Greetings!
Here we are again. I hope your summer is off to a great start! We have lots of musical odds and ends for you again this month, so grab a cool drink and enjoy!
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the US national anthem by Congress in 1931. Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics in 1814, taking the melody from an 18th century drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven" by British composer John Stafford Smith. (Anacreon was a Greek poet associated with love and wine).
Dogs are mentioned in more song titles than cats.
Billy Rose claimed to have written the first commercial jingle in 1924. Its title was "Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?" The song made the pop charts in 1961 recorded by Lonnie Donnegan and re-named "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?"
New Reviews: One again, I have quite a variety of reviews for you this month! There are fifteen new album, EP and single reviews as well David Lanz’s new songbook, two song and activity books from Carol Nicodemi, Darlene Koldenhoven’s memoir, and new sheet music from Carol Comune. Once again, I didn’t have time to do any interviews, but I hope to remedy that in July. You can find links to all of the reviews
here. Enjoy!
The first "talkie" movie was “The Jazz Singer.” It opened on October 6, 1927 and starred Al Jolson.
Music has always kept pace with printing technology. The first printed music was the Mainz Psalter in 1457. This was the second book ever made with movable type. Music symbols were cut individually into woodblocks and assembled by hand.
By 1600, engraving was the method most often used for printing music. Symbols were sketched freehand with a sharp tool onto zinc, copper, or pewter plates. The plate was inked, and the print was made.
July Birthdays: Here is a partial list of musical birthdays in July:
1st: David Arkenstone, Twyla Tharp, Andraé Crouch (1942-2015)
2nd: Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), Charles-Louis Hanon (1819-1900)
4th: The USA is 250 years old! Stephen Foster (1826-1864), Bill Withers (1938-2020)
5th: Dan Chadburn, Huey Lewis
6th: Gary Clark, Bill Haley (1925-81), Della Reese (1932-2017), Vladimir Ashkenazy, 50 Cent
7th: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), “Doc” Severinsen, Joe Zawinul (1932-2007), Ringo Starr
8th: Percy Grainger (1882-1961), Louis Jordan (1908-1975)
9th: John Tesh, Courtney Love, Jack White
10th: Carl Orrf (1895-1982), Noble Sissle (1899-1975), Mavis Staples, Sixto Rodriguez (1942-2023), Arlo Guthrie, Béla Fleck
11th: Richie Sambora
12th: Brad Jacobsen, Kosta Jevtic, Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), Van Cliburn (1934-2013), Christine McVie (1943-2022)
14th: Woody Guthrie (1912-67), Maxine Waters
15th: Linda Ronstadt
16th: Bola Sete (1923-1987), Cal Tjader (1925-1982), Michael Flatley,
17th: Jeff Pearce, Iwo Piano and Joey, our lovably neurotic Australian Shepherd (he’ll be 14 years old!), Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976)
18th: Kelsey Lee Cate, “Screamin" Jay Hawkins (1929-2000), Dion (DiMucci), Martha Reeves, Richard Branson,
19th: Emilee Hartley, Brian May
20th: Isolde Fair, Carlos Santana
21st: Neil Patton, Daria Fedorovich Murphy, Isaac Stern (1920-2001), Cat Stevens
22nd: Michele McLaughlin, George Clinton, Don Henley, Alan Menken, Rufus Wainwright, Selena Gomez
23rd: Leon Fleisher, Slash, Alison Krauss
24th: Adolphe Adam (1803-1856), Jennifer Lopez
25th: AnayaMusic Kunst, Roy Acuff, Jr.
26th: John Field (1782-1837), Mick Jagger, Keiko Matsui
27th: Vladimir de Pachmann (1848-1933), Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
28th: Ignaz Bösendorfer (1794-1859), Rudy Vallee (1901-1986)
29th: Martina McBride
30th: Antonio Benedetto Maria Puccini (1747-1832), Buddy Guy, Paul Anka, Kate Bush
31st: Falu Shah, Stanley Jordan,
Happy Birthday to all!!!
The first recorded message was "Mary had a little lamb" by Thomas Edison in 1877. His assistant, Mrs. Harriet Atwood, played the piano, thus becoming the first recording artist.
Francis Scott Key, the man who wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," was a lawyer. He became a district attorney in Washington, D.C.
The first gold record was "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Glenn Miller. It was presented on his radio program on February 10, 1942. The first gold album was the original 1949 Broadway cast recording of "Oklahoma!"
July Holidays and Observances:
International Blondie and Deborah Harry Month
1st: International Reggae Day and National Television Heritage Day
2nd: National Disco Day (really?)
4th: Boom Box Parade Day and National Country Music Day
7th: National Day of Rock 'n' Roll
13th: National Barbershop Music Appreciation Day
18th: World Listening Day
27th: Bagpipe Appreciation Day
31st: Uncommon Instruments Awareness Day
Partay!!!!
Have you ever wondered why Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it Macaroni? In this case, "macaroni" doesn't refer to pasta, but to a mid-18th century English social club of young men who wanted to bring British influences to the US. The line from the song was originally intended to discredit American Revolutionaries.
Digital sound was introduced in 1979, and marked the beginning of the end of the LP. LP's can record digital sound, but reproduce it non-digitally. The first digitally recorded pop LP was Ry Cooder's "Bop Till You Drop.”
Besides hearing loss, musicians suffer from other work-related injuries. Pianists sometimes get inflamed tendons in the hands and wrists. Brass players can suffer dental problems from pressure on their mouths. Woodwind players are prone to wrist and hand damage. Violinists and violists are often pained by neck, back, and shoulder problems.
I still have some more trivia as well as some photos from the garden. Enjoy, and have a great July 4th and a terrific month!
Kathy
MainlyPiano.com
A small design company in New York came up with the original MTV logo - the big M with “TV” spray-painted across it. The logo was a million-dollar image, but the design company was paid only $1,000.
“America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)” got its melody from Britain’s “God Save the King/Queen.” It is the only major anthem in either country that is played in 3/4 waltz time rather than the more common 4/4 marching rhythm.
In 1995, paleontologist Dr. Ivan Turk excavated a bear’s thighbone from a site in Slovenia. The femur was perforated with four holes in a straight alignment, which suggests conscious design rather than arbitrary markings. The bone flute was found in a hunting area occupied by Neanderthals. Radio-carbon dating indicates that this artifact, allegedly the oldest known musical instrument, is between 43,000 and 82,000 years old.
A surviving list of requirements for minstrels in medieval Germany includes that the musician know how “to acquit himself well as a swordsman” and that the he know how to “throw up little apples and to catch them on the point of a knife, to imitate the songs of birds, perform tricks with cards and jump though hoops.”
Almost every famous narrative of “dangerous” music in the Greek cultural heritage assigned the blame on women. The beguiling Siren songs of Homer were said to lure men to their deaths. In the violent Dionysian cults, female participants were said to kill blindly while in an ecstatic trance. Almost any kind of song that contained excessive feeling - whether a passionate love lyric or the wailing lament of a mourner at a funeral - was associated with the emotional susceptibility of women.
If composers of the 18th century wanted to make a real business out of publishing, they needed to set up as publishers themselves. A surprising number of them took this step, typically as part of their relationship with a powerful patron.
To the best of my knowledge, the "trivia" items are true, but I can't guarantee it.
