melodic progression

tomato

New member
According to Hindemith, every good melody which has ever been written has been a variation of the ascending one-octave scale. In "The Craft of Musical Composition," he analyzes several melodies as such.

I wonder what Hindemith would think of songs which follow the one-octave ascending scale by design. At the time Hindemith died, "The Sound of Music" had been performed on Broadway but had not been made into a movie. If Hindemith was familiar with "Doe, a deer, a female deer," I wonder what he would have thought of it.

Here is a Korean song based on a similar plan:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/?action=view&current=doremi.png

In the Korean language, there is not a one-syllable word for each syllable in Guido's scale, but there is a word beginning with each of those syllables.
In this song, the composer uses one of such words for each of the syllables.

Of course, the word play is lost in the translation, but I'll give it to you anyway:

"Do Re Mi Song"

words by I Gye-Seok
music by I Gye-Seok

Do do do do, acorn tree,
Re re re re, lemon color,
Mi mi mi mi, going down the slide,
Fa fa fa fa, bluebird wings,
So so so so, picking up pinecones,
La la la la, lilac petals,
Ti ti ti ti, a gurgling brook,
Do ti la so fa re mi do mi so do.

I also wonder if I Gye-Seok would receive Hindemith's blessing.
 

zlya

New member
(I'm not just making fun of the Korean accent, that's really how my school's music teacher writes it in transliteration.)
 
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