Best of ZenPundit...

[SWJED]

Council member ZenPundit's Best Of:

Moral Countermeasures Against Anti-Globalization Guerillas

The Borders of our Imagination

Creating a Culture of Mediciexity

The Resilience of Civilizations

Globalization and War Symposium Day I, Day II, and Day III.

Complexity and Connectivity: Bar-Yam Again

Cultivating Strategic Thinking -The U.S. Needs A Foreign Policy DARPA

Understanding Cognition Part I, Part II, and Part III.

On Music and War

The Superempowered Individual

[zenpundit]

Thanks Dave ! Merry Christmas too !

[marct]

Nice post, Zenpundit.

One thing that seemed to be missing, however, was the ties between metre and movement. Historically, specific types of music were used to co-ordinate the movements of people en masse, whether this was in a work song (like sea chanties) or on the battlefield (check out the Napoleonic music).

The ties between music and culture are also quite stong, but sometimes hard to find. For example, when we think of "classical" music, I really doubt that many people would think about Bedlam Boys (16th century). Most of the classical music, from the West, that has survived is either opera or ecclesiastical music, not the sort of stuff that would be sung in the bars and taverns .

Marc

[zenpundit]

"One thing that seemed to be missing, however, was the ties between metre and movement. Historically, specific types of music were used to co-ordinate the movements of people en masse, whether this was in a work song (like sea chanties) or on the battlefield (check out the Napoleonic music)."

Thank you for the addition - I'm not very well versed in music at all, so that post was wide-open speculation for me.

"The ties between music and culture are also quite stong, but sometimes hard to find. For example, when we think of "classical" music, I really doubt that many people would think about Bedlam Boys (16th century). Most of the classical music, from the West, that has survived is either opera or ecclesiastical music, not the sort of stuff that would be sung in the bars and taverns "

Good point. There is a class-based element to classical music history. Most music was probably pretty randy and sung by the unlettered. Though,I believe the tune for " Oh, say can you see? " was originally a drinking song. Not certain.

[marct]

Hi Zenpundit,

Good point. There is a class-based element to classical music history. Most music was probably pretty randy and sung by the unlettered. Though,I believe the tune for " Oh, say can you see? " was originally a drinking song. Not certain.

Too true <grin>. If you want to hear some of the 16th-18th century stuff, updated somewhat I admit, you should listen to Steeleye Span's stuff from the 1970's and 80's. I am always fascinated at the difference between their stuff, which is, barring the electric guitars, pretty accurate, and the ecclesiastical music from the same period. I've sung both types for years now, both in bars and in choirs.

The original tune you are thinking of for the Star Spangled Banner is To Anacreon in Heaven and, yes, it was certainly considered a drinking song . This was a fairly normal process by the way - write new words to a tune people know and they are likely to remember it better. This is the case with most folk songs, so we end up with, sometimes, hundreds of variants for any given folk song. BTW, it's also a trick that composers like Bach used fairly often as well.

That idea I was getting at with meter and movement may well explain why rock is used by some units vs., say, Wagner for Air Cav. Music has some pretty interesting physiological effects on people - you can shift the heart rate, change breathing patterns and emotions, shift perceptual controls such as sight and hearing, etc.

Marc