A lot of music unites people. Occasionally it people. With its contentious depiction of racial stereotypes, the opera Porgy and Bess seems to have experienced the ebb and flow of acceptance over the years, but even its cultural detractors will recognise it as one of the most important musical works of the 20th century.The story behind the opera begins in 1926, when the popular songwriter George Gershwin read the novel Porgy by DuBose Heyward. He immediately wrote to Heyward with the idea of writing an opera, but it wasn’t until 1933 that Gershwin, his lyricist brother Ira and Heyward finally began their collaboration. The work was radical in various ways: Gershwin wanted to create an opera in the European tradition, but to borrow from African-American blues, jazz and spirituals, as well as from the life and language of black people in South Carolina. Beyond that, he insisted that the first production feature an entirely black cast, a bridge-building gesture that launched several brilliant operatic careers. That said, the first production was not a huge success, and it wasn’t until after Gershwin’s death in 1937 at age 38 that Porgy and Bess grew in importance, succeeding on Broadway as well as becoming accepted as serious opera and becoming the source of several of the most famous tunes in popular music.Of all those tunes, the most popular and enduring is Summertime. It is one of the most covered songs of all time, with more than 25,000 known recordings by artists of every kind.
- Summertime Song Sheet Music
- Summertime Billie Holiday Sheet Music Song
- Summertime Billie Holiday Chords
While it has a distinctive style in its original form, something about it makes it endlessly adaptable. Gershwin wanted to create something in the style of a spiritual, and to most commentators he succeeded way beyond his initial brief. He uses it four times in the opera, including as a lullaby at the very opening.Here’s the very first recording by Abbie Mitchell including Gershwin himself on piano. What is it about this song that makes it so special and so timeless?
Of course, it’s in the nature of music that our response will always be very personal, but there must be some fundamentals about the way the song is constructed that make it so universally appealing. It has a kind of ambiguity that allows us to find our own message.
To some, it evokes lazy sunny days, to others it has a brooding or yearning quality. The chords have a way of playing with our expectations and anticipations. Looking at a popular version, it starts on a dark, tense Am6 chord and moves to an E7, a chord that is commonly used to lead us to some kind of change or resolution, but here just falls back to the Am6, rocking us between the two, lulling us into a hazy torpor that feels relaxed but still seems to anticipate something. A B in the bass under the E chord emphasises the gentle sway. “Fish are jumping” offers some uplift, but soon it settles back into the Am6 & E7. The real change comes at “hush little baby” with C Major, a chord which works as the light to Am’s shade. The effect is like a sudden fresh breeze on a balmy afternoon.
The string fills (usually included in song sheets) wrap around the melody, adding a flowing feel with bluesy passing half-steps.You could teach yourself an accompaniment pretty easily using the above mentioned song sheet. If you know how to work out inversions, you’ll maximise the effect by keeping the voicings close. For example, if you play the Am6 chord in root position (A, C, E, F#), the E7 will work well by pivoting up around the E to play B, D, E and G#.
Play it slow with a 1:1 ratio and that lazy feel will emerge. Adding the melodic fills between the sung phrases makes it very authentic. Porgy and Bess came at a time when America was beginning to assert its own serious art forms, and in his composition, the New York Jewish Gershwin looked to southern black culture for the opportunity to develop a unique new musical hybrid.
What Everyone Should Know About Summertime by George GershwinCapturing and engaging an audience quickly is vital if you want to persuade, inspire or make an impact when public speaking. Many people know this, but how can you do it? How can you be the one who makes people sit up and listen, and more importantly, keep listening? The first thing when you are getting ready to ‘say a few words’ is don’t open PowerPoint – thats theCrafting the words to make an impact takes time.
It takes a blank piece of paper and a single clear idea that you want to communicate. It takes thinking through the words you will use to explain that point creatively. It takes crafting what calls a STAR ( Something They Always Remember) moment.
In this post I want to help you discover a unique way that you could try to gain attention the next time you speak in public.Out on a LimbIn my latest speech (CC7) I wanted to speak about how music has a profound effect on our senses. It was risky. It was out on a limb. It would either work well or I would crash. I took the classic “Summertime” by George Gershwin, a song that pictures in our minds glorious sunshine breaking through the grey of early dawn. However, under all that imagined sunlight, the song points to a dark and disturbing story of indenture. The music impacts our emotions deeply.I wrote the following speech but choreographed it to music.
I practiced hard. (I am from the Lea Agnew school of thought on that one) Here is the speech, I hope you enjoy it. (BTW it won best speech of the night!)Summertime, or is it?“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” Johnny Depp.I heard a song played the other day that stopped me. It stopped me thinking, stopped me in my tracks. Then, after stopping me, the music itself transported me to another time and another place. It’s amazing how music can do that.
Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.Just a number of precise and measured sound waves collected and captured together can somehow work their power deep within. On researching the roots of the song, I was moved even deeper by the understanding how the simple sounding but yet complex chord structure of the notes, harmonies, melody and lyrics tell a dark and disturbing story. The song was “Summertime” by George Gershwin performed by Peter Gabriel and Larry Adler. Let me explain why.(Start music playing).A False Image?It’s Summertime. From the opening note the music seems to build a picture of the dawn of another humid and sultry day. The kind of day where the rising sun streaks through our windows full of optimism.
Maybe its a sweaty hot urban Summer or the lazy Summers of our youth, but Adler’s haunting notes power our imagination that maybe a glorious Summer day is arriving.It’s summertime. It’s the 1930s and George Gershwin is on the South Carolina coast.
Summertime Song Sheet Music
Picking up a book by DuBose Heyward, Gershwin is captivated by the story of Porgy, a crippled street-beggar in the black tenements in the 1920′s till 4:00 am. Here was a different world than the familiar Tin Pan Alley of New York. Here was different world of “Cat Fish Row” Charleston.
Here was different world that 9 years later would become the folk opera Porgy and Bess.It’s Summertime. Then, with a change of key, the opening cascading notes of the song transport us to this world of “catfish Row.” Over this simply melody comes the velvet voice of Peter Gabriel.A LullabySummertime, but the song is not really about the lazy, languid days of Summer, where living is easy, fish jumping and the cotton is high. Gershwin wrote the song, which is a lullaby, about a “Gullah,” a Black Slave woman rocking a white baby to sleep. As the rocking bass line sways back and forth, Gabriel’s optimistic proclamation ‘your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good lookin.’ But the stark reality, perhaps, was her own crying children would be hungry or more likely have been sold and to never have seen them again.One of these mornings, speaks of the promise of a secure future singing with opportunity and security. How sad, how degrading must it have been be for black slaves to care for the children of white women knowing that their own children suffered want. Gershwin takes the imagery of the South and turns it into a richness of melody and harmony of chords.
Summertime Billie Holiday Sheet Music Song
Turning the dark brick 3 story tenements into a place of peace and safety.It’s claimed that Summertime is one of the most covered versions of any song and there are more than 130 commercially recorded versions of “Summertime.” Ella Fitzgerald’s lilting reflection on life’s possibilities. Billie Holiday placed the emphasis on “Your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good lookin’” in a sultry Dixieland rendition. Miles Davis, John Coltrain, Janice Joplin, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, and so the list goes on. For me, the smooth rich tones that Adler blows from the harmonica are like dripping melted chocolate off a hot spoon.
Combine that with the explosive but controlled power of Gabriel’s voice and it makes a heady cocktail of emotion. It’s no wonder that it touches us in places where words alone can’t.The Mystery of Six Notes“Summertime” consists of only six notes; that’s part of its mystery. It’s an incredibly simple melody. But if you listen with your mind as well as your ears you can start feeling the heat of summer, feeling the yearning of a community, feeling the sadness and the pathos summed up with 6 notes.Listening to the Adler/Gabriel version for me was, as Nina LaCour says, in her book, “Hold Still,” “It was the moment I realised what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.”Image byIf you have enjoyed this speech or would like to use some or all of it, please do!
Summertime Billie Holiday Chords
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