|
recent posts
----------
No Strings on Me... Yet
Knocked Up Celebrities
Playing By the Rules
Interlude
Ugly Kid Stuff
Babes in Toyland
Awwww
Was He Thinking?
Oh, Spare Me
Resolved
|
 |
You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
Pre-order from:
- Simon & Schuster
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
Get It Out of My Head
You would think a week without The Wheels on the Bus would be an era of few complaints.
My apologies.
In place of the standard insidiously catchy kiddie tunes was the grown-up earworm Pachelbel's Canon in D-major. The second the teacher began strumming that baseline I was catapulted into a reverie wherein I tried to count the number of movies that have plugged it in and forgot to stand up for "marching" or "swaying"- I can't even remember what it was I forgot to do, I was so caught up. (True confessions: years ago I was learning to edit film, and the picture I was assisting on had a Pachelbel's Canon sequence, the cutting of which was maddening. It did give me a curious party trick: I could hum sections of the piece backwards. No, I can't do it anymore. That skill, like so many has been lost to the sands of time.)
I'm sure this has been asked before in the context of weddings, and even Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the curiosity that is Pachelbel's Canon, but what is it with this piece? What makes it so alluring? Apparently its circa 1680 chord progression can be found in everything from singles by Coolio ("C U When You Get There") to the Blues Traveler song "Hook" and pops up in the opening strains of the Burger King "Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce" jingle.
Do we pick this music for our weddings and our movies and our kids' listening pleasure because it is so familiar? Does it do the work of manufacturing some kind of nostalgia or generalized "happy" feeling so that we don't have to? I've given up on unraveling the enthusiasm for Bach and Handel, but perhaps there is some reason why this piece, this one piece of music is so underfoot.
The fact that I'm sick of it, the fact that I have heard it in countless bad movies and been witness to terrible versions of it at weddings doesn't diminish the central problem that the piece actually is beautiful. I feel sort of sorry for it. As someone whose name is associated with another wildly overused bit of classical music (played on ringtones, bad car horns and apparently by garbage trucks the world over), I feel for it and I hope it can continue to hang on to the little shreds of dignity that manage to persist, and maybe its popularity will ebb a little.
Still, I want a bit of novelty.
Felix doesn't know what he's listening to. He likes practically anything. Chances could be taken, since the kid who can't walk is literally a captive audience.
posted by Elise at 9:20 AM
........................................................
said...
1/19/2006 3:13 PM
said...
1/19/2006 3:33 PM
said...
No, the insights on this website are not world-altering. No one claimed that they were or ought to be. Perhaps Mr/Ms Anonymous ought to "get a job" ... or at the very least, find some type of constructive outlet for his/her trite bitterness that doesn't involve leaving anonymous hate postings. 'Cause really, that's just stupid.
1/26/2006 3:14 PM
........................................................
<< Home
........................................................
|
said...