Dr. Music

Send a text An addendum to Season 3, addressing music literacy and appreciation in our culture.

Send a text Ever hear a classical piece of music on TV and wonder what it's called, and who wrote it? Commercials never tell you who wrote the famous pieces used on the soundtrack. That's what Dr. Music is for! In this episode, you'll hear examples of great music used on TV and gain an insight into not only who wrote them, but why they might have caught the attention of producers!

Send a text Even if you are familiar with the music of Felix Mendelssohn, this episode contains interesting facts about some of his best works - much of which was composed before the age of 20!

Send a text We do not have a formal theory of melody in the vast discipl;ine of music theory. But if we limit our examination to particular styles and particular cultural themes, you may be surprised how collections of notes can "tend" toward certain patterns!

Send a text Can a piece of music be generated from a 2-note "sigh" motif that has been used over and over again for hundreds of years? Frederic Chopin would say "yes"--as we'll see looking at his famous Opus 64 Waltz in C# Minor!

Send a text When Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 5, he, like all Soviet artists, was writing under the watchful eye of Joseph Stalin. Learn how  a very talented composer can disguise a seemingly nationalistic, optimistic piece as a veiled denunciation of the regime!

Send a text Discover how Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov was able to produce such a vivid impression of the sea in his classic symphonic suite, Scheherazade !

Send a text Close Encounters of the Third Kind  is one of Steven Spielberg's greatest movies - and features  one of the greatest scores of John Williams.  In this episode, we'll be looking at the last 20 minutes of the film to get a better appreciation of why Mr. Williams is the second most Oscar-nominated person in all film history!

Send a text Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings, from his String Quartet,  is one of the most recognizable works of the 20th century.  Despite its mournful tone, why has this haunting piece caught the attention of so many listeners, including film producers? 

Send a text Harold Arlen's "Over The Rainbow" is considered one of the best songs ever written for the movies. What is it about this song that makes it so memorable, and so magical? We'll see how the notes themselves reflect the lyrics in a way as colorful as a rainbow!

Send a text Star Trek fans!  What is it about Alexander Courage's famous main theme to the original series that makes it sound otherwordly -- "where no one has gone before?"

Send a text What is it about Mozart's last composition, the Requiem , that places it more in the Romantic Period of Beethoven than his own Classical Period?  We will discover that the line between each of these historical periods is not so cut and dry.

Send a text Schubert's Symphony No. 8 may be the "Unfinished," but the first few pages of the score can teach us a lot about how his genius worked!

Send a text What exactly is pandiatonicism in music? Let's travel to a few countries (including America) and find out!

Send a text Why do musicians have access to only 12   notes in the chromatic scale? Why are there not more or less notes available?  The answer lies in math - and don't worry. This is FUN math!

Send a text In this first episode of Season 3, discover how music is related to the birth of the universe!

Send a text A short addendum to Dr. Music Season 2, including a quote from W.E.B. Du Bois!

Send a text Happy Labor Day! Almost everybody is familiar with the Ode To Joy   theme from the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - right?  But how many people, other than musicologists, are familiar with exactly how that monumental movement is constructed?  What makes masterpieces of music great is not the melody itself.  The French children's song, Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, ...

Send a text The French composer Jules Massanet (1842-1912) is known mainly for his operas, though general audiences are often familiar with either specific arias or suites from operas. Besides the very popular Meditation from his opera Thaïs ,  the ballet suite from Le Cid contains some  popular Spanish folk pieces. Yet how does one make a simple folk-like melody sound interesting and fresh within...

Send a text What does the French word  Gymnopédie  mean?  It could mean an ancient Greek dance, but only Erik Satie, the composer of three piano pieces bearing that name, knows the real answer. Being a mysterious man, it is possible he wanted the meaning to remain mysterious. Yet if the title is mysterious, the music itself is a lesson in unadorned beauty.  Gymnopédie No. 1, the most well-known of...

Send a text When you think of a concerto, most often you think of a piece for solo instrument or instruments with orchestral accompaniment--piano concerto, violin concerto, trumpet concerto, etc.  What about a concerto for orchestra? That is exactly what the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók wrote in 1943 while he was living in New York City. One of his most popular pieces, Concerto for Orchestra, di...

Send a text This episode features the podcast's very first interview with a professional musician!  I am privileged to know Dr. Jerry Felker, an educator, arranger, band director, and performer, holding a Doctor of Musical Arts in trombone performance. Dr. Felker will be speaking about his extensive career, ranging from his experience playing in an army band, to both chamber and concert perfo...

Send a text The idea of listening to a "death dance" may not be very appetizing...until you hear one by Franz Liszt.  His 1849 composition for piano solo and orchestra, Totentanz, is a tour de force in virtousic performance, featuring Liszt's "transcendental"  piano technique.  The piece is a set of variations on the 13th century monophonic chant, Dies Irae, or "Day O...

Send a text As a companion to Episode 5, we will take a look at another German lied - not by Schubert, but by his successor, Robert Schumann.  Like Schubert, Schumann wrote some of the most beautiful song cycles in the history of western European music.  Perhaps his most popular cycle, Dichterliebe, is based on the poetry of Heinrich Heine, and contains a wealth of musical poetry.  How, in the spa...

Send a text Hearing a jazz chord automatically makes us think of the jazz idiom, but who actually wrote the first jazz chords?  Those rich sonorities actually have their beginnings in the Romantic period with composers like Chopin and Liszt.  But  we can actually hear the beginnings of the jazz style in the music of late 19th century French impressionism.  In this episode, we will revisit the comp...