Beyond 'Do, Re, Mi'

A couple more scales and then we move on to other things, I promise. But the subject of scales is just so cool. It is fun just fooling around with them in your head.

Howard says that scales are a hallmark of Richard Rodgers, pictured above. And sure enough!

In "The Blue Room" that scale shows up in the bridge: "We will drive on, keep alive on, just nothing but kisses..."

That is at about :42 in this stingy little preview video.



It is no accident Richard Rodgers wrote "Do Re Mi."

But "Do Re Mi" is another story.

Upscale playing

Yesterday we talked about scales going down and today is all about scales going up.

Mozart is our guy! He liked his ascending scales, did Mozart.

In the 22nd Piano Concerto you can hear that good old scale in the first movement, right about 4:34. It is a marvelous theme he makes out of those plain old eight notes.



Just singing the scale to myself I came up with another one, right off the bat. Mozart again! This time it is the great A Major Concerto, No. 23.

Wow, this music is full of scales. There are showers of them at 18:20 -- we are dealing with the last movement here. But the instance I was thinking of is at 19:45. Of course you can find them other places too, when the themes repeat.



This is a magical movement! The 23rd is definitely in the running for my favorite Mozart concerto. Rudolf Buchbinder could not look more square! But I like how he plays, strong and straightforward.

As are the scales.

Strong and straightforward!

Drama on a grand scale

Last night I saw "The Nutcracker" at Shea's. And at intermission, emboldened by a glass of wine, I mentioned to my friends how cool it is that the Grand Pas De Deux near the end of "The Nutcracker" is really just a simple scale, going down.

It is fun to play the game of what themes are just a scale. It is something you can think about while you are falling asleep.

I have two good examples of ascending scale but Blogger is defective when it comes to posting videos and I do not, alas, have all day. So they will have to wait till tomorrow. For now I have another descending scale. It is funny how a simple descending scale, nothing added, can sound so different from the pas de deux from "The Nutcracker."

It is "Joy to the World"!



There you go, Tchaikovsky and Handel.

A master knows how to work that scale!