12-Year-Old Piano Prodigy Takes Four Notes Randomly Picked from a Hat and Instantly Uses Them to Improvise a Sonata

in Music | June 26th, 2018

Last fall, 60 Min­utes spent some time with Alma Deutsch­er, a prodi­gy on the piano and the vio­lin. As her Wikipedia page tells us, “At age six she com­posed her first piano sonata. At age sev­en, she com­plet­ed her first major com­po­si­tion, the opera The Sweep­er of Dreams. Aged nine, she wrote a con­cer­to for vio­lin and orches­tra, which she pre­miered in a 2015 per­for­mance.” And at “the age of ten she com­plet­ed her first full-length opera, Cin­derel­la, which had its Euro­pean pre­miere in Vien­na on 29 Decem­ber 2016 under the patron­age of con­duc­tor Zubin Mehta.” Fast for­ward to age twelve, you can watch Alma pull off some­thing that, at this point, should­n’t come as a sur­prise. Above, 6o Min­utes cor­re­spon­dent Bob Pel­ley pulls four ran­dom notes out of a hat. Then, soon enough, Deutsch­er uses the notes to start improv­ing a sonata. Watch more of her per­for­mances on her YouTube chan­nel. And find more prodi­gy per­for­mances in the Relat­eds right below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonard Bern­stein Intro­duces 7‑Year-Old Yo-Yo Ma: Watch the Young­ster Per­form for John F. Kennedy (1962)

Great Vio­lin­ists Play­ing as Kids: Itzhak Perl­man, Anne-Sophie Mut­ter, & More

Maria Anna Mozart Was a Musi­cal Prodi­gy Like Her Broth­er Wolf­gang, So Why Did She Get Erased from His­to­ry?

Eight-Year-Old Drum Prodi­gy Plays Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times;” Robert Plant Watch­es in Won­der

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Watch Paul McCartney Sing Through the Streets of Liverpool on the Latest Episode “Carpool Karaoke”

in Music | June 23rd, 2018

Above, James Cor­den vis­its Liv­er­pool and takes Paul McCart­ney on a trip down mem­o­ry lane. The 23-minute seg­ment fea­tures a lit­tle “car­pool karaoke” and some live per­for­mances by Sir Paul. Songs on the playlist here include “Dri­ve My Car,” “Pen­ny Lane,” “Let It Be,” “When I’m 64”, “Black­bird,” “Hard Day’s Night,” “Obla­di Obla­da,” “Love Me Do,” and “Hey Jude.” Enjoy!

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Genius of Paul McCartney’s Bass Play­ing in 7 Iso­lat­ed Tracks

In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hen­drix Invites Paul McCart­ney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

Watch Glass Walls, Paul McCartney’s Case for Going Veg­e­tar­i­an

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Bill Murray Explains How He Pulled Himself Out of a Deep, Lasting Funk: He Took Hunter S. Thompson’s Advice & Listened to the Music of John Prine

in Comedy, Life, Music, Psychology | June 22nd, 2018

Judg­ing by the out­pour­ing of affec­tion in online com­ment sec­tions, Chica­go folk musi­cian John Prine (may he rest in peace) has helped a great many of his fans through tough times with his human­ist, oft-humor­ous lyrics.

Add fun­ny man Bill Mur­ray to the list.

Tap­ing a video in sup­port of The Tree of For­give­ness, Prine’s first album of new mate­r­i­al in over a decade, Mur­ray recalled a grim peri­od in which a deep funk robbed him of all enjoy­ment. Though he care­ful­ly stip­u­lates that this “bum­mer” could not be diag­nosed as clin­i­cal depres­sion, noth­ing lift­ed his spir­its, until Gonzo jour­nal­ist Dr. Hunter S. Thomp­son—whom Mur­ray embod­ied in the 1980 film, Where the Buf­fa­lo Roam—sug­gest­ed that he turn to Prine for his sense of humor.

Mur­ray took Thompson’s advice, and gave his fel­low Illi­nois­ian’s dou­ble great­est hits album, Great Days, a lis­ten.

This could have back­fired, giv­en that Great Days con­tains some of Prine’s most melancholy—and memorable—songs, from “Hel­lo in There” and “Angel from Mont­gomery” to “Sam Stone,” vot­ed the 8th sad­dest song of all time in a Rolling Stone read­ers’ poll.

But the song that left the deep­est impres­sion on Mur­ray is a sil­ly coun­try-swing num­ber “Lin­da Goes to Mars,” in which a clue­less hus­band assumes his wife’s vacant expres­sion is proof of inter­plan­e­tary trav­el rather than dis­in­ter­est.

To hear Mur­ray tell it, as he thumbs through a copy of John Prine Beyond Words, the moment was not one of gut-bust­ing hilar­i­ty, but rather one of self-aware­ness and relief, a sig­nal that the dark clouds that had been hang­ing over him would dis­perse.

A grate­ful Murray’s admi­ra­tion runs deep. As he told The Wash­ing­ton Post, when he was award­ed the Kennedy Cen­ter Mark Twain Prize for Amer­i­can Humor, he lobbied—unsuccessfully—to get Prine flown in for the cer­e­mo­ny:

I thought it would have been a nice deal because John Prine can make you laugh like no else can make you laugh.

Dit­to Prine’s dear friend, the late, great folk musi­cian, Steve Good­man, the author of “The Veg­etable Song,” “The Lin­coln Park Pirates” (about a leg­endary Chica­go tow­ing com­pa­ny), and “Go, Cubs, Go,” which Mur­ray trilled on Sat­ur­day Night Live with play­ers Dex­ter Fowler, Antho­ny Riz­zo, and David Ross short­ly before the Cub­bies won the 2016 World Series.

I just found out yes­ter­day that Lin­da goes to Mars

Every time I sit and look at pic­tures of used cars

She’ll turn on her radio and sit down in her chair

And look at me across the room as if I was­n’t there

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I wish she would­n’t leave me here alone

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I won­der if she’d bring me some­thing home

Some­thing, some­where, some­how took my Lin­da by the hand

And secret­ly decod­ed our sacred wed­ding band

For when the moon shines down upon our hap­py hum­ble home

Her inner space gets tor­tured by some out­er space unknown

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I wish she would­n’t leave me here alone

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I won­der if she’d bring me some­thing home

Now I ain’t seen no saucers ‘cept the ones upon the shelf

And if I ever seen one I’d keep it to myself

For if there’s life out there some­where beyond this life on earth

Then Lin­da must have gone out there and got her mon­ey’s worth

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I wish she would­n’t leave me here alone

Oh, my stars, my Lin­da’s gone to Mars

Well, I won­der if she’d bring me some­thing home

Yeah, I won­der if she’d bring me some­thing home

Lis­ten to a Great Days Spo­ti­fy playlist here, though nei­ther Open Cul­ture, nor Bill Mur­ray can be held account­able if you find your­self blink­ing back tears.

Bonus: Below, watch Prine and Mur­ray “swap songs and sto­ries about the ear­ly days in Chica­go cross­ing paths with the likes of John Belushi, Steve Good­man and Kris Kristof­fer­son.” Plus more.


Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

Bill Mur­ray Reads the Poet­ry of Lawrence Fer­linghet­ti, Wal­lace Stevens, Emi­ly Dick­in­son, Bil­ly Collins, Lorine Niedeck­er, Lucille Clifton & More

Lis­ten to Bill Mur­ray Lead a Guid­ed Medi­a­tion on How It Feels to Be Bill Mur­ray

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Thurs­day June 28 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Chris Cornell’s Daughter Pays Tribute to Her Father, Singing an Achingly Pretty Cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”

in Life, Music | June 20th, 2018

Just a lit­tle more than a year after Soundgar­den front­man Chris Cor­nell took his own life, his daugh­ter Toni, only 13 years old, released an aching­ly beau­ti­ful trib­ute to her father. Record­ed for Father’s Day, she sings a poignant ver­sion of Prince’s “Noth­ing Com­pares 2 U,” a song her father also per­formed live on many occa­sions. Indeed you can hear his voice on this track too. It’s a duet of sorts.

Released on YouTube, the song came accom­pa­nied by this short let­ter:

Dad­dy, I love you and miss you so much. You were the best father any­one could ask for. Our rela­tion­ship was so spe­cial, and you were always there for me. You gave me courage when I didn’t have any. You believed in me when I didn’t. I miss your love every­day. Record­ing this song with you was a spe­cial and amaz­ing expe­ri­ence I wish I could repeat 100 times over and I know you would too. Hap­py Father’s Day dad­dy, noth­ing com­pares to you. — Toni

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Large Choir Sings “Black Hole Sun”: A Mov­ing Trib­ute to Chris Cor­nell

Soundgarden’s Chris Cor­nell Sings Haunt­ing Acoustic Cov­ers of Prince’s “Noth­ing Com­pares 2 U,” Michael Jackson’s “Bil­lie Jean” & Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song”

Hear Chris Cornell’s Mas­ter­ful Vocals in the Iso­lat­ed Track for Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”

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The Isolated Vocal Tracks of the Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” Turn David Byrne into a Wild-Eyed Holy Preacher

in Music | June 18th, 2018

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

…until you iso­late the vocal tracks, above.

Talk­ing Heads’ Afrobeat-inflect­ed “Once In A Life­time ” has become one of the band’s most icon­ic num­bers. Even casu­al fans are prone to aping lead singer David Byrne’s shouty, freaked out preach­er man deliv­ery, a style born of exper­i­ments in human sam­pling, and cowriter Bri­an Eno’s inter­est in ear­ly hip hop, Niger­ian musi­cian Fela Kuti, and com­bin­ing mul­ti­ple rhyth­mic ele­ments in a sin­gle song.

Byrne insists that the infec­tious lyrics are not a cri­tique of con­sumerism, as is pop­u­lar­ly believed. Instead, he explains, they’re about mind­ful­ness and the uncon­scious:

We oper­ate half-awake or on autopi­lot and end up, what­ev­er, with a house and fam­i­ly and job and every­thing else, and we haven’t real­ly stopped to ask our­selves, “How did I get here?”

Cut loose from the bass, gui­tar, key­boards and drums, the lyrics seem less like semi-impro­vi­sa­tion­al art-geek con­struc­tions than the semi-sin­is­ter ram­blings of a self-styled holy man, maybe the wild-eyed preach­er char­ac­ter Byrne chan­nels in the orig­i­nal video below.

Peo­ple who’ve lis­tened to the stripped down ver­sion online gath­er in the com­ments sec­tion like friends com­par­ing notes near the exit of a haunt­ed house:

I feel like David Byrne is hold­ing me at gun­point and yelling at me in an aban­doned ware­house.

This sounds like David Byrne is lost alone in a cave and shout­ing non­sense into the dark­ness.

It’s like hear­ing a cult some­where in a cav­ern.

This sounds like some­thing you’d hear before being mur­dered??

Read­ers, what asso­ci­a­tions do you have with this song, and where do you find your­self after lis­ten­ing to it sans orches­tra­tion?

And you may find your­self 

Liv­ing in a shot­gun shack

And you may find your­self 

In anoth­er part of the world

And you may find your­self 

Behind the wheel of a large auto­mo­bile

And you may find your­self in a beau­ti­ful house

With a beau­ti­ful wife

And you may ask your­self, well

How did I get here?

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again after the mon­ey’s gone

Once in a life­time, water flow­ing under­ground

And you may ask your­self

How do I work this?

And you may ask your­self

Where is that large auto­mo­bile?

And you may tell your­self

This is not my beau­ti­ful house!

And you may tell your­self

This is not my beau­ti­ful wife!

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again after the mon­ey’s gone

Once in a life­time, water flow­ing under­ground

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Water dis­solv­ing and water remov­ing

There is water at the bot­tom of the ocean

Under the water, car­ry the water

Remove the water at the bot­tom of the ocean!

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again in the silent water

Under the rocks, and stones there is water under­ground

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again after the mon­ey’s gone

Once in a life­time, water flow­ing under­ground

And you may ask your­self

What is that beau­ti­ful house?

And you may ask your­self

Where does that high­way go to?

And you may ask your­self

Am I right? Am I wrong?

And you may say to your­self, “My God! What have I done?”

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again in to the silent water

Under the rocks and stones, there is water under­ground

Let­ting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Let­ting the days go by, water flow­ing under­ground

Into the blue again after the mon­ey’s gone

Once in a life­time, water flow­ing under­ground

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Look where my hand was

Time isn’t hold­ing up

Time isn’t after us

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Let­ting the days go by (same as it ever was)

Let­ting the days go by (same as it ever was)

Once in a life­time 

Let­ting the days go by

Let­ting the days go by

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Talk­ing Heads Per­form The Ramones’ “I Wan­na Be Your Boyfriend” Live in 1977 (and How the Bands Got Their Start Togeth­er)

Talk­ing Heads Fea­tured on The South Bank Show in 1979: How the Ground­break­ing New Wave Band Made Nor­mal­i­ty Strange Again

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Thurs­day June 28 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Eight-Year-Old Drum Prodigy Plays Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times;” Robert Plant Watches in Wonder

in Music | June 18th, 2018

On her Vimeo page, Yoyoka Soma, an eight-year-old-drum­ming prodi­gy, tells you every­thing you need to know to appre­ci­ate this video. Her blurb, accom­pa­ny­ing the video above, reads as fol­lows:

My name is Yoyoka Soma. I am 8 year old Japan­ese drum­mer.

When I was a just small baby, my par­ents had a home stu­dio and there were var­i­ous kinds of instru­ments. My par­ents were per­form­ing music activ­i­ties as ama­teur singer-song­writ­ers and they cra­dled me with their music. When I lis­tened to their songs and gui­tar per­for­mances, I was eager to join them and couldn’t stop beat­ing out a rhythm. That was why I start­ed play­ing the drums. The drum was the first instru­ment in which I felt an inter­est in my life. My par­ents’ music peers often vis­it­ed us to play togeth­er. I was glued to the pow­er­ful and dynam­ic per­for­mances by the drum­mers. At age 2, I was play­ing the drums as if I were play­ing with toys. At age 4, I start­ed per­form­ing at con­certs. At age 5, my fam­i­ly band “Kaneaiy­oyoka” was formed by my par­ents. We have released 2 self-pro­duced CD albums so far. Not only the drums, I also play the key­board and per­form as a vocal­ist. I com­pose lyrics and music as well.

My favorite drum­mers are John Bon­ham, Chris Cole­man and Ben­ny Greb.

As a drum­mer, I enjoy being groove, tones and try to sup­port vocal­ists care­ful­ly. My dream is to be the best drum­mer in the world. In addi­tion, I want to be an artist who can do any­thing: play­ing all instru­ments, record­ing music, mix­ing the sound and design­ing the CD album jack­ets. As I am aim­ing at over­seas activ­i­ties, I am study­ing Eng­lish con­ver­sa­tion. I want to become friends with peo­ple all over the world through my musi­cal activ­i­ties!

As HLAG [Hit Like a Girl] is a con­test only for women, I def­i­nite­ly can’t lose it. I want to be the best female drum­mer. Thanks to the great sup­port by my fam­i­ly and fans, I can con­tin­ue the prac­tice and oth­er musi­cal activ­i­ties. I want to show the best result of my dai­ly prac­tice and come out on top of this con­test!

Yoyoka’s glee­ful per­for­mance of John Bon­ham’s drum sec­tion from Zep­pelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” served as her entry for the 2018 edi­tion of the Hit Like a Girl con­test. She was­n’t amongst the win­ners this year alas. But she undoubt­ed­ly has time–plenty of time–to take anoth­er shot.

Below, you can watch Robert Plan­t’s reac­tion upon view­ing Yoyoka at work. “I know where she could get a good job.” “That’s amaz­ing, isn’t it?”

h/t Mike S.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Makes John Bon­ham Such a Good Drum­mer? A New Video Essay Breaks Down His Inim­itable Style

John Bonham’s Iso­lat­ed Drum Track For Led Zeppelin’s ‘Fool in the Rain’

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

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Experience the Mystical Music of Hildegard Von Bingen: The First Known Composer in History (1098 – 1179)

in History, Music, Religion | June 15th, 2018

The Ger­man abbess, vision­ary, mys­tic poet, com­pos­er, and heal­er Hilde­gard von Bin­gen “has become a sym­bol to dis­parate groups,” writes Bri­an Wise at WQXR, includ­ing “fem­i­nists and the­olo­gians, musi­col­o­gists and new-age med­i­cine prac­ti­tion­ers. Her chants have been set to tech­no rhythms; her writ­ings on nutri­tion have yield­ed count­less cook­books (even though she nev­er left behind a sin­gle recipe.)” She did leave behind an astound­ing body of work that has made her improb­a­bly pop­u­lar for a 12th cen­tu­ry nun, with a live­ly pres­ence on Face­book and her own Twit­ter account, @MysticHildy (“very into tech­nol­o­gy, love to trav­el”).

Her fame rests not only on the beau­ty of her work, but on her extra­or­di­nary life sto­ry and the fact that she is the first com­pos­er to whose work we can put a name. She was born in 1098 in Berm­er­sheim, the tenth child of a noble fam­i­ly. It being the cus­tom then to ded­i­cate a tenth child (a “tithe”) to the church, Hilde­gard was sent to the Monastery of Saint Dis­i­bo­den­berg to become a Bene­dic­tine nun under the tute­lage of Jut­ta, a high­ly-respect­ed anchoress.

“After Jutta’s death,” notes Ford­ham University’s source­book, “when Hilde­gard was 38 years of age, she was elect­ed the head of the bud­ding con­vent liv­ing with­in cramped walls of the anchor­age.”

Through­out her life, Hilde­gard had expe­ri­enced visions, begin­ning at the age of 3. (Oliv­er Sacks attrib­uted these to migraines). At age 42, she had a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence that rad­i­cal­ly changed her life. She described this moment in her writ­ings:

And it came to pass … when I was 42 years and 7 months old, that the heav­ens were opened and a blind­ing light of excep­tion­al bril­liance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kin­dled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burn­ing but warm­ing… and sud­den­ly I under­stood of the mean­ing of expo­si­tions of the books…

Over­whelmed, and fear­ful of writ­ing down her visions “because of doubt and a low opin­ion of myself and because of diverse say­ings of men,” she nonethe­less found encour­age­ment from lead­ers in the church to write and cir­cu­late her the­o­log­i­cal work: “With papal impri­matur, Hilde­gard was able to fin­ish her first vision­ary work Scivias (“Know the Ways of the Lord”) and her fame began to spread through Ger­many.” Soon after, she relo­cat­ed her con­vent to Bin­gen, and began an incred­i­bly pro­duc­tive peri­od in the last few decades of her life.

All told, she turned out an “extra­or­di­nary array of cre­ative trea­sures,” writes Wise: a dra­ma in verse, “more than 70 musi­cal works, med­ical texts filled with 2,000 reme­dies, writ­ings pre­sent­ing fem­i­nine arche­types for the divine.” Although she held to ortho­dox doc­trine, oppos­ing the Cathars, for exam­ple, and oth­er “schis­mat­ics,” she was a mys­tic whose ideas far exceed­ed the cramped the­o­log­i­cal con­fines of so many male coun­ter­parts. “Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as ‘liv­ing sparks’ of God’s love, com­ing from God as day­light comes from the sun,” writes Fr. Don Miller. “This uni­ty was not appar­ent to many of her con­tem­po­raries.”

Her tran­scen­dent sight did not blind her to the diverse beau­ty of the nat­ur­al world. “She not only had faith,” says Ger­man direc­tor and actress Mar­garethe Von Trot­ta, who made a 2010 biopic about Hilde­gard, “but she was so curi­ous. Today, per­haps she would have been a sci­en­tist because she did so much research on heal­ing peo­ple, on plants and ani­mals.” Hildegard’s tal­ent, intel­lect, and force­ful per­son­al­i­ty made her a for­mi­da­ble per­son, “the only known female fig­ure of her time,” writes Music Acad­e­my Online, “who achieved such intel­lec­tu­al stature and whose con­tri­bu­tions have had last­ing impact.” The revived inter­est in her music coin­cid­ed with “the ‘new age’ chant craze in the mid-1990s,” but Hildegard’s work dif­fers marked­ly from medieval chant writ­ten for male voic­es.

Vary­ing from “high­ly syl­lab­ic to dra­mat­ic melis­mas (swirling melodies on a sin­gle open syl­la­ble,” Melanie Spiller explains, “her music is quite dis­tinc­tive and eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able, with unsu­al ele­ments for the time, includ­ing exceed­ing an octave by a fourth or fifth, and large and fre­quent leaps.” Her music also func­tioned as “a vehi­cle for her own mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ence,” and it con­tin­ues to move listeners—of faith and no faith—who hear in her song cel­e­bra­tions of the divine­ly fem­i­nine and the won­ders of the nat­ur­al world.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1200 Years of Women Com­posers: A Free 78-Hour Music Playlist That Takes You From Medieval Times to Now

A YouTube Chan­nel Com­plete­ly Devot­ed to Medieval Sacred Music: Hear Gre­go­ri­an Chant, Byzan­tine Chant & More

Mashup Weaves Togeth­er 57 Famous Clas­si­cal Pieces by 33 Com­posers: From Bach to Wag­n­er

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Rapping, Deconstructed: How Some of the Greatest Rappers Make Their Rhymes

in Music, Poetry | June 15th, 2018

If high school Eng­lish teach­ers can chal­lenge skep­ti­cal stu­dents to cul­ti­vate an appre­ci­a­tion for Shake­speare and poet­ry with rap-based assign­ments, might the reverse also hold true?

Many afi­ciona­dos of high cul­ture turn up their noses at rap, believ­ing it to be a sim­ple form, requir­ing more brag­gado­cio than tal­ent.

Estelle Caswell, rap fan and pro­duc­er of Vox’s Ear­worm series, may get them to rethink that posi­tion with the above video, show­cas­ing how great rap­pers assem­ble rhymes.

Caswell uses visu­al graph­ing to explain the progress from the A‑A-B‑B scheme of ear­ly rap­per Kur­tis Blow’s “The Breaks” (1980) to the com­plex and sur­pris­ing holorimes of her per­son­al favorite, MF DOOM.

To appre­ci­ate her visu­al break­downs, you must under­stand that raps can be scored like tra­di­tion­al music. Here the bar reigns supreme—each bar con­sist­ing of four beats. The fur­ther out we go from rap’s ori­gins, the more its prac­ti­tion­ers play with place­ment and rhyme.

Above are some lyrics from Eric B. and Rakim’s 1986 cut, “Eric B. Is Pres­i­dent,” fea­tur­ing inter­nal rhymes high­light­ed in yel­low and mul­ti-syl­lab­ic rhymes picked out in pink. You’ll also find them escap­ing the tyran­ny of the bar line, con­tin­u­ing the rhyme on the first beat of the next bar.

Caswell is so intent on exam­in­ing the late Noto­ri­ous B.I.G.‘s “Hyp­no­tize,” that she over­looks a rather siz­able ele­phant in the room, the misog­y­nis­tic POV behind those en and oo sounds.

Short­ly there­after, Mos Def ups both the rhyming game and the fem­i­nist account­abil­i­ty, by stuff­ing his com­po­si­tions with mul­ti-syl­lab­ic words and phras­es that sort of rhyme—cinnamon, Entenmann’s, adren­a­line and “sent to them.”

Mean­while, Andre 3000 is play­ing with vary­ing the accent of his rhymes, rel­a­tive to the beat and bar, rather than com­mit­ting to a pre­dictable thud­ding.

Eminem, who has the dis­tinc­tion of pen­ning the first rap to win an Acad­e­my Award, places a pre­mi­um on nar­ra­tive, and refus­es to con­cede that noth­ing rhymes with orange.

Cur­rent chart top­per Kendrick Lamar’s gal­lop­ing “Rig­amor­tis” estab­lish­es a musi­cal motif that Caswell com­pares to Beethoven’s famous fifth.

MF DOOM kicks the ball fur­ther down the court with dou­ble enten­dres, word­play and a will­ing­ness to steer clear of the expect­ed “b word.”

Lis­ten to a Spo­ti­fy playlist of the songs ref­er­enced in the video.

Delve fur­ther into the sub­ject by read­ing the thoughts of rap ana­lyst Mar­tin Con­nor, whom Caswell cred­its as a sort of bea­con.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Hip Hop Music Visu­al­ized on a Turntable Cir­cuit Dia­gram: Fea­tures 700 Artists, from DJ Kool Herc to Kanye West

Found­ing Fathers, A Doc­u­men­tary Nar­rat­ed By Pub­lic Enemy’s Chuck D, Presents the True His­to­ry of Hip Hop

150 Songs from 100+ Rap­pers Get Art­ful­ly Woven into One Great Mashup: Watch the “40 Years of Hip Hop”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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