Africa-Europe

Questions:

(1) Why is sub-Saharan African music more European-sounding that
north African music? Any old cultural contacts?

(2) Speaking of cultural contacts, boogie-woogie would seem to be
part of the outcome of African musical ideas entering a European
context. How, then, does it happen that the person who seems to have
invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven (in his sonata 32, op 111?)

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> Questions:
>
> (2) Speaking of cultural contacts, boogie-woogie would seem to be
> part of the outcome of African musical ideas entering a European
> context. How, then, does it happen that the person who seems to have
> invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven (in his sonata 32, op 111?)

No one can take that question seriously, Gene.

Cheers,
Jon

>>(2) Speaking of cultural contacts, boogie-woogie would seem to be
>>part of the outcome of African musical ideas entering a European
>>context. How, then, does it happen that the person who seems to have
>>invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven (in his sonata 32, op 111?)
>
>No one can take that question seriously, Gene.

Except for me.

I can think of two form for the answer to take...

() The older of the two forms made its way as a meme to the younger.

() There are a finite number of constraints on the form of pleasing
music, and a finite number of ways to satisfy them.

...It's a concurrent evolution sort of question. I think I've
mentioned on these lists that the same blue pigment appears in
blueberries, corn, potatoes, etc. Did a gene make its way
around, spread by viruses, etc., or is there one blue compound
that's a lot easier to find given the constraints of plant biology?

Many Beethoven sonatas portend stride bass. Then there's the
matter of the simultaneous discovery of 'jazz' harmony in
France and the Americas.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
> >>invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven (in his sonata 32, op 111?)
> >
> >No one can take that question seriously, Gene.
>
> Except for me.

Come on, Carl. The mere fact that someone at an earlier time had a broken rhythm left hand on a keyboard doesn't mean he is the father of boogie-woogie. It is a coincidence. That sonata has as much to do with b-w as Joanne Castle has to do with Carl Czerny (maybe less).

Then again, you are the guy that said he listens to (some) rock and roll as a sonata. It takes all kinds...

> Many Beethoven sonatas portend stride bass. Then there's the
> matter of the simultaneous discovery of 'jazz' harmony in
> France and the Americas.

Yeah, tell that to the ghost of Charles Mingus. By yourself. On a dark street...

Cheers,
Jon

>Come on, Carl. The mere fact that someone at an earlier time
>had a broken rhythm left hand on a keyboard doesn't mean he
>is the father of boogie-woogie. It is a coincidence.

Maybe what you mean is, there is no coincidence, ie they
are not so similar. That's a third kind of answer. It
doesn't explain blueberry dye, though, where the chances
of finding the same blue pigment without further constraints
on the search are presumed to be infinitesimal.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <ekin@l...> wrote:
> > It is a coincidence.
>
> Maybe what you mean is, there is no coincidence, ie they
> are not so similar.

Ah, yes. I meant it in the vein of "if one actually considers them similar, then I would attribute it to coincidence and not a direct relationship (between Beethoven and b-w)".

> It doesn't explain blueberry dye, though, where the chances
> of finding the same blue pigment without further constraints
> on the search are presumed to be infinitesimal.

Why presumed? (I'll follow to meta if we are going too far afield...)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> > (2) Speaking of cultural contacts, boogie-woogie would seem to be
> > part of the outcome of African musical ideas entering a European
> > context. How, then, does it happen that the person who seems to
have
> > invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven (in his sonata 32, op 111?)
>
> No one can take that question seriously, Gene.

I asked a serious question, and you failed to give an answer which
was serious or even respectful. If it wasn't for the fact that
Beethoven wrote his final piano sonata in 1820, there would be
absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that Beethoven was influenced by
boogie-woogie. This is because there is a variation which is not
simply sort of like boogie-woogie, or a lot like boogie-woogie, it
*is* boogie-woogie. I am not the only one to have noticed this
curious musical fact, which is why it is sometimes called the Boogie-
Woogie Variation.

It's hardly impossible that Ludwig influenced the development of
boogie-woogie; though it doesn't seem too likely, it's hard to see
how it could be ruled out. Otherwise we are simply left with the
anomaly that Beethoven, for a short space, bursts into clearly
recognizable boogie-woogie. Hummel dipped his toe in, but Beethoven
took the plunge.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> I asked a serious question, and you failed to give an answer which
> was serious or even respectful.

OK, that's a pretty fair assessment. Then again, my response is not unlike some of yours, which usually end in the phrase "so sue me". But I'll mull this over some more, in deference to what I have always viewed of you as a person of substance. This doesn't mean that you, too, can't be way off-base on something, but I'll think about it. And maybe you might want to attempt to draw a line from Op. 32 all the way up into real boogie-woogie, instead of observing a quirky data spike and proclaiming Ludwig the progenitor of hothouse pianoisms.

Til later,
Jon

Error!

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Op. 32

should be Op. 111.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

And maybe you might want to attempt to draw a line from Op. 32 all
the way up into real boogie-woogie, instead of observing a quirky
data spike and proclaiming Ludwig the progenitor of hothouse
pianoisms.

Why? If I ws trying to do what you say, that might make sense, but
I'm asking the question.

As for "real" boogie-woogie, what is the paradigm for that? Much of
what is called boogie strikes me as less archetypal than the
Beethoven, which I think justififies my claim that the Boogie-Woogie
Variation is genuine boogie for a few bars, up the the point where he
starts playing with it.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> Why? If I ws trying to do what you say, that might make sense, but
> I'm asking the question.

But you're asking a question that contains the statement (from you) "the person who seems to have invented boogie-woogie is Beethoven".

Displaced metric accents and left-hand patterns don't make boogie-woogie. I don't hear this sonata that way at all. Maybe others do, but I think that is probably mostly square people who think this is classical music getting 'loose' or 'jazzy'. People think all kinds of things.

You asked a question based on a premise, and I don't think the premise holds. Let litigation proceed.

> As for "real" boogie-woogie, what is the paradigm for that?

I would probably say Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Meade Lux Lewis, though I doubt either of them would use the term paradigm.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> I would probably say Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Meade Lux Lewis,
though I doubt either of them would use the term paradigm.

OK. Why aren't the few bars of Beethoven which boogie any less like
Honky Tonk Train than many things which are called boogie? Obviously,
you can't have boogie-woogie and treat the theme the way Beethoven
does, but do you think Lewis or Papa Ammons or Jelly Roll couldn't
have taken it and boogied on with the greatest of ease?

>> It doesn't explain blueberry dye, though, where the chances
>> of finding the same blue pigment without further constraints
>> on the search are presumed to be infinitesimal.
>
>Why presumed?

Because I don't know for sure.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
n.
>
> As for "real" boogie-woogie, what is the paradigm for that? Much of
> what is called boogie strikes me as less archetypal than the
> Beethoven, which I think justififies my claim that the Boogie-Woogie
> Variation is genuine boogie for a few bars, up the the point where he
> starts playing with it.

There's the point! If you want a paradigm for boogie-woogie then it is
that boogie-woogie starts when the players "starts playing with it."
Opus 111 is just a temporary busy bassline, and has nothing to do with
boogie woogie harmonys.

Are there still afro-centrists in the US? They have always said that
Beethoven was black, based on skull measurements and rhythmic. But
here's a better connexion: the Hapsburg drum corps were African, so
all the classical "a la Turk" music is african, too.

Gabor

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "alternativetuning"
<alternativetuning@y...> wrote:

> Are there still afro-centrists in the US? They have always said
that
> Beethoven was black, based on skull measurements and rhythmic.

Maybe he was like Clinton--an honorary black. Of course Pushkin and
Dumas were black--can you tell from how they write? I can't.

But
> here's a better connexion: the Hapsburg drum corps were African, so
> all the classical "a la Turk" music is african, too.

Mozart was probably black, and wore a wig to hide his afro.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:

> Mozart was probably black, and wore a wig to hide his afro.

It's looking more and more likely that we all are black, of course.
Some of us may have lost some pigment along the way.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org>

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
>
> > Mozart was probably black, and wore a wig to hide his afro.
>
> It's looking more and more likely that we all are black, of course.
> Some of us may have lost some pigment along the way.

How did my skin get so pale?

* David Beardsley
* microtonal guitar
* http://biink.com/db

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, David Beardsley <db@b...> wrote:

> How did my skin get so pale?

Your ancestors needed vitamin D more than protection against skin
cancer.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_45138.html#45154

> I asked a serious question, and you failed to give an answer which
> was serious or even respectful. If it wasn't for the fact that
> Beethoven wrote his final piano sonata in 1820, there would be
> absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that Beethoven was influenced
by
> boogie-woogie. This is because there is a variation which is not
> simply sort of like boogie-woogie, or a lot like boogie-woogie, it
> *is* boogie-woogie. I am not the only one to have noticed this
> curious musical fact, which is why it is sometimes called the
Boogie-
> Woogie Variation.
>
> It's hardly impossible that Ludwig influenced the development of
> boogie-woogie; though it doesn't seem too likely, it's hard to see
> how it could be ruled out. Otherwise we are simply left with the
> anomaly that Beethoven, for a short space, bursts into clearly
> recognizable boogie-woogie. Hummel dipped his toe in, but Beethoven
> took the plunge.

***Well, I played through this piece, which is the last one in my
Beethoven sonata book, and it's quite late...

Without a doubt, Beethoven is here experimenting with lots of
different kinds of meters: 9/16, 12/32! and different rhythmic
emphasis. Quite "modern" in this way. And, yes, it certainly does
sound like boogie-woogie.

Could it be simply that the boogie-woogie composers were *also*
interested in increasing complexity in musical meters and hence their
path went separately in the same direction?? Hardly impossible.

J. Pehrson

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_45138.html#45160

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
>
> > I would probably say Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Meade Lux
Lewis,
> though I doubt either of them would use the term paradigm.
>
> OK. Why aren't the few bars of Beethoven which boogie any less like
> Honky Tonk Train than many things which are called boogie?
Obviously,
> you can't have boogie-woogie and treat the theme the way Beethoven
> does, but do you think Lewis or Papa Ammons or Jelly Roll couldn't
> have taken it and boogied on with the greatest of ease?

***Beethoven + Jelly Roll = Roll Over Beethoven...

JP