Childhood TV favourites

On 04/05/2018 14:19, NY wrote:
"JNugent" wrote in message
...
On 04/05/2018 09:25, Scott wrote:

Bill Wright wrote:

Robin Hood, William Tell, Popeye, Mr Edd, Beverly Hillbillies,
Flintstones

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

I too had wondered about the weakness and self-circular contrivance of
that.

Perhaps Oscar could have used the line:

Doh - a deer, a female deer
Re - a drop of golden sun
Mi - a name I call myself
Fa - a long, long, way to run
So - a needle pulling thread
La - the Liverpool for "lad"
Te - a drink with jam and bread,
...which will bring us back to Do.

I have a confession. I learned the song long before I'd ever heard of
the do-re-mi musical system of notes. They were just random words (Doe,
Ray, Me, Far, Sew, La, Tea, Doe) and it wasn't until I was well into my
teens that I saw a reference in an old textbook about do-re-mi and the
penny finally dropped. It didn't help that our "music" lessons were more
about getting us to appreciate very highbrow classical music than about
the science and logic behind chords, chord progressions and why one key
sounds subtly different to another (because notes are not *exactly* 2 ^
(1/13) ratio apart). That would have been far more interesting that the
music teacher going into raptures about Mahler's symphony or Das Lied
Von Der Erde - Alby had a thing about German composers and matronly
contraltos with power-assisted voices.

As I understand it (and I read this many decades ago), the syllables of
the sung scale (do-re-mi, etc) were not randomly chosen, but were the
actual fragments of word in a particular piece of written music meant to
be sung on those notes in a particular key (presumably C).

On 04/05/2018 14:42, JNugent wrote:
On 04/05/2018 14:19, NY wrote:
"JNugent" wrote in message
...
On 04/05/2018 09:25, Scott wrote:

Bill Wright wrote:

Robin Hood, William Tell, Popeye, Mr Edd, Beverly Hillbillies,
Flintstones

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

I too had wondered about the weakness and self-circular contrivance
of that.

Perhaps Oscar could have used the line:

Doh - a deer, a female deer
Re - a drop of golden sun
Mi - a name I call myself
Fa - a long, long, way to run
So - a needle pulling thread
La - the Liverpool for "lad"
Te - a drink with jam and bread,
...which will bring us back to Do.

I have a confession. I learned the song long before I'd ever heard of
the do-re-mi musical system of notes. They were just random words
(Doe, Ray, Me, Far, Sew, La, Tea, Doe) and it wasn't until I was well
into my teens that I saw a reference in an old textbook about do-re-mi
and the penny finally dropped. It didn't help that our "music" lessons
were more about getting us to appreciate very highbrow classical music
than about the science and logic behind chords, chord progressions and
why one key sounds subtly different to another (because notes are not
*exactly* 2 ^ (1/13) ratio apart). That would have been far more
interesting that the music teacher going into raptures about Mahler's
symphony or Das Lied Von Der Erde - Alby had a thing about German
composers and matronly contraltos with power-assisted voices.

As I understand it (and I read this many decades ago), the syllables of
the sung scale (do-re-mi, etc) were not randomly chosen, but were the
actual fragments of word in a particular piece of written music meant to
be sung on those notes in a particular key (presumably C).

Found it (the first URL gives the lyric from which the single-syllable
versions were derived):

https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/03/04/sound-of-music-history-do-re-mi/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonic_sol-fa

"JNugent" wrote in message
...
As I understand it (and I read this many decades ago), the syllables of
the sung scale (do-re-mi, etc) were not randomly chosen, but were the
actual fragments of word in a particular piece of written music meant to
be sung on those notes in a particular key (presumably C).

Well I never knew that. I presume it wouldn't matter what key you sung the
song in, as long as you designated Do to be the same note in the song.

Ah yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge, under the heading Origin
(apart from the fact that the first note was ut rather than do).

And my "I presume" above assumes "movable do", rather than "fixed do" which
sounds very much the same as calling the notes by their real names A, B,...,
G.

On 04/05/2018 14:31, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Fri, 04 May 2018 09:25:06 +0100, Scott
wrote:

Robin Hood, William Tell, Popeye, Mr Edd, Beverly Hillbillies, Flintstones

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

Perhaps they checked the dictionary entry for "two" which says "one
more than one", and then "three" which says "one more than two", and a
few subsequent numbers, and then realised that it was what could be
called a precedent and they'd be wasting their time worrying about it.

Rod.

Now can someone please explain how to "sing through the night like a
lark who is learning to pray'?

I've tried but I can't seem to get it right.

Graham. wrote:




Which brings us to my favourite Hangman clue, when I was about seven.

Australian children's TV series

T-- T------- A--------- o- t-- T------- T--


Talking about Australian productions does anyone remember “The Stranger�.
Plot was an alien arriving in a flying saucer looking for somewhere his
fellows people could move to .
In appearance the character looked no different from the Humans he met
though of course we are talking about Australians here.
I must have been impressed by the flying saucer as I made one out a variety
cheese box with some copper slate fixings as landing gear.

GH

On Friday, 4 May 2018 14:00:51 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:
And the Liverpool analogue tide calculator !

Damn, I missed that episode!

Owain

On Wed, 2 May 2018 14:01:24 +0100, Bill Wright
wrote:

Robin Hood, William Tell, Popeye, Mr Edd, Beverly Hillbillies, Flintstones

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

I have pondered on that, many years ago, without result.
I did however improve on Ray; substituting shaft for drop, don't you
agree that's a better choice? I can't imagine what Oscar Hammerstein
was thinking ;-)

--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On Fri, 04 May 2018 09:25:06 +0100, Scott
wrote:

Robin Hood, William Tell, Popeye, Mr Edd, Beverly Hillbillies, Flintstones

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

Perhaps they checked the dictionary entry for "two" which says "one
more than one", and then "three" which says "one more than two", and a
few subsequent numbers, and then realised that it was what could be
called a precedent and they'd be wasting their time worrying about it.

Could it be a comic device, and Hammerstein expected the Maria
character to deliver the line with an expression on her face implying
she was making the words up "on the hoof"? That would have solved his
problem. (Cue for another song).
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 03/05/2018 11:33, Graham. wrote:


Yes indeed. Television was just what John Reith needed to ensure there
would be someone left to empty his bins.


Then various short-sighted politicians had the idea that they could
achieve that aim by allowing half the Third World to bring themselves
their backward cultural values to our shores.

Bill

On Fri, 4 May 2018 14:19:22 +0100, "NY" wrote:

I wonder how many man/woman hours were expended trying to think of a
better line for 'Do re me' in The Sound of Music than 'La - a note to
follow so'.

I too had wondered about the weakness and self-circular contrivance of
that.

Perhaps Oscar could have used the line:

Doh - a deer, a female deer
Re - a drop of golden sun
Mi - a name I call myself
Fa - a long, long, way to run
So - a needle pulling thread
La - the Liverpool for "lad"
Te - a drink with jam and bread,
...which will bring us back to Do.

I have a confession. I learned the song long before I'd ever heard of the
do-re-mi musical system of notes. They were just random words (Doe, Ray, Me,
Far, Sew, La, Tea, Doe) and it wasn't until I was well into my teens that I
saw a reference in an old textbook about do-re-mi and the penny finally
dropped.

In the days of LP sleeve notes, it was quite common for titles and
other info about a piece of muisic to be given in several languages
(because there was room to print it on a 12" sleeve, and why not, I
suppose), and you'd often see titles with the key of the music given
as something like "Concerto En Re Mineur Bwv 596", (meaning D minor)
so the notation still seems to be official, at least in French.

Rod.

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