Midnight Voices                      
The discussion forum for fans of Pete Atkin and Clive James,
their works and collaborators on stage, TV, disc and in print.

Web Digest week 18 (28.12.97, MV565 - 572) begins | index | prev | next |
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Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 11:34:21 PST
From: "Jones,David L" <email address>
Subject: MV565 RE: MV558 Re: MV556; MV554; MV550: Sunlight Gate Heros
To: Midnight Voices <email address>

>From: Elphinking <email address>
>Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 10:05:20 EST

>purely pedantic but I don't think helicopters clatter - they pulse. 

Yes, but when they pulse they don't scan.

Dave J.

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Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 12:41:50 PST
From: "Jones,David L" <email address>
Subject: MV566: We shoulda done this a while ago
To: Midnight Voices <email address>

I just submitted "Smash Flops" for an entry in a Yahoo category under
Music:Artists:by Genre:Classic Rock.  I know, Pete isn't exactly 'rock' but
he'll be in with such company as Billy Joel (if they accept the entry).  He'll
also be near the head of the list!

Steve B.: I entered your e-mail address as contact info.

I also made sure to include a reference to Clive (who already has his
own Yahoo entry) which might help things along.

Dave J.

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From: B & J Cotterill <email address>
To: "'midnight.voices'" <email address>
Subject: MV567 re:MV519
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 14:50:03 -0000

Just a quick question - what is a Tritone?   Despite O level music and grade 6 
piano, I've never heard the term.   Please explain!

regards
Jenny 

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Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 09:30:50 PST
From: "Jones,David L" <email address>
Subject: MV568 RE: MV567; MV519
To: Midnight Voices <email address>

>From: B & J Cotterill <email address>
>Subject: re:MV519
>Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 14:50:03 -0000
>
>Just a quick question - what is a Tritone?   Despite O level music and
>grade 6 piano, I've never heard the term.   Please explain!
>
>regards
>Jenny 

Just an interval of 3 whole tones, such as F to B, which notes occur together 
in the chord G7, this being the second (or third) chord learned by the novice 
guitarist (second if you're a four-string novice, third if you use all six 
strings, on account of the stretch).  Anyway, as we all know, this interval 
between two notes in a chord is a source of much tension in music and is used 
to create the "sturm" in the dominant chord that makes the "drang" 
of return to the tonic so  satisfying.

Oddly, used blues-style in the tonic itself it gives a whole different feel, 
not one of tension at all, more a jaunty cockeyedness.

Anyway, re-reading the original post to raise this matter (MV 453) brought me
to a sentence that I must have misread the first time.  

Gerald Smith wrote: (about Lady of a Day)

Pete has written the song on the degrees of the whole
tone scale, starting on C# (it is in fact only possible to derive two whole
scales whose notes are mutually exclusive; C and C#).

There I was writing out the natural scales of C and C#, when I realized he
meant there were really only two scales consisting of whole note intervals.
Since  all intervals are equal in the scale, you can't say that either scale
starts on a particular note, only that each consists of 6 notes.
For each note in one scale there is a note in the other scale a semitone
away, but they have no notes in common.

This brings me to one of the odder corners of music.  In key notation
you never, by convention, mix sharps and flats in a signature.  Thus for
C-sharp, with the scale notes C# D# F F# G# A# C, you have to put in sharps
for both E and B, which normally are not sharpenable (E# being F, B# being
C).  You might think to call it D-flat instead (notes Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C) but
musicians won't have it, because D-flat is 'flatter' than C-sharp, they say.
If you're a singer, violinist or trombone player that might be true, I suppose.

Well a Happy New Year to all. You might wonder what I'm doing at the office
today. I'm wondering too.

Dave Jones
From a very cold, snowy Rochester NY. But there's a heat wave coming:
45F (7C).
 
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Date: Thu, 01 Jan 1998 19:03:04 +0000
To: midnight.voices<email address>
From: Gerald Smith <email address>
Subject: MV569 re. MV567 - tritones
Cc: Jenny Cotterrill<email address>

Hello All

	In answer to Jenny's question, a tritone is an interval of an augmented
4th, which in turn consists of three whole tones, hence 'tritone'.  An
example would be F-B, the three whole tones being f-g, g-a, and a-b. 

The tritone divides the octave in half precisely and thus is its own
inversion, an augmented 4th and a diminished 5th amounting to the same
thing, a pile of three whole tones. It has long been regarded as a
dissonant interval in western music and is generally avoided except in
chords of the dominant seventh (where it emphasises the drive to resolve to
the tonic) and in chords of the diminished seventh, which consist of two
nested tritones, eg. F-B with Ab-D. Where a tritone is used in whatever
repetoire, it is almost always resolved immediately, and you can almost
feel the release of tension that this resolution brings about!  It is
precisely this restless and unresolved feel which makes the tritone a great
tool for creating suspense: if you have a synthesiser, select a soft string
sound and hold down F and B (or Ab and D, or C and F# etc) together. It
creates immediate tension. Then move  the B up to C and the f down to e to
feel the tension resolve. Tritones are also an important interval in the
whole tone scale, where they form the midway point. 

Hope this helps.

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Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 10:53:16 +0000
To: Midnight Voices <email address>
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV570: The Singer and the Lyricist

Here's another of Tom Holt's alternate realities:

As they walked together from that final gig
And one turned away, with all the rights reverting,
A hollow whisper echoed through the hall;
(We could scarce hear without hurting)
Asked us if we realised that was all;
"Never made it (there was only this much in it,
The passion and the tears and laughs-per-minute);
That was them,
The singer and the lyricist."

"No more of that," I said, "there's so much more,
An hour of light to soothe a world of sorrow;
A speck of gold embedded in the wall,
A reason for tomorrow.
And behind all that, the memory of a dying fall;
A sweeter sound than most, as sweet as honey -
None but a blockhead ever wrote except for money;
Even them,
The singer and the lyricist."

The tech crew came and covered up the drums,
The stage hands moved to wind away the cables.
Said the whisper, "At this point, it becomes
The stuff of cults and fables.
All those memories, that mellow as they perish,
A handful of dust, to dream about and cherish,
Nothing more;
A singer and a lyricist."

The whisper fades away, here in the light,
Where the music plays and cannot be denied.
The shroud lies empty, brilliant and white;
The stone's rolled back, the grave is open wide,
And trumpets sounding on the other side -
As a sapling grows where once the forest died

"Recollection of what used to be," I said,
"The half-remembered shadows of the glory
Can heal the sick and maybe raise the dead;
But that's another story."
For I could hear the melody inside my head;
I had no feeling of a dream dead and decaying,
And so ignored the words the voice was saying.
For I hear the song for ever new
And when I'm doing that, remember you;
The singer and the lyricist

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Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 22:33:47 +0000
To: Midnight Voices <email address>
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV571 Re: MV408; MV380; MV366: Sales Figures

Dear Ian C and all,

Pete eventually found the real, rather than recollected, sales figures for
his albums, and notes his memory was at fault:

"AKAN, BOTBS and ROS sold closely similar amounts at the top of the list,
but in that order (that's combined Fontana and RCA sales for BOTBS).  Then
comes SD, then LL, then DTMA (likewise combined)."

That still leaves DTMA combined sales trailing. I agree with Ian -- DTMA
should have sold at least as well as BOTBS if they'd been bought as they
came out. But in general I don't think it happened that way. I'd been aware
of (familiar with, even) Pete's songs, but was only moved to buy my first
PA album (DTMA) after hearing No Dice on the radio. Immediately then I went
back for BOTBS. But I suspect many first made Pete's acquaintance at AKAN
or subsequently, and their purchase of the first two albums had perhaps to
await the RCA reissues. That would bear out the known figure (1200-ish) for
the Philips release of DTMA against some 8000 for the RCA. I don't know why
at that point BOTBS should have been favoured -- may have been to do with
release dates (don't know) more than content or design (the reissue covers
are similar to each other but bear no resemblance to the originals). 

-- Steve

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Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 09:52:55 PST
From: "Jones,David L" <email address>
Subject: MV572: Eddie Prue arrives
To: Midnight Voices <email address>

RE: annotated DTMA.  
"Unaware that Eddie Prue was on the way".  
EP is a character in "The Brasher Doubloon", released in 1947
by 20th Cent. Fox and scripted by Raymond Chandler
based on his novel. This from the Internet Movie DB.
(the entry is http://uk.imdb.com/cache/title-exact/22156).

Dave Jones
Spinning his wheels in Rochester NY, USA.

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Web Digest week 18 (28.12.97, MV565 - 572) ends   | index | prev | next |

The discussion forum for fans of Pete Atkin and Clive James,
their works and collaborators on stage, TV, disc and in print.
Midnight Voices