Drag over the black stemmed noteheads to hear the bird and how he might sound on an electric guitar.
The American Robin sings “Cheerily, Cheeriup, Cheerio”. The above riff consists of perfect fourths going up and down. C is 4 degrees higher than an F, and G is 4 degrees higher than a D. Essentially, the Robin riff is an F to G movement, or secundal movement; the interval of a whole tone.
The Eastern Towhee plays something like an A minor(add 9). Drag over his noteheads:
Ornithologists like to sing human lyrics to bird songs. “Drink your tea” is what they came up with for this doirty boird.
Now…
MAKE YOUR OWN BOIRD BAND SONG AT HOME!
1.First get a waveform of your favorite boird.
You’ll also have to get your parents to steal some software for you that will allow you to look at the waveform (like Cool Edit, Pro Tools).
2.Then analyze every little sine wave that comes out of your favorite boird’s beak. It’ll help if your software has a Frequency Analyzer to find the ridiculously out of tune boird notes.
Note: All boirds sing microtones. Transferring a bird song to equal temperament will cause you much psychedelic pain. The dissonance will be too much to bear. It’s best to switch to clean every once in a while.
3. Just add drums on top of the guitar that rests on top of the birds. Now you’ve got your very own boirderlized rock song! If you want, add some screamies too!
COMING SOON:
The psychotic Killdeer Boird, and bass-driven Owls!
There is no greater gift than group-singing a song to a loved one on the day of their birth. It’s too bad the only known Happy Birthday song is a slow waltz written 100 years ago that no one likes to sing. Perhaps this is because it’s too long. Might we simply cut this 8-bar waltz in half?
Ah! That’s better. Almost like the bumper on a radio station. And now back to our regular atonal chit-chat…
For the people’s credit, the “8-bar Happy Birthday” is really hard to sing, and it’s not like there’s a grand piano in every household anymore to help you find the key. The first chord of this song is made dissonant by a passing note in the melody; the “birth” (E note). This creates an unstable G major Sixth chord (G, B, D, E).
Trying singing that shit in tune with your flat family.
All the melodic jumps in the B-day song are quite tricky too. Best to stick with the 4-bar version and blow out them candles Prestissimo.
But let’s please keep this cheeky little melody around…
Who can resist the deliciously mocking tone of the G Dominant Seventh?
“Many More” is derived from “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin. You can hear the theme towards the beginning (at 00:55), played on the piano. It’s also the last thing played before the big crash at the end.
Gee, I wish human life were more musical. All I hear is the 2-note songs of birds, and the 1-note drones of machines.
No, that is not my wish. I’m not telling…
But it certainly involves Animal Liberation and Kid’s Rights.
The biggest sing-alongs on Earth are found at sporting events. Accompanied by a sparse hammond organ, thousands of people sing simple intervals and clap various 4/4 rhythms, albeit in a thousand different keys and at a thousand different tempos. This one’s my favorite. Drag over the black stemmed noteheads.
“Asshole” is a minor third interval, meaning there are three steps between the B-flat “Ass” and the G “Hole”. The singing of minor third intervals in mocking fashion, such as Na na na na Poo Poo or Farted On, can ultimately be traced back to the 18th century children’s song “Ring Around the Rosie”.
Another mocking minor third is found in the basketball chant “Defense.”
Drag over them noteheads…
“Defense” is usually followed by a three beat “cha cha cha”. This feel and tempo is also found in the 4/4 beat of the Bay City Roller’s song “Saturday“.
Another popular stomp and clap rhythm is Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. It has a classic 4/4 “boom boom pah” beat.
Baseball features this little call and answer song, arranged for Hammond organ and a thousand screamoes.
The basketball analogue of “Charge” is found in the “Sucks” melody below.
Now, Scotty Pippen in no way sucks. He’s made so many clutch shots and buzzer-beaters that the above widget should be ashamed.
Finally, we have the “Wave.” The audience wave involves thousands of people emulating an oscillating sine wave traveling through a thick fleshy medium, while singing sweet sine waves gliding up and down an octave, known as portamento.
Music is born of Noise and applauded with Noise. The more musical a performance, the nosier the reaction. Some audience members might whistle or woo, but not usually in key. So too with blind hand clapping that says nothing of the tempo and rhythm of the applauded music just heard.
Drag over these noteheads:
The above example is taken from a live version of Harvest Moon by Neil Young. As you can hear, the sustain and decay of the final D major chord is completely drowned out by the cacophony of dissonant woo’s and arhythmic applause.
Audiences get lazy when they don’t have any licks. They have nothing to practice. They don’t get to have any participatory fun in the music created. It doesn’t have to be like this. There are things that an audience member can do to hone her awareness so that even at a suck-rock show, she can have a kick-ass time.
If the two aforementioned techniques of applause—claps and woo’s—were made to be musical, rather than noisy, then communication between performer and listener could be heightened, and live shows could be more engaging.
Check out figure 2—the tonal woo. For “Harvest Moon”, an audience member can woo the keynote D, to show her appreciation of tonality.
Henceforth, a crowd of people can woo the key chord of a song; in this case—D Major.
Now the above examples are not musically glorious, but that’s the whole point. Most audiences are flat anyway, because the alpha males sing louder than the herd. Regardless, the gesture of tonal wooing will be felt by the performers; just like how sing-alongs are more about the “along” than the “sing”.
As for hand clapping: might the audience clap to the tempo of the song they’re applauding? Try it out in the example below. And for the adventurous concert goer, she can perform polyrhythms on top of the crowd beat. Just use the natural membranophones found on your own body!
Try it at the next show you attend. Clapping in time and wooing in key. Fun shit.
Oh, and here’s a much better live version of Harvest Moon from SNL. It’s just Neil solo, without all the lame harmonies.
Audiences everywhere are clapping on the One. They’ll clap on every beat, regardless of a downbeat feel. This practice must be stopped. A hand-clap is a snare drum, and snare drums belong on the Two and Four.
The need for clapping on the One is born out of fear and distrust of Rests—those unplayed spaces between the notes, collectively known as black noise.
Black noise is just a dream, the silent score of death, as here on Earth, every rest in music is a breath, and can contain the chirps of a cricket, the rustling of audience members in their chairs, or any other color of noise.
Here are the four basic colors of noise. White noise is the shit on your TV. Pink noise is in vogue for neurophonic meditatiors. Brown noise makes any sentient being with an asshole immediately shit upon hearing the slightest decibel.
It’s impossible for most people to allow a rest to sound without fulfilling the urge to color that space with noise. A socially acceptable kick drum would help to standardize crowd rhythms in the right direction. May I recommend the Floor Stomp?
Clapping on the Ones is unacceptable. Why do white people do this? Haven’t they heard “We Will Rock You” before, or been to a B-ball game where “We Will Rock You” is correctly stomped and clapped out before their white eyes?Here’s a most pitiful display of Clapping on the One. Of course, it’s the Eagles.
Note: This was a video of the Eagles performing “Take It Easy” with their entire audience clapping on the one.
Clapping on the One certainly has its place, like say in a Hoedown. Although in this case, each clap is often accompanied by a floor-stomp. Plus, in a hoedown, the feel is down all the way, with emphasis on every beat, so Clapping on the One makes more sense. Check out this song from the movie “Willow”.
This melody from Hide ‘n’ Go Seek is a Minor Third interval. There are three musical steps between the notes C (Olly Olly Ox) and the A (-en Free). It is the third smallest interval, behind the semitone and the wholetone.
Nobody knows what the phrase originates from, but the melody is typical of playground melodies. For instance, Nana Poo Poo is also a Minor Third.
Olly Olly belongs to the C Major Pentatonic scale and jumps from the Root (C) to the Minor Six (A). You can play it below by hitting the last two notes backwards.
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The people of Percussionesia speak a peculiar dialect, characterized by Western ears as “noisy and fast”, consisting of phoneticized rock drums. 
