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Music as a language 2
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That’s too bad David, I guess as Jung stated, it varies from country to country as to what’s made available/allowed and not…. sometimes these movies are shown on TV and on cable TV….. The local CTV Ottawa channel on Saturday/Sunday for quite some time now showing movies from 1930s to 2000, today it was Grownups with Adam Sandler, etc…. I believe that’s how I saw Mr Holland’s Opus …it was on TV when I saw it or at least partially of it…
Also perhaps your local public library branch has it available to borrow, our public library branches here do that.
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The library is a great idea, Jacki! I just checked the on-line catalog for the library at the school where I work, and they have it, so I guess I’ll pick it up there. Thanks!
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Sorry David it didn’t work for you. Hope you can find it at the library as Jacki suggested. I would have suggested check Blockbusters, but that was another time. There is one last Blockbusters in Oregon! 🙂 I remember those days swinging by a Blockbusters on the way home on a Friday night to pick up movies for the weekend, and then dropping them off Monday morning again on the way to work. Wow, how times have changed.
That one on the Twilight Zone sounds interesting. I will look for it. There were a few of the Zone episodes from the 90s that were quite well done come to think of it.
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You’re welcome, glad to be of help…glad I offered public library option and they had in available for you….just remember to bring it back before due date or on or you will be dinged for overdue fees… ( I found out the expensive way )
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Jung, I still have my Blockbuster’s card, and Oregon is one of the states I have yet to visit, so…
If you can’t find that Twilight Zone episode, I found a couple of key clips on YouTube that I could post along with some connecting exposition.
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David, yeah I can’t seem to find it. If you have those clips handy, sure.
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Okay, here we go.
Part 1: A dedicated old poetry teacher at a boys’ prep school is told at the end of the academic year that he is being forced into retirement because of his age. As he comes to grips with this development, he has a reflective moment that probably every teacher has had at some point in their career:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_pJUIv0IE
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Part 2: He goes into his empty classroom, pulls a pistol out of a drawer, and points it at his head. Suddenly a group of students materialize before him, and this happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce6HlKSODwE
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David, thanks for sharing that. It is very inspiring and moving. I guess the legacy we leave, especially in the teaching profession is the impression and influence teachers make on young minds, that may not seem like much at the time, but grows and makes a difference in peoples (students) lives in profound ways.
This resonates with me having left my profession after 30 years in March, I reflect back at what my legacy at the company will have been. Hopefully I made some positive difference to peoples lives in subtle ways for my having been there.
My older brother in LA has been a high school teacher coming upon 35 years now, and while he has just started teaching students online (LA County schools are all online), if and when in person classes start later this year or before a vaccine, he will likely have to retire this school year given his age and higher risk to Covid. I think this will be quite meaningful to him.  I’ll make sure to pass this along to him. 🙂
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Glad you enjoyed it, Jung! It’s one of the few episodes of that show that were more sentimental than spooky. I always have to have some tissues with me when I watch it. I imagine it’s meaningful to anyone who wonders whether they’re leaving the world a better place when they retire.
Oh, and best wishes to your brother! I know that’s going to be tough for him.
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One of the things that I enjoy when listening to a song is the melody line carried by an instrument. For example in MLTs songs In It For Love, Close To You, or Sweet Lorraine, in addition to Mona and Lisa’s vocals and harmonies, there are the guitar parts carrying a melodic line throughout like a voice, sometimes in parallel with the vocals and sometimes on it’s own. It feels to the listener like the guitar is in conversation as well in a sense with the vocal lines.
If you take “Wish You Were Here”, even before the vocals come in, the two guitar melodic lines are in conversation, and when Mona and Lisa’s singing comes on, there are 4 voices there.
In a classical piano concerto, you have the piano as one voice in conversation with the entire orchestra. On a piano piece, often the left and right hand melodic lines are interacting with each other. When I learned the Moonlight Sonata many years ago on the piano, the piano teacher spoke about two voices there on the piano interacting with each other.
I came across this video yesterday where the lady here talks about the conversation that is going on in this Beethoven piano piece called the Appassionata, and it is quite fascinating to hear how it is effectively a conversation expressed in melody. Beethoven was a genius at creating this kind of dialogue in his music.
When Beethoven wrote his Piano Sonata No 23 Appassionata, he was going through a time of tragedy and despair. This sonata finds Beethoven in the depths of human suffering. Deafness started to set in while at the same time there is passion and turmoil caused by his failed love for his muse Josephina, the famous Immortal Beloved in his life. In this music there is darkness, misery, and introspection, but there is also determination. Beethoven is saying with this piece, I’m still here, this is my inner core and I’m not ashamed to show it to you.
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I had never thought of a classical piano piece as being a conversation between the two hands, Jung, but that video is an interesting interpretation of that idea. I wonder if Beethoven, or any other classical composers, ever stated that that’s what they were trying to accomplish.
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Hi David, I’m not aware of Beethoven or any of the great composers specifically quoted as describing a part in the music as the left and right hand parts conversing, but have seen it interpreted that way by musicians. My piano instructor often described the left and right hand parts in piano pieces as separate voices. In piano music the left hand is often doing chords and broken chords or phrases rhythmically while the right hand carries on a separate melody, or both follow the same line in harmony which is not a conversation, but there are times in a piano piece where both sides carry on melodically like a dance independent from each other, and if you listen closely you can hear a kind of interaction between the 2 voices, a statement or question by one voice and a response from the other. In that video she illustrates it very well imaginatively like a conversation between a man and a woman (Beethoven and Josephina), but she left open to interpretation.
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David, that was one of the best scenes, and there are many like that in the movie. Nice description. It was really moving to see her back later all grown up. Anyone hasn’t seen that movie should. Mr Hollands Opus. -
That last scene got my hopes up for some closure on Rowena’s story, but alas we’ll all just have to write that one ourselves.
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