Buffonescamente or Amorevole

Fourth of July, I spent the day at home with a horrible cold and a ridiculous hole in my foot. Not able or wanting to do much, I propped my foot up and wrote a song, Folding Breezes. (Sheet music attached below.) 

Recently, I had checked out the Top 10 music videos.  Just reading the lyrics left me laughing out loud or just wincing and cringing. Not to mention the videos themselves, but I’ll leave out editorials on images such as Paris Hilton yanking her boys' swim trunks down, tossing them into the ocean and lip synching so horribly you wonder if her video budget was constrained. 

So I decided why not try to write some music? Is it really that hard to write something better?

According to yahoo, the number one most-watched video was Shakira's Hips Don’t Lie from her Oral Fixation CD. Hearing her song and the other nine, one has every reason to mourn the loss of music rich with vibrant melodies and subtleties of expression. Notated music used to include carefully selected Italian, French, Spanish words to give the musician guidance towards modes of expression, subtle changes of rhythm, pitch, tone, and touch.  Yet that rich language is all gone as pop music blows right over any subtleties of expression, melody, and mystery.

As a dancer, it is easy to prefer the many passionate, tender melodies composed over the years that have been notated with beautiful, delightful Italian adjectives. The words themselves are melodic, just ask a man to say one of these musical hints, and you’ll likely want to dance with him by the time he finishes it.

Addolorato: Plaintive, in a mournful manner, sorrowful, sadly
Brezza Leggera: Gentle Breeze
Amorevole: Tenderly, gently, lovingly
Accarezzevole: Blandishing; in a persuasive and caressing manner
Dolcemente: Softly, sweetly
Soavità: Lyrical gentleness, sweetness
Accoppiato: Bound, tied, joined together
Appassionatamente: Passionately with intense emotion and feeling
Allontanandosi: Gradually disappearing in the distance, further and further away

Lately I’ve been playing Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz’s  piano piece Tango in D -- a melody and rhythm that just begs for dancing, rich with surprising suspension and mystery yet tender and close. The gracefulness of ballroom, tango, Latin dancing is coming back strong, perhaps because the average girl doesn’t want to be thrusting around like a burlesque exhibitionist, seeking a man who is “half animal, half man” like Shakira does in her video. Shakira took the subtleties of Latin dance, and blasted them to smithereens. We get glimpses of the Latin influence, but when she does her little chair routine and other moves, she wipes out the gracefulness that her significant dancing talent could otherwise convey.

In her Don't Bother video, she has a sexual response with a steering wheel and then later is collapsed in a shower like she's been beaten up.  That video starts with some laughable lyrics, "She’s got the kind of look that defies gravity. She’s the greatest cook. And she’s fat free." So as for viewing it, don't bother.

I hear the other songs in the Top 10, and wonder if they are notated with the musical adjective, Buffonescamente – in a burlesque and comical manner, zany.

#2 Nelly Furtado: Promiscuous

Promiscuous boy
You already know
That I’m all yours
What you waiting for?

Promiscuous boy
Let's get to the point
Cause we're on a roll
Are you ready?

Roses are red
Some diamonds are blue
Chivalry is dead
But you're still kinda cute

#5 Pussycat Dolls: Buttons

Ok. This is a bunch of women that could teach a quick course on the fastest way to self-demolition.  Almost the entire song is "loosen up my buttons" repeated in a stupefying, brain numbing fashion.

Don't leave me askin' for more
I'm a sexy mama (mama)
Come on baby loosen up my buttons babe
(loosen up my buttons babe)
I'm telling you to loosen up my buttons babe (uh huh)
But you keep frontin' (uh)
You been saying all the right things all night long
But I can't seem to get you over here to help take this off
Baby, can't you see?
How these clothes are fitting on me

#6 Christina Aguilera: Ain’t No Other Man

This video actually looks like a satire on music videos. But it isn’t.  With the amount of money she's making you think she could afford trumpet players that could play more than two pitches. By the end of the video you just want to take the trumpets away from them.

After meeting her lover she announces that she’s telling everyone about her “only” lover – and she sings:

I told the others, my lovers, both past and present tense.
...
Do your thang honey!
...
You got soul, you got class.
You got style, your badass - oh yeah!
...
Ohhh!

Ohhh! Christina please stop.

But am I so grateful we have Taylor Moore and Rashida Jolley, two incredibly impressive singer/ songwriters right here in our modesty midst. Unlike the above stars, they do have soul, class and so much more style.  When Taylor performs she is swarmed with young girls who want her autograph because she is a young woman of class and grace, as is Rashida too. Young girls are starving for graceful and lovely role models like Rashida and Taylor. We could only wish our video stars took their cues from them too.

Comments

[admin]

to see full sheet music, click "open link in new window" with your mouse.

[Jane]

is it sad that watching shakira video's always leaves me with the question- how in god's name can her abdominal muscles DO that?

but anyway, i think an interesting trend in pop music is a look to more ethnic beats. but my question is- why does it seem that music from some countries (jamaica, columbia, india) is more sexualized automatically (belly dancing (though it was originally done for other women and has been changed greatly by westerners), tango, things like that).

sad thing is, i actually like "ain't no other man" .

[Jane]

i love music with african inspired rhythms (talking heads, bob marley, burning spear, peter tosh). but i wonder why music from other countries is so frequently more sensual than that with more european influence.

[hmm]

i don't know why, it depends on how you define "sensual."

[anon]

To the writer of the post: you are clearly little acquainted with Shakira's musical repertoire. Perhaps you should try to listen to the wide variety of music she has produced, rather than criticising what little you know. And, last I checked, latin music and belly-dancing (yes, even in its pre-western adulteration days) is very much about the expression of sexuality.

[Jeannine K.]

To the writer of the comment: you are clearly didn't bother to watch Shakira's "Don't Bother" video. If anyone suggests that video has anything to do with Latin dance insults the beautiful and intimate genre of authentic Latin dance. Intimacy can be expressed so beautifully in dance, and most powerfully in subtle ways. I spoke about my love for tango music and the tango dance in the post -- as in its traditional form, it is powerful and intimate, but yet very subtle.

I have many old tango recordings from the 1930's and 40's from around the world -- music which reveals the deepest roots of expressive Latin dance and music. I did not state opposition to the passion of love and intimacy expressed that music nor in the dance it inspires. Yet what pop media fails to understand, putting graceful boundaries on its expression, with subtle changes of mood and style is far more powerful, than thrusting around hap haphazardly with really quite laughable lyrics:

"Oh boy, I can see your body moving
Half animal, half man
I don't, don't really know what I'm doing
But you seem to have a plan
My will and self restraint
Have come to fail now, fail now"

I didn't think traditional Latin music was about men that are half animal half man.

Along that line, I am familiar with Shakira's significant talent in both music, voice, composition and dancing -- and referenced it in my post. I indicated that in her "Hips Don't Lie" she revealed her Latin influence in dance, but there are portions of it where she abuses her own talent -- that chair routine and some subsequent moves blast her grace and make her nothing more than an exhibitionist, an extraordinarily talented one at that, which is all the more sad.

With all that talent, I am saddened that she has completely lost her roots and crushed her talent in producing her "Don't Bother" video. The lyrics are nothing short of pathetic. Not to mention, that I didn't think intimate Latin dance had anything to do with crushing cars, collapsing like an abused woman in a shower, convulsing like a trapped pole dancer in a car. Do you? I think it is an insult to the genre. And a sad editorial on what fame has done to her inspiration. They say fame can crush much of one's true self. That video is a case in point.

I hope someday Shakira strengthens her roots, and produces work that reflects not only her talent, but her significant grace and beauty.