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ELEMENT OF
MUSIC GOOD MUSIC ROCK * N ROU
PITCH Variety of pitch ** Constant repetition of pitches
Melod es Almost no melody (only oft- repeated fragments)
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Accurate pitches . Slightly under true pitch (as MI "blues-')
Use * many chords (harmonies) . Repetition of same chords (usually I. IV. V)
Modulations (Changing Leys, or tonal levels) Almost never modulates (stays m same key )
Uses very high pitches for Overuse of high pitches to give wild, screaming sounds
contrast and clima« points (Instruments can be made to scream)
Aeit organized pitch patterns "Wild sound " (often incoherent)
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RHYTHM Variety of rhythms Constant repetition of same rhythmic figure
Based on rhythm (the "backbone " of music) Based on the "Beat'' ("Rhythm doesn ' t really exist in if *
Stravinsky)
Accurate rhythms. ... ."Breaking up- * of rhythms (usually | ust before the beat) ,
Natural accents (4/4 time 1 2 3 4) ."Unnatural ** accents (pattern reversed : 4/4 time 1 5 3 4 )
Always has well organized rhythmic patterns Often has no apparent rhythmic organization:
• wild sound "
Complete dominance of the "beat" (some taken directly
Rhythm used as only one part of musk from the drum beats of heathen rituals)
Rhythms which lead to natural physical motions "Beats" which evoke unnatural, sensual " gyrations "
(rhythm demands motion) (many changes in the "driving motion" of rhythms)
Constantly driving "beat" (even in so ca led slow songs
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it is in the background)
INTENSITY Much contrast between loud and soft As loud as possible, as tong as possible
Constant change in dynamic level Use of powerful hi- fi equipment for greatest possible
Intensity to "completely captivate the listener"
Sound level always controlled , Sound level often reaches uncontrolled wild stage —
even in more exciting pieces (measured at 95 decibels which equals riveting
riveters wear tar plugs)
Aide variation m use of "force intensity"
(this is qualitative, not quantitative, and can be as Always full of strong " force intensity " (with record
strong in soft music as in loud ) piaying. tum the volume all tha way down and iistan)
«tl
ATMOSPHERE * - ordered system Chaos
Degrading quality
lifting- up quality
Strengthens moral and spiritual principles Taars away moral principles, is anti- spiritual and anti- God
in many instances
Clean words, with good purposes Sensual, dirty, sadiatk. naurotic.
and even blasphemous words
The Communist infiltration into Black Sabbath? No, he wasn’t familiar
the subversion of American music with them, he answered. “Basically, I
has been nothing short of phe- don t really care who plays the hard
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nomenal. ” rock stuff. What 1 say about it is still
“Rhythm, Riots and Revolution
true no matter who plays it. My work is
Communist infiltration ... sub- more of a philosophical nature than it is
version ... phenomenal. Sounds like a boiled down to any particular group.”
script from the old TV scries “I Led 3 Philosophy ... maybe I could come
Lives.” According to the “RR&R ” up with something here. Alan Watts,
*
AJdous Huxley, Leary and Baba Ram
book. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie
were the Rosenbergs of pop music. Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert ) had all used
Sure, their songs are political , they had psychedelic drugs as aids to awareness.
Communist leanings, I said, but both Was there any validity to their claims?
wrote some rather catchy tunes too, Noebel: “Scholars and intellectuals have
favorites like “This Land Is Your Land ” done some of the stupidest things in the
and “Where Have AJ1 The Flowers world. (I had to agree with him on that,
Gone?” Nocbel again answered with a Noebel (left ) with Mojo Rev. Billy James and told him so.) Philosophy is my
Hargis.
question: “Can music be used as a avocation and all you have to do is
weapon of subversion?” Since I made “Or maybe acid,” I said, in faked either look on the Freudian side or the
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no reply, he continued. “I ’m arguing in seriousness. Pavlovian side or the evil nature side of
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this book that it has been and is still “ ... or acid , or whatever it is. So any of these philosophers and you can ’ t
being used. ” He cited another book - I m saying that the so- called good good believe they were supposed to be some
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Great Day Coming written by a Dr. songs with no political implications are of the smartest men in the world.
Denisoff of the University of Illinois, in just the sugar around the arsenic. And I Huxley might have thought he was
which the same charge is made that would say this is basically true with the bringing in Brave New World but
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“Secgcr and Guthrie were part and Beatlc songs. ” they ve opened up Pandora s Boxes.”
parcel of the movement to use folk To change the subject, I asked if he Biblical scholar John Alcgro has
music as a weapon for social-political thought Bob Dylan had mellowed since published a book in which he claims
chance, that they were part and parcel the protest days. “Well, Bob Dylan is early Christians ingested Aminita mus-
of the Communist movement. ” (Now probably very close to where nc was caria - magic mushrooms. What was his
another analogy, which I present in its originally. George Jackson was a revo- reaction to these findings?, I asked
entirety, to get the full effect.) “Now if lutionist and anyone singing whoopee in Noebel. “Alcgro calls himself a Biblical
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this is true, then the socalled innocuous favor of George Jackson might as well scholar but he is doing his best, and has
songs would be like the sugar cube sing for Hitler, Stalin, Krushchev or Mao been for years, to subvert Biblical
which contains arsenic. In other words, Tsc- Tung.” Christianity as best he could, and I
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you don t tell someone you ’ re going to Seeger, Guthrie, Dylan. Sure they would say this is more of his approach
poison him, you tell him to drink a cup were influential in the ’ 60s, but this is to it.”
of coffee and you don’t tell him inside 1972. What about all the new super
the sugar cube is a speck of arsenic . • • groups, 1 inquired, GFR. CCR, Faces, CONTINUED ON PAGE 72.
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