Cyberpluckers,
be warned of another of my outrageous
projects combining musical (autoharp related!) content with (formally
ambitious) silliness!
:-)
Allow me please a little musing before I
turn to the music.
With language, we can
distinguish between form and content. If we happen to express a message in a
wrong form, we may be misunderstood (there's been examples on this list, also
recently!). On the other hand, nonsense clothed in fine form can appear as
serious content. (Or so I hope!)
With music, such a
distinction doesn't make much sense: Music *is* form! A song, consisting of
music *and* language, derives its character, of being sad or merry, most often
from the words, not from the tune. In folk songs (as e.g. "Bury me beneath
the willow"), there is often a stark contrast between the sad or cruel
content and the light, merry form of the melody.
I'll come back to the issue
of form and content later on.
Some time ago we were given (by Gregg A.)
a link to a video of a group playing EL CONDOR PASA. Listening to this made the
tune stuck in my head and I was faced with the necessity to learn it on the
autoharp.
Researching on the Internet, I learned
that the Simon & Garfunkel version, "El Condor Pasa (If I
Could)", is copyright restricted. So it was clear that I wouldn't use the
original title if I ever upload my version to my Web site. Instead, I contrived
a kind of "mondegreen":
Pronounced according to the
Received Pronunciation, the noun "passer" would sound much like the
Spanish verb form "pasa"; and so the sounds of
E L C O N D O R P A S A
are convincingly, I think, emulated by the
sounds of
E L K O N D O O R P A SS ER
or, differently typed,
Elk On Door Passer !
(Additionally, it would
probably help, if the "r" in "door" is pronounced like
George the Scotsman does.)
Now I had a title, although a silly
looking one. But how can nonsense be made acceptable? By using an elaborate,
sophisticated form, giving reason by rhyme, of course!
What I had to do was to
invent a story, making plausible an elk on someone passing through a door.
Which I did. (But wait ...)
Parallel to plotting my story, I
researched further and came across a Web site that promotes the indigenous
language Runasimi, spoken in the Andes:
This site also presents sheet
music showing the original composition by Daniel Alomia Robles (1913), on
which Paul Simon based his version of 1970. You find the original tune by
scrolling down to the bottom of
http://www.runasimi.de/y-kuntur.htm
.
Guessing from what I see on
that site, I conclude that using this sheet music for non-commercial use is
legal if the source link is given - you just saw it right here!
It is for this version that I
made an autoharp arrangement.
You find it in the row with
ID label "condor" in the Table of Music and Musings on my Web site:
http://ziggyharpdust.net/table01.html
Note that the tune's empty key signature
(no flats, no sharps) designates not only the key of C major but also A minor,
and here, especially, A *harmonic* minor, consisting of the chords Dm, Am and
E7. In my understanding, the tune stays mainly in A harmonic minor but seeks
relief in C major in a few places, clearly recognisable by the out of
scale (!) _g_ notes.
(The 7th degree in a harmonic
minor scale is raised by a half step, becoming _g#_ in A harmonic minor,
as we recently were reminded of in a posting by Charles Whitmer.)
The assignment of Dm (instead
of Am) for the _a_ notes in measures 8 & 9 and 12 & 13 is due to the
_f_ harmony notes below the _a_ melody notes in the corresponding places in the
Piano y Canto score, on the Web page (just mentioned) immediately
above the notation ("Kuntur phawan") which I use for my version.
The discovery of the free version
threatened to make my invented story superfluous. But meanwhile I loved my
crazy idea so much (yes, such am I!) that I adapted my words to the structure
of Robles' original tune (that differs slightly, mainly rhythmically,
from the Simon & Garfunkel one).
The tune has an A part,
repeated once, and a B part, repeated once - the B part contains a
longer phrase that is repeated within each repetition of the B part. According
to this structure I divided my story also in two parts: the A part asking a
question, the B part answering it.
And now the
faint-hearted may skip the rest of this mail, all others, better gird your
loins, for here it comes (cf. my sheet music):
Elk On Door Passer
A:
How come that you are carrying that elk /
on your back / through the door?
... It looks so silly, strange, so
strange!
Are you a stand-in for a catafalque? /
Does the elk / live no more?
... And then your nasty mange, bad mange!
B:
I can this easily explain / for I've been
told / riding an elk
will instantly, at once, regain / my skin
of gold / without a whelk
... so I've been truly told, been told.
I got this, bumping in my car, / wapiti
kind, / and rode it through
this door so low: I hit the bar, / I fell
behind! / What could I do?
... So do not chide and scold, don't
scold, don't scold!
Well, now you probably see what the notion
"providing reason with rhyme" is meant to mean!
(I hope that at least Paul Roberts appreciates
my folly. Do you, Paul?)
Practising the Robles version quite a lot,
I've grown to like it better than Paul Simon's pop version. I hope you will be
able to agree.
Cheers!
Ziggy in Cologne, Germany
PS:
If you don't know the term
"mondegreen", you might look up this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
PPS:
The "content" of my story was
developed from the title, naturally, and from one word, "whelk", the
only rhyme with "elk" that I found. (The other one I'm rhyming with
"elk", "catafalque", is not fully satisfying because of the
slightly different vowel sound. But, on the other hand, if Philip Larkin rhymes
"breadths" with "paths" [in his poem "An Arundel
Tomb"], why should I be over-diligent?!)
I can't remember where
and when I first met the word "whelk", meaning not a mollusc but
a pimple. Perhaps in an advertisement like the one I just made up for a
fictitious AAA, an Anti-Acne-Application:
No whelk, no wheal,
we safely heal!
Take our Super AAA,
you'll be looking like a fay!
("Super AAA" seems to be directed
only to girls.)
Ah, what would life be without rhyme??
Without reason!! (Or at least without a lot of fun!)
(If you wonder where from I get my
inspiration, let me tell you that I recently read again, after more than 35
years, Dorothy L. Sayers' detective novel of 1933, Murder Must Advertise. No
autoharp in this novel, only a bombardon [played by a member of a street band,
who gets frightened by pennies thrown into the tuba funnel from the roof of a
six stories building by Lord Peter because "The penny goes down with a
tremendous whack"] and a penny whistle [which serves to disturb a
woman].)