Hey, Wait a Minuet!

I went through a phase in my 20s when I was deeply into Western classical music. Especially opera, but I dug other stuff, too. I even won a radio contest once (tickets to a ballet) for correctly identifying the first few measures of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor  - impressive, right? Nah, I had a recording of it in my possession, so it was easy.

I played violin (translation: fiddle) in an orchestra for several years before I reached full adult height. I know every one of Beethoven’s symphonies and a fair number of his piano sonatas. I stan Verdi. Anything by Verdi. Shoot, I even sang in a Verdi opera a long time ago in a galaxy far away…

Why am I sharing this? Because, although songs I write today are undoubtedly NOT classical, there are hints of classical influences in pretty much every one of them. How is that? Well, think of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture for instance (you know, the piece they play during fireworks displays): the opening chords are I - IV - I - VI - IV - I (Eb - Bb - Eb - Cm - Bb - Eb). Any folk/pop/Americana songwriter would realize they’ve probably played those chords in that exact sequence at some point in their lives. Western classical music motifs are part of the collective memory of modern songwriters. They sound familiar to our ears. 

And the roots go back long before the 18th century. Some Renaissance songs (15th and 16th centuries, for history-challenged folks like myself) - such as this one called Vecchio Latrose - have impactful rhythms as complex and heart-pounding as anything by Rush or Led Zeppelin. It’s true! All we modern folks did was electrify the whole dang thing, and boom - rock and roll.

Though I spend most of my music-listening time with contemporary artists of the pop/folk/Americana genres, I find it helpful to return to these classical pieces from time to time as a kind of grounding. They’re called “classical” for a reason - by virtue of their staying power and long-reaching influence. I listen to how the melodies rise and fall, to the dramatic pauses, the crescendos and decrescendos, the key changes and modulations, and so on - and it’s all there in the songs I write today.