical notations? Jen and Louise suggested using one of those newfangled tape recorders.
I'm pretty sure if I understood the Circle of Fifths as well as a music teacher, I'd be a better player and wouldn't always have to have a piece of paper in front of me. That day will be a long way off, or perhaps never, but it is probably worth it to absorb and appreciate as much as possible. I hope that with repetition will come some understanding.
People used to compliment my mother-in-law on her cooking. She'd say, "I just follow a recipe. If you can read, you can cook." Oh yeah, ma? Then why isn't everyone a good cook? I used to wonder why someone couldn't express a coherent thought in a clearly-written essay. I did it pretty well in school. "I can't write," they'd say. I'd counter, "You can think. You can speak. You can hold a pen. Just write it down. What's so hard about that?" But since not everyone is a George Orwell nor J.D. Salinger, I must be mistaken in my claim that everyone can do it. This is how I think about coming up with an original melody. People do it all the time, but not everyone can. For those of you who stood on the library steps encouraging/brow-beating me to get busy, thanks for the encouragement/pressure. I will try.
And now for the songs we did play tonight.
1. Your Song (C-Key), 1970 (Ken)
Here's the song that put Elton on the map. It came out well. Click here for the F-Key version.
2. Tiny Dancer, 1971 (Jen)
There was a movie with Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn's daughter) called Almost Famous, about a young teenage boy who somehow gets a writing assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to cover a band tour. In one scene they were on the tour bus, this song was playing and everyone came in on the chorus. Very uplifting.
3. Daniel, 1973 (Ken)
What a heartbreaking Fm he has in the chorus. Didn't he write some great stuff?
4. Someone Saved My Life Tonight, 1975 (Dan)
This is a dramatic number, but to save time, we just did a couple of the verses.
5. Rocket Man, 1972 (Louise)
I used to like the lines "and all the science I don't understand. It's just my job five days a week." He was saying the astronaut had a job just like a plumber, an insurance agent or a bank teller, putting in his time and collecting a paycheck. But no NASA astronaut would ever think that way. They are some of the rare people who love their jobs. Still, they're some good, humanizing lyrics from Bernie Taupin.
6. Bennie and the Jets, 1974 (Ken)
It was a clever gimmick to make it sound like this song was recorded at a concert. I believed it. It's like the beginning of Sgt. Pepper's L.H.C.B.
7. Crocodile Rock, 1982 (Louise)
8. I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues, 1983 (Louise)
Elton John's phrasing could be tough, especially when trying to sing his songs in a group. They aren't always the easiest to play, either. However, I enjoyed all of it, even when we weren't perfect, because these are all great songs. For about five years, in the early seventies, he couldn't write a bad song if he tried. I heard Randy Newman, years ago, talk about what a great artist Elton John was. His criterion: the amount of good songs he's made. That made an impression on me. When rock critics talk of important bands or performers and say that this guy's drumming stands out, or their bassist played with a rare style, or they influenced such bands as thus and such, a lot of that stuff is over my head, doesn't mean a lot to me. I think: what albums or singles does the band have that I like? It's a simple way to figure it. E.J. is one of the greats because he has put out so many good songs. All hail Elton John, one of England's many gifts to the world, along with Monty Python and Helen Mirren.
For our next session, the topic will be THREE-CHORD SONGS.
-- Dan.
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