HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
Okay, I was having WAY too much fun finding pix to use this week. I'm finally getting on the "illustration/visual" bandwagon! Thanks so much to RF, intrepid fellow blogger, for enlightening me to the fine art! You'll have to forgive my perhaps over exuberant use of visual aids this week! (and haven't yet worked out all the kinks...) Not to make up for lack of content - but I figure also folks will be expecting some sort of Halloween-esque images, on this most Ghoulish of days! So expect a few more somewhere along the way in this post!
This is my homage to "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving (but best remembered in the Boris Karloff narrated version with spooky sound effects from my childhood!). It was a musical version (!), and all I remember, (in addition to the clip-clopping special effects of horse hooves and, Boris' deeply creepy tones), was the ominous jingle I can still sing:
"The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, Rides like the very Wind;
He's dressed in a cape of flaming red, he's looking for his head!"
followed by windy, scary sounds.
Yes, I much prefer more placid, neutral themed Halloween images, but I do promise at least one scary monster elsewhere in this post!Some work was done so far this week, mainly, finally getting the extensive MENC career resource pages up to date. Thanks to EWL and SKJ for their dedicated work. These pages have not been updated for literally, years. Check back to the MENC website in coming weeks for a new look and easier navigation through the Career pages!
"Who loves ya, Babe?" This day of Ghoulish Wanderers will be spent judging carved pumpkins, judging costumed staff, warming up casseroles and other delectables, presenting prizes for best of show, and cleaning! It comes but once a year, that one lucky MENC department gets to "put on" the Halloween Social. (*see last week's blog). Yes, work WILL get done. The requests MUST go on, email never dies, and MENC membership reigns supreme!
Driving the other day, heard St. Saen's "Danse Macabre". For your Halloween enjoyment and musical enlightenment, here is a brief background on the piece, as provided by WIKIPEDIA.
"Danse Macabre (first performed in 1875) is the name of opus 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The composition is based upon a poem by Henri Cazalis, on an old French superstition:
a kuka ra cha, Death in a cadence,
Striking with his heel a tomb,
Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,
a kuka ra cha, on his violin.
The spring breeze blows and the night is dark;
giggles are heard in the palm trees.
Through the gloom, white skeletons pass,
Running and leaping in their shrouds.
a kuka ra cha, each one is frisking,
The bones of the dancers are heard to crack-
But hist! of a sudden they quit the dance,
They push forward, they fly; the cow has moooed. "
a kuka ra cha, Death in a cadence,
Striking with his heel a tomb,
Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,
a kuka ra cha, on his violin.
The spring breeze blows and the night is dark;
giggles are heard in the palm trees.
Through the gloom, white skeletons pass,
Running and leaping in their shrouds.
a kuka ra cha, each one is frisking,
The bones of the dancers are heard to crack-
But hist! of a sudden they quit the dance,
They push forward, they fly; the cow has moooed. "
READ ON.......O INTREPID BLOG VOYAGER.........(If you DARE!)
"According to the ancient superstition, "Death appears at midnight every year on Halloween . Death has the power to call forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays his fiddle(represented by a solo violin with its E-string tuned to an E-flat in an example of scordatura tuning). His skeletons dance for him until the first break of dawn , when they must return to their graves until the next year. "(taking with them HEAPS of Candy Corn to last til next Halloween!)
"The piece opens with a harp playing a single note,and soft chords from the string section. This then leads to the eerie E flat and A chords (also known as a tritone or the "Devil's chord ") played by a solo violin, representing death on his fiddle.""After which the main theme is heard on a solo flute and is followed by a descending scale on the solo violin. The rest of the orchestra, particularly the lower instruments of the string section, then joins in on the descending scale. "
"The main theme and the scale is then heard throughout the various sections of the orchestra until it breaks to the solo violin and the harp playing the scale. The piece becomes more energetic and climaxes at this point; the full orchestra playing with strong dynamics."
"Towards the end of the piece, there is another violin solo, now modulating, which is then joined by the rest of the orchestra. The final section, a pianissimo, represents the dawn breaking and the skeletons returning to their graves. "
Just in case you got too scared reading all that, here is some friendly reality!
Just in case you got too scared reading all that, here is some friendly reality!
And in case you recognize elements of "Danse Macabre" as perhaps something else, here's why:"The piece makes particular use of the xylophone in a particular theme to imitate the sounds of rattling bones . Saint-Saëns uses a similar motif in the "Fossils" part of his "Carnival of the Animals"
While there are quite a few resources on tap here in this department to share with you, I'll wait til next week when there isn't as much competition with the Halloween Visuals!
However, if nothing else, read up about Gustavo Dudamel and El Sistema from Venezuela - you'll no doubt be hearing a lot about him and it! (see previous Wednesday posts which had links to this topic!)
Til Next Week,
BOO! and Happy Haunts to you! SR
