It’s Etch a Sketch & Praise for President Obama

22 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

Tags

Barack Obama, Etch A Sketch, Hector Giacomelli, Mitt Romney, Obama, Republicans, Summer Solstice, United States

: Bloomsbury Dictionary

It’s Etch a Sketch

I am so sorry. It’s the Etch a Sketch Day, not Etch and Sketch, as I called the last event in the race for the leadership of the Republican Party, US. Obviously, life is keeping me humble, which is very good.

Art: Hector Giacomelli (April 1, 1822 and died in Menton on December 1, 1904)

As some of you know, I have long battled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the symptoms are: getting lost in mid-sentence, not remembering how to spell a word, you have been able to spell since age 8, difficulty concentrating, constant fatigue, poor balance (one tends to fall). Poor (short-term) memory causes me to repeat what I have just said.

Such a condition is a burden. But the mind is otherwise unaffected and, as one of my dearest readers put it so aptly, one needs to put a long night’s sleep between days. I do. The nights will now grower shorter and shorter until the Summer Solstice (about June 24th: St John’s Day). This year, 2012, the Summer Solstice is on June 20th. Canadians have long relied on the Old Farmer’s Almanac to know when to plant their vegetables.

So Etch a Sketch it is and it is making waves. Personally, I find the whole kerfuffle very sad. It is possible to be a head-of-state and remain honest and gracious. When President Obama was elected into office, he did not blame anyone for the difficulties his administration had inherited. Moreover, he is capable of expressing sorrow when Americans do something very wrong.

Would you believe President Obama has been criticized for apologizing on behalf of the US for last week’s killing of innocent Afghans? They are calling him weak.

It was not weakness. It was strength, wisdom and good manners. President Obama did his duty, both as President and a decent human being. Moreover, he reminded viewers around the world that the US had to get out of Afghanistan.

I have work to do and a post in preparation, so I must go. A good day to all of you. Yesterday’s post featured daisies by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, and today, the painting is featured at Art.com. It is a coincidence.

Hector Giacomelli, Le Perchoir / The Perch

Beethoven (1770–1827 ): 7 Ländler Dances D-dur Woo 11

(please click on the title to hear the music)

Ländler (a folk dance)

March 22, 2012

Musical Notation: Ut Queant Laxis

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Guido d'Arezzo, musical notation, Paulus Diaconus, St. John the Baptist, Summer Solstice, Ut queant laxis

Ut Queant Laxis

I spoke of madrigals without first providing Guido d’Arezzo‘s (991/992 – (17 May?) 1050) source, the Ut queant laxis for the well-known ut (do), ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si (ti), as the notes are still named and used in certain national languages and in solfège.

Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
labii reatum
Sancte Iohannes. s+i = si (ti, to distinguish it from ‘c’)

Nor did I mention that the poem had been written, in Horatian Sapphics, by Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century historian. The Ut queant laxis was written for the feast of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on 24 June, near the Summer Solstice, the day of the shortest night (darkness). The Saint-Jean-Baptiste is marked each year by a bonfire, les feux de la Saint-Jean, and, in Quebec, by displays of fireworks. The Saint-Jean-Baptiste is the official feast day of French-Canadians.

Guido had introduced a group of syllables C-D-E-F-G-A, the hexachord, a mnemonic device. But Guido noticed that the first syllable of the six phrases of the Ut queant laxis, a latin-language hymn to Saint John, corresponded with his C-D-E-F-G-A set. Musicians had had difficulty remembering the neumatic notation used in Gregorian chant. In Gregorian chant the notes are called “neumes.”

So Guido’s immediate purpose was pedagogical. The do-ré-mi chain was easy to memorize. It was the familiar Ut queant laxis. In this regard, Guido resembles Comenius who was also an advocate of simplification.

In short, the do-ré-mi chain is a cultural phenomenon and, therefore, possesses a degree of arbitrariness, which is not the case with the more logical A-B-C-D-E-F-G, starting on the middle C, or ‘do,’ a scale or key that does not have alterations (sharps and flats). But it has remained useful.

As for the melody of the Ut queant laxis, it would appear it was the melody of Horace‘s “Ode to Phyllis.”

Here is an English translation: “So that your servant may, with loosened voices, resound the wonder of your deeds, clean the guilt four our strained lips, O Saint John!”