and the
appendix

a

glossary of some musical terms

found in the present work:

Exactly How Mrs. Nixon's Legs Saved the White House Christmas Concert

Hechizo and the Dr. at Jeanne's beach house in Manzanillo, Mexico, 2011

Hechizo liked Mexican rap and hip-hop, California Chicano rap and hip-hop, and any song that sang of marijuana
he died September 21, 2012, three days after his 24th birthday, pipe-bludgeoned in a Mexican small-town Saturday night street brawl
while I slept a few blocks away unbeknowing
he would come to the house each morning with cell phone blaring his music and listen to it all day
doing whatever had to be done from cleaning toilets to gardening to weekly shopping (where the ladies made fun of his plastic yellow shopping bag)
until I knew each of his songs well enough to like it and whistle along
and he was extremely tolerant of my music, a bigness I greatly admired
since my music came from every genre, jazz to German Christmas
and every part of the globe from Mongolia to Buenos Aires
and every era from early Medieval Gregorian to Philip Glass' Satya Graha
I'd say Do you think it's too loud it might drive the neighbors crazy
and he'd say Leave it the fxxk up in Spanish, of course, where fxxk sounds less chingada offensive -- Dr. L.

note:  italicized musical terms in this list are from the Italian language and have been used traditionally (for centuries) by composers, conductors and arrangers (of all countries) to instruct performers how to play or sing a musical composition (or a part of it) as intended

a cappella  –  singing without any instrumental accompaniment (explanation: in general, the more complex the musical parts are [and Fred's were rather advanced, at times], and the larger the choir, the more likely it is to fall apart without some kind of lead or 'support', such as a solid, unchanging, driving beat; or, often an instrument, band or orchestra will provide some of the lead or support; or, for a good solidly trained and experienced choir, just a conductor conducting will be enough; and accordingly, the Pennsylvanians often sang a cappella, i.e., without any help from band, orchestra or Betty Ann's cordovox; but they never sang without a conductor, because it would have been inviting disaster; any choir attempting to sing a cappella [without instrumental support] and also without a conductor’s hands and face to watch, will probably need to sing standing in a circle, keeping their eyes on one lead singer, who will ‘conduct’ in some way with facial or body expression; most difficult and therefore most spine-tingling of all for a musically educated audience, is when a choir sings rubato (no beat: q.v.) and a cappella simultaneously, and does it well; in fact, if done extremely well, as usually occurred at least several times during any Waring concert, with Waring himself conducting, it might not merely knock your socks AND UNDIES off, both, it could even cause a heart attack in a true music savant sitting in the audience, or at least a brief pang of ecstasy or especial delight)

coda  –  the tail end of a piece of music, often seemingly tacked on as an emphatic after-thought, and almost always faster and louder than what just preceded

con affetto  –  with a lot of feeling, especially lots of tender emotion

contralto  –  female singing in a lower voice than soprano

English glee  –  a singing tradition in England which included (and still includes; because the English, loving tradition, still have a few traditional-style glee clubs) a certain style of singing, including the type of song, the size of the singing group, the sex of the singers, the structure of the composition, the absence of instrumental accompaniment (also called a cappella); for instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica defines a ‘glee’ song as a “vocal composition for three or more unaccompanied solo male voices, including a countertenor,” then elaborates on other aspects of the definition; see Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference Suite (for computer; on CD and/or DVD), entry for ‘glee’

forte  –  loud; loudly

glissando  –  a glide or sweep up or down the scale of notes of an instrument, including the musical instrument of the human voice; for example, an upward glissando on the piano is accomplished using the backs of several fingers at once moving from the lowest white notes to the highest in one fast sweep; on a slide trombone glissando is accomplished by sounding a note using the lips, and then, while holding firmly to that position and tone with the lips, pulling in or pushing out the trombone’s slide to make the tone glide upward or downward, respectively

Grand Pause, or G.P.  –  a surprisingly and therefore dramatically extended pause of total silence in the midst of a piece of music, usually used with the purpose of producing a dramatic effect; and almost never does it last more than one full beat or two; and, if a number of people are playing at once, as in an ensemble of band or orchestra and choir, all musicians remain totally silent at once

hoedown  –  rural American folk and hillbilly tradition of music-making, dancing and carrying on, often inside and/or outside a hay-filled barn, the music being traditional folk and local folk; the dancing being folk- and/or square-dancing

hootenanny  –  an American folk tradition of singing, music-making and merry-making, including maybe even stomping of feet and clapping of hands, the music being mostly traditional folk tunes whose composers' names have been forgotten; and, while folk-musicians perform, audience almost always joins in on certain songs whenever the singer invites it

obligato  –  a solo soprano voice singing way up high above everybody else in the choir, and on his or her own unique notes; tending to create an ethereal, angelic quality

open diapason  –  Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines this as: ‘a pipe organ foundation stop having a full sonorous tone and consisting usually of metal pipes of 8-foot pitch open at the top’; while it defines ‘diapason’ as ‘a burst of harmonious sound... in the organ... extending through the complete scale of the instrument... the entire compass of musical tones’; in common parlance, it is the part of the organ which is used when a large congregation is singing loudly and the organist needs to up the volume, from lowest bass to highest treble, in order that they keep singing together; in street language, it is the part of the organ than knocks your socks off, making you think God is coming down through a cloud straight through the ceiling, which is going to fall on you just from the organ noise alone; because, a good full-throttle organ playing the open diapason ‘stop’ at or near full volume will rattle your eardrums and vibrate your inner sanctum's guh-nozzas, up through your feet and down through your noggin and make your spine tingle and tango a holiness row AGAINST YOUR OWN BETTER JUDGMENT

rubato  –  no beat; i.e., rhythm and speed allowed (or given over by the composer) to fluctuate rapidly and suddenly at the whim and devising of the performer or conductor (explanation: when a choral conductor wants to go rubato the singers must follow and stick to him or her like so many flies to blowing flypaper or the sound quality will deteriorate nastily very fast; only a highly trained and competent choir can sing rubato without falling apart; and only a very competent conductor can keep his choir with him through the sudden whimsical changes; the usual intended effect is heightened emotion, for with the use of rubato, instead of sticking to a set beat, the delivery keeps fluctuating suddenly and unpredictably between faster and slower, more like a heated conversation; and so, for this reason, Fred Waring used the device whenever he wanted to take a line of a song which everyone had heard a thousand times and dismissed, therefore, for instance a good line from a Cole Porter song -- like 'spend my life making love to you' -- and drive home the importance of it with a new emotional twist no one had ever contemplated deeply before; and in fact, Fred's super-skillful use of rubato combined with a cappella (no instrumental accompaniment: q.v.) was a large part of why Toscanini and Ormandy respected him as a musical equal, enough to play golf with him at Shawnee; furthermore, a great conductor like Waring, who absolutely loved rubato, and used it to great effect again and again in any given concert to express his own personal emotion during a song, was likely never to do it the same way twice on the same song; meaning, the choir could never be certain exactly how he might be feeling from one day to the next and how he might change the rhythm therefore from one evening's concert to the next, until it actually happened; a fact which created an even higher level of demand upon their skill and ability to follow his lead)

tempo  –  refers to the speed of the music, the 'beat'

tonic to dominant; switching between tonic and dominant  –  explanation: if a musical piece is in the key of C, the ‘tonic’ chord is the C chord and the ‘dominant’ chord is the G chord; in the most simply constructed music, for example, the most commonly used chord will usually be the ‘tonic’ and the second most frequently used will be the ‘dominant’; or, another example: if one studies guitar playing, the first chord learned will be the ‘tonic’ of a basic key, and the second, the ‘dominant’ of that same key; and so, for such reasons as these, any musical piece that sticks to only tonic and dominant chords may tend to sound ‘simple’ and ‘childish’, or ‘childlike’ and ‘innocent’; Hitler, accordingly, recommended simple German marches, waltzes, folk music and melodic Schubert songs as essential fodder for the Germanic soul (while also foisting Wagner’s music on the public whenever possible, even though Wagner frequently modulated all over the musical map; and while forgetting that Schubert often turned a divine corner into a shockingly unexpected chord to drive home a deep and complex emotion; thus providing evidence, once again, that The Great Dictator and his great goons were all enjoying suffering a mass psychosis)

tremolo  –  to sound a musical note so that it rapidly trembles up and down slightly

unison  –  sopranos, altos, tenors and basses all singing the same note, usually the melody (rather than singing four-part harmony) (although, in unison singing sopranos may sing the same note an octave or two or three or four higher than the deepest basses, etc.)

vivace  –  vivacious; sung or played in a very lively manner; usually meaning fast and energetic, full of life and spirit

viva voce  –  using one’s speaking voice to say or shout (not sing) something in the middle of a song; often done in a sing-song way

vibrato  –  see tremolo; the only difference between the two perhaps being that the word ‘vibrato’ often implies more than usual warmth; whereas ‘tremolo’ just means 'trembling'