Home page of the Saskatoon Country Western Music Association
We Welcome New Members. Come and Join Us.
Membership - $ 20.00 /per year, can be Purchased From Any Executive Member.
Joining Benefits Include:
Discount Prices to all Musical Functions, B.B.Q.’s, Steak Nights, 10% discount at Underdog Music Store, $50.00 or more order.
10% discount at Ed’s Music Store, $50.00 order or more and discount at Mother’s Music Store.
Come Check out our Country Western Music
Jam, held every Friday night starting at
8;30 PM, at Confederation Inn (Brian).
Toon Town Tavern
3330 Fairlight Dr.
Everyone is Welcome,
Come and Have Some FUN, with a lot of friendly people who, you will like at first sight, more importantly, they will make you welcome, so you will be satisfied you came to be with us.
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The six forms of music.
In his new book, The World in Six Songs, cognitive psychologist and former record producer Daniel Levitin argues that all music, from orchestral classics to thrash metal and tribal dance, can be grouped into just six categories: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, ritual and love.
In her review of the book, Christine Kenneally discusses Levitin's ideas about how these six categories provide clues toward why we evolved to be a musical species.
Here, we thought we would take a look at how famous pieces of music can be classified according to Levitin's system. Do you think we've categorised them correctly? Can you think of any songs that don't fit the mould?
Friendship
Levitin says that songs have served to reinforce social bonds throughout human history. Our chosen example is John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance (watch the video).
Give Peace a Chance became an anthem for the anti-war movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its lyrics mock the various and often exclusionary "movements" with which people identify:
Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout / Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism / This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
Instead, the song advocates universal friendship and replacement of the motley assortment of credos by which people lead their lives with a single, simple statement: give peace a chance.
Joy
Levitin argues that joyful singing is a sign of positive mental health, and as such, something that might be attractive to potential mates.
It's hard to think of a better example than Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, written by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert and performed exuberantly by James Baskett in the 1946 Disney movie Song of the South (watch the video).
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah is irrepressibly cheerful, and doesn't have very much to say beyond celebrating how great it is to be alive:
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah / Zip-A-Dee-A / Wonderful feeling / Wonderful day
Comfort
The first songs that most of us ever hear are intended to comfort: lullabies. Their soothing melodies and gentle rhythms are expressly designed to lull children to sleep. As we grow older, many people continue to use music to ease their worries and soothe their emotional pain.
At times, this works in counterintuitive ways: listening to music that is explicitly sad, even depressing, can be surprisingly therapeutic. R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts (watch the video) is an archetypal song of comfort.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes / Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes / And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on / Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on / Everybody hurts. You are not alone
Its heart-on-sleeve lyrics are unusually explicit for R.E.M. The band wrote it as a message for depressed, isolated teenagers.
Knowledge
Throughout our evolutionary history, songs of knowledge have served to encapsulate collective memory and pass critical information from one generation to the next.
The spiritual Dem Bones has been reworked many times, for instance by the Delta Rhythm Boys (watch the video).
The lyrics are loosely based on Ezekiel 37:1-14 in the Bible, and the melody is by James Weldon Johnson.
Your toe bone connected to your foot bone / Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone / Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone / Your leg bone connected to your knee bone
It is now commonly sung to children to teach them basic anatomy, although its descriptions should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Ceremony
Music is often used to enhance, or even propel, rituals and ceremonies. This is most obviously true of religious ceremonies, which often involve choral singing - but much the same can be said for secular occasions, such as coronations, graduations and even sporting events.
All of these can feature anthems and chants as accompaniment to ritualistic behaviour, with the intention of adding gravitas to significant transitions in people's lives or to bond individuals together in a social group.
National anthems are an obvious example of such songs, but there are also songs that have acquired this status without having been granted official status. One such is the first of a set of five marches by Edward Elgar, collectively called Pomp and Circumstance (watch the video).
The first march's central Trio, reworked with lyrics as Land of Hope and Glory, has become a fixture at the annual Last Night of the Proms in London, UK.
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free / How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? / God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet / God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet
Land of Hope and Glory is one of two songs, the other being the hymn Jerusalem, often cited as a popular alternative to God Save the Queen, the UK's official national anthem
Love
More pieces of music have probably been written on this subject than any other, especially in modern popular music. It has become so ubiquitous that musicians sometimes make a point of avoiding it in an attempt to break free of convention.
Presumably the popularity of love-based music stems from the universal need to mate and reproduce, a need that in many species overpowers all others, including the urge for individual survival.
Examples are legion, and because of the huge number of pieces published there are a great many classics. So, to finish on a happy note, we picked the Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand (watch the video).
Oh yeah, I'll tell you something / I think you'll understand / When I say that something / I wanna hold your hand
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