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October 4, 2006
TT: Uncommonly tuneful
How many of these songs do you know well enough to whistle?- "All My Ex's Live in Texas"
- "Back in Black"
- "Blowin' in the Wind"
- "China Girl"
- "Hot Fun in the Summertime"
- "Hotel California"
- "Instant Karma"
- "Jailhouse Rock"
- "Jolene"
- "Light My Fire"
- "Maria"
- "Money"
- "My Favorite Things"
- "Over the Rainbow"
- "Roxanne"
- "Satisfaction"
- "Sheep"
- "Superstition"
- "That'll Be the Day"
- "We Will Rock You"
No, this isn't a test. Here's why I'm asking: Daniel J. Levitin uses these songs as illustrations in the opening chapters of his new book This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession ("For example, the main accompaniment to ‘Superstition' by Stevie Wonder is played on only the black keys of the keyboard"). Obviously, he's assuming that most of his readers will know most of the songs he cites. Is he right to do so?
As I read This Is Your Brain on Music, I remembered the ear-training class I took thirty-one years ago as a freshman music major, in which we learned to recognize the various musical intervals by associating them with well-known pop tunes in which they figure prominently. That list of songs, like the ones found in Daniel Levetin's book, assumed the existence of a common stock of musical reference--the musical equivalent of what E.J. Hirsch has dubbed "cultural literacy."
It happens that two of the songs used by my old teacher are also on Levetin's list. I suspect that "Over the Rainbow" (octave) is still a safe choice in 2006, and I sincerely hope that "Maria" (tritone) is as well. But tastes have changed greatly since 1975, and I doubt that a modern-day ear-training instructor would be likely to use "Bali H'ai" to teach his charges how to recognize a major seventh.
On the other hand, what would he use? Now that the common culture in which I grew up has been fractured beyond repair by postmodern multiculturalism, is it still possible to come up with a list of twenty pop songs that are familiar to a majority of Americans between the ages of fifteen and fifty?
(For the record, I know fifteen of the songs on Levetin's list well enough to hum them more or less accurately--but I'm not saying which ones.)
While we're on the subject, allow me to pass on another list gleaned from This Is Your Brain on Music. An octogenarian scientist who knew nothing about rock asked Levitin to "come over for dinner one night and play six songs that captured all that was important to know about rock and roll....The night before he called to tell me that he had heard Elvis Presley, so I didn't need to cover that."
These are the songs he brought to dinner:
- "Long Tall Sally," Little Richard
- "Roll Over Beethoven," the Beatles
- "All Along the Watchtower," Jimi Hendrix
- "Wonderful Tonight," Eric Clapton
- "Little Red Corvette," Prince
- "Anarchy in the U.K.," the Sex Pistols
I don't know what I think of his list, but it inspired me to ask myself a related question: what six records would I play for someone who'd never heard any jazz and wanted to know what it sounds like? Back in 1999 I published a list of sixty-five "recorded masterpieces" of jazz in Commentary. I'd stand by it today--but six?
Naturally, I had to try, if only for fun, though in the end I found it impossible to get the job done without throwing in a seventh side. Here are my picks:
- "West End Blues," Louis Armstrong (1928)
- "King Porter Stomp," Benny Goodman Orchestra, composed by Jelly Roll Morton and arranged by Fletcher Henderson (1935)
- "A Sailboat in the Moonlight," Billie Holiday with Lester Young (1937)
- "Shaw 'Nuff," Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker (1945)
- "'Round Midnight," Miles Davis with John Coltrane, composed by Thelonious Monk and arranged by Gil Evans (1956)
- "Ramblin'," Ornette Coleman (1959)
- "Unquity Road," Pat Metheny (1975)
I invite your comment.
Posted October 4, 2006 12:00 PM
