Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2008 December 18

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December 18

The minor fall, the major lift

I know what a fourth and a fifth are, but what are a minor fall and a major lift? --Tango (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

this post suggests they are just the feelings that come with using the minor (this is the relative minor of the tonic methinks) and then going back to the fourth. I tried playing it on my keyboard here and I didn't feel particularly fally or lifty. I'll try the guitar. There sure are a lot of blogs and stuff talking about it. NByz (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If I remember right, Cohen is describing the chord changes in the song itself. Its been a while since I played this one, but it goes something like this:

....G...................C..........D

It goes like this the fourth, the fifth

.....Em.................C....D

The minor fall and the major lift

The song uses the basic "pop song" 4-chord progression (I IV V vi). In the key of G (which is how I always play it) the root is G, the 4th chord C, the 5th is D, and the relative minor is Em. The idea behind the "minor fall" is a drop into the relative minor key (Em for G) and the major lift is a return to the major key (in this case G). I could probably come up with about 100 songs that do the same basic progression (I-IV-V on line 1 and vi-IV-V on line 2); which is of course the idea behind the song. He's lost his girlfriend and he's trying to show her how much he loves her (I heard that there's a secret chord/that David played and it pleased the Lord), but he recognizes the futility (but you don't even care for music, do ya) and indeed that the commonness of the song is unlikely to contain that perfect chord (The "it goes like this" part). He feels lost and confused (the baffled king (i.e. the narrator of the song) composing Hallelujah...) One of my favorite songs, BTW. Great tune. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much my take on it, too - at least as far as the chords go. As far as the message of the song overall goees, there's also of course direct Biblical allusions (in a way, it's almost as dense with them as James Joyce's writing, though a lot easier on the brain!). There's a good article on the song on the BBC's news website at this url, BTW. Grutness...wha? 02:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC) (who has yet to hear a better version of this wonderful modern standard than John Cale's)

I have heard Cohen talk about the song, and he called it something like "a four-minute orgasm" and explained the meaning as using religious epiphany as a metaphor for orgasm (Think also the same metaphor in the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer", though its certainly more explicit THERE). The whole thing is a juxtaposition of the sacred (the story of David and Bathsheeba) and the profane (sex), and all of that is wrapped around what is essentially a break-up song, again the breakup of a romantic relationship as juxtaposed to one "losing their faith" and losing their connection with God. It is dense with meaning, and yet beautiful and simple at the same time. And I've always been partial to the Jeff Buckley version, myself... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the song, but fwiw the progression I-IV-V-vi looks like a standard deceptive cadence. Pfly (talk) 08:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that makes a lot of sense! --Tango (talk) 11:35, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Methods used to Compose Classical Music

I usually write songs by trying to find unusual patterns (usually in unusual time signatures) and then build on them. I will often compose the leads by just whipping out the guitar and playing around. Earlier this week, I decided I wanted to try to compose a song in a classical style - a song that would "sound like classical music". It seems like many classical songs were composed as simple arpeggiated chord patterns on a clavichord or piano, with "mono-line" instrumental parts over them, passing the "lead" back and forth. This is how I've started off, and it's pretty interesting, although I wouldn't say it's my best work to listen to (Interestingly enough, re-rendering the midi of the whole project into a voice that can only play one tone at a time yields a pretty wicked dance-sounding song).

I was wondering if this was the usual way that classical music was composed, or if anyone had any other suggestions for a method of yielding a song that sounds 'classical' (other than "using classical instruments, of course" :) ). NByz (talk) 00:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You may want to take a look at the articles Fugue and Sonata. If they don't help, let us know. Deor (talk) 03:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I had never been to that fugue article before. Thanks! NByz (talk) 04:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

See also Alberti bass for your 'simple arpeggiated chord patterns'. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

See also: Counterpoint, Common practice period and Consecutive fifths (which has other relevant info as well). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

As a choreographer I work with composers, and we share strategies for making creating work. The best advice I can give is to be very specific about what you are doing. "Classical Music" is a massive field of enquiry and in order to make something that sounds like classical music is to examine practically specific examples of classical music. For example, as previously suggested looking at particular form (as Deor suggested, the fugue and sonata forms). I would then go on to suggest that once you have picked a form you wish to copy, you have an attempt at trying to copy it. I don't work with ballet (a classical dance form, with similar ideologies to classical music) at all, but if I wanted to start doing so, I would spend some time looking at the movement vocabularies present in that form. Then I would start using them in my own work as a resource. I work a lot with Robert Lepage's RSVP cycle (google it) and there's a general rule that can be quite useful. The outcome of the work will be influenced by the resources you start with. If your resources are a very codified movement vocabulary, then you will probably end up with a very codified piece. If your resources are a bricollage of many different performance elements, then you will probably have a very collage-like piece. Do you see how this related to classical music? I hope I have been helpful Sebbi (talk) 17:03, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Arnold's shotgun in Terminator 2

I was watching T2 on DVD last night and I found myself wondering if and how it's really possible to cock a pump-action shotgun one-handed by spinning it around a finger.

This is the shotgun that Arnold's T-800 uses in the first half of the movie, btw. Most famously when he's riding his Harley through the drainage canals while being chased by the T-1000 in a truck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.195.17 (talk) 06:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The shotgun used in the movie isn't a pump-action, it's a Lever-action (if you recall his method of cocking from the 'gun hidden in the box of roses' scene). The imdb entry for T2's goofs notes that two types of cocking lever were used, one normal lever that closely fitted Schwarzenegger's hand for the normal scenes and a larger one for the motorcycle scenes. Whether or not it is possible to cock it one handed, I don't know, but it looks physically possible. Nanonic (talk) 07:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

And from our article on Terminator 2 - "The sawed-off shotgun used by Schwarzenegger throughout the film was a modified Winchester Model 1901 10ga lever-action shotgun, modified especially for the film to allow it to be "flip-cocked" by the actor in several of the film's scenes." Nanonic (talk) 07:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I thought that the gun he had in the box of roses at the beginning was a different gun to the one he had when he was on the bike. I guess that I wasn't paying attention. --84.68.195.17 (talk) 07:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If it is possible to cock the gun in that way, I suspect you would need long arms and be very careful not to accidentally fire the gun while twirling it around. Astronaut (talk) 12:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

YouTube says 'maybe'. FWIW, during the final confrontation with the T-1000 at the steel mill in the movie, Sarah ably demonstrates how to cock a pump-action shotgun one-handed (I've no idea if you can do that outside of the movies). She'd have to toss it up in the air and catch it by the grip in order to fire it with the same hand though. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 07:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

When you have questions about guns in movies, always check out the Internet Movie Firearms Database. And they have a page on Terminator 2: Judgment Day as well.--droptone (talk) 13:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Before Terminators are sent on missions, they are required to watch John Wayne movies. ;-) The "flip-cock" move was of course made famous by Wayne in True Grit (see also this), if not other films. —Kevin Myers 15:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)