FA, A LONG, LONG WAY TO RUN [345]

In asking myself what a skill for life would be, learning a musical instrument was my immediate answer. There is a level of dedication and devotion implied by competently playing a melody, let alone being able to improvise one – that is the difference between knowing the right notes and learning your scales.

The latter of these has eluded because I have been so concentrated on the former, and the time has come for me to learn properly to play even better. However, like solving quadratic equations, learning what notes form the key of G major appears to be just something you must learn, with no shortcut or mnemonic.

To clarify, musical scales are predominant in Western music and culture, consisting of eight notes in sequence relating to the first, “tonic” note, the last note being the first when played one octave higher. To our ears, playing in the right key is the same as playing “in tune”, without “hitting the wrong note”. The names given to the two types of scale, “major” and “minor”, are based on importance and use. 

As it turns out, major keys are comparatively easy. C major is the one that everyone can do, because it has no sharp or flat notes - it only uses the white notes on a keyboard. Looking at a keyboard indicates how the major scale is formed: there are 12 notes from one C note to the next, known as semitones – skipping a black key implies a step of two semitones, or a whole tone. There are no black keys between the E and F key, or between B and C, and the gap between these is one semitone. 

Therefore, the gaps between the notes in C major are tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. Repeating this in G major requires you to use a black key, F sharp (F#), to fulfil the pattern, and to play “God Save the Queen”. Every major key follows this pattern: starting on E flat (Eb), you play Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb to make the key of Eb major, and the start of the “EastEnders” theme. Start on C#, and you can play my song “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” [link].

When people talk about minor keys, it is generally the “natural” minor keys have their own pattern. A minor, like C major, only uses the white keys, but starts three semitones lower, making a pattern of tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone – likewise, the equivalent of G major is E minor. There are “melodic” and “harmonic” variations that developed to fit certain intentions, but I can get more information on these once I nail the fundamentals down.

This is as far as I reached before needing to understand Western diatonic scales and the “circle of fifths”, but even the above proves there are certain assumptions that must be made before you begin to learn something, and things that you just must learn. There is no such thing as a shortcut to learning, except for making the size of the task feel less huge.

HOW SHALL WE EXTOL THEE? [327]

On Friday 7^th January, Britain’s Culture Minister, Chris Philp, said that the national anthem should be played more frequently by the BBC, and by other public service broadcasters: “[the] more we hear the national anthem sung, frankly, the better.” This followed a comment the day before in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell that, with 2022 being the year of the Queen’s platinum jubilee, “will the minister take steps to encourage public broadcasters to play the national anthem and ensure the BBC restores it at the end of the day’s programming before it switches to News 24?” The minister in the Commons, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, could be heard saying “fantastic” in response.

Far from just being ridiculed in comments online, this reactionary step, in the literal sense that it is trying to return to something people used to do, is completely unenforceable: “God Save the Queen” has only been the official national anthem of the United Kingdom through tradition and use, with no law ever having been put into place, and any attempt to make it law now will, no doubt, inspire similar derision. In terms of TV channels, only BBC One and ITV – except for Thames, Granada, Central, Yorkshire and Border - have ever played the national anthem when they closed down for the night, and stopped doing so when they stopped closing down. BBC Two and Channel 4 have never played it, and Channel 5 launched with a 24-hour schedule from the start. Furthermore, BBC News 24 has been called the BBC News Channel since 2009.

My initial reaction to this non-starter was to think of “An Audience with Billy Connolly”, the 1985 stand-up special that ended by arguing that the parlous state of the country was due to the national anthem being boring, which I agree, and that it should be replaced by the theme from BBC Radio 4’s “The Archers”, with everyone singing “dum-de-da-de-dum-de-dah” instead of writing lyrics for it. The option of Simon May’s “EastEnders” theme since arisen, but far better the maypole dance of Arthur Wood’s “Barwick Green” than Eric Spear’s plodding “Coronation Street” theme. BBC Radio 4 is the one station that still closes the day by playing the national anthem, just before 1.00am each night.

Meanwhile, rearrangements of “God Save the Queen”, like Benjamin Britten’s blockbuster production, and Philip Sheppard’s arrangement for the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, make me feel there is not much more that can be done with such a simple tune – Sheppard explained that his arrangement was designed to add tension, including an E minor chord that gave the impression the entire piece was in a minor key.

Having no official anthem means we have always had a choice. “Land of Hope and Glory”, “Jerusalem”, “Flower of Scotland”, “Scotland the Brave”, “Land of My Fathers” and “Londonderry Air” have all been used by the nations of the UK in different capacities, and despite the creation of national parliaments outside of England, none of these have become official. Another option could have been “Zadok the Priest”, written by Georg Frideric Handel for the coronation of King George II, and possibly the first national anthem, but its having been used by the UEFA Champions League since 1992 has probably ended any chances of that. The use of “Jerusalem” for England at the Commonwealth Games, however, came from a public vote held by the Commonwealth Games Council for England in 2010, polling just over half of the votes – “God Save the Queen” came third.

Personally, I would choose the second-placed song in the poll, Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, “Land of Hope and Glory”, with lyrics by Arthur C Benson. The lyrics referencing God mean about as much to me as singing about God saving the Queen, but it doesn’t matter in a song that, even more than “Rule Britannia”, must be played and sung as loud as possible. In an era where the “drop” is as important in pop music as the chorus, the approach and “drop” before the second chorus of “Land of Hope and Glory” makes me feel more patriotic for my country than anything, or anyone, can possibly do. The use of the word “hope” is also good. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR INSERT NAME [34]

One of the few songs to which everyone knows the words, “Happy Birthday to You” is a song we are seemingly stuck with now, being a very quick and easy way to mark a moment in time, and which can be sung in exactly the same way no matter how much you like or dislike the person to which you are singing.

The song began as “Good Morning to All,” written by two teacher sisters, Mildred and Patty Hill (yes, it took two people), to be sung in class at the beginning of the school day. The “Happy Birthday” appeared organically when people wanted to use the tune for other things, and were eventually written down – the piano arrangement, with extra verse (“How old are you now?”), credited to two further people, was published in 1935, over forty years after the Hills published their original. The song entered the hands of music publishers Warner Chappell Music in 1988, who enforced their copyright to charge millions of dollars in royalty payments.

To make it clear, yes, you can use “Happy Birthday to You” for free now. In the United States, a court case was brought against Warner Chappell by the makers of a documentary about the song, whose intentions were to “liberate” the song. Pedantry won the day on 28^th June 2016, declaring the song was in the public domain, by which point repayments to licensees had already been announced. In the European Union, “Happy Birthday to You” becomes a public domain song on 31^st December 2016, as copyright law cuts off seventy years after Patty Hill died.

However, what does this mean for the other birthday songs, like the Beatles’ “Birthday,” which is addressed to the listener? There’s also “Happy Birthday” by Altered Images, “Birthday” by Katy Perry, and “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder, even if the intent of that song was for Martin Luther King’s birthday to be made into a US public holiday, which eventually happened. If you can sing the original for free, why now pay for the competitors?

The answer is because they are better. “Happy Birthday to You” makes me think of the routine Billy Connolly once did about how “God Save the Queen” can be hard work, suggesting we hum the theme tune to “The Archers” instead. What is worse, the original tune to “God Save the Queen/King,” when written in 1745, originally had more flourishes, which have been flattened out over time, and could do with being put back.

If you are going to sing a song for someone’s birthday, you want to sing it like you mean it, but if the song can’t help you with that, you should choose a different song. The tradition of singing “Happy Birthday to You” is only a hundred years old, so a new tradition can easily be started – even “For He’s/She’s/They’re a Jolly Good Fellow” is a good start.