What does "upbeat" mean, anyway?

[Pat'sStrat]

Yeah, I guess. It's funny because when our blues band plays in the local free summer concert series here they bring the buses from the retirement homes and they seem to love the blues stuff we do. One old guy sitting in a wheelchair motioned me over on a break and I thought he might complain. He looked stony faced while we were playing. Turns out he loved the band and said he used to lump gear for the Allman Brothers in Georgia and Florida when they were just breaking big, and that some of my slide work reminded him of Duane.

 

Sometimes we forget that a good many of today's seniors were around in the 60s and aren't all that much into Lawrence Welk or Glenn MIller. A few if us did some acoustic stuff for a nursing home a few Christmases ago and one old woman asked me if i could play her anything by Neil Young or Jesse Winchester!

[pogo97]

You're right about old people getting younger. In fact, much of the material I play came out well before my retired audience was born. But they remember it just like you remember your parents' (or even grandparents') music. They're quite happy with Elvis and The Beatles as well, and there are other musicians who play that for them.

[daddymack]

face it lads, we're the next lot heading into the dying houses, and we are not going in quietly...

I can't imagine DJs doing disco in the 'homes', but it could come to that ...but can you do 'the hustle' with a walker? I'm thinking not...

[pinkfloydcramer61]

Yes, that's pretty peppy! My "peppy" has more in common with your 1st clip though. Tunes I learned from my grandmother's player piano rolls, along with some ragtime and honky tonk. But at the adult daycare where I play, I'm more likely to get requests for Michael Jackson.

[Notes_Norton]

Upbeat means different things to different audience members. Sometimes it's hard to read them.

 

Example: We were playing songs at close to mm=176 and a girl came up and wanted it faster. Eventually we found out she meant louder, not faster.

 

Upbeat to means means allegro or faster and light or cheerful. But it could mean positive lyrics to another. A bouncy swing to another. Who knows what else to a particular audience member. Some times it takes a little or even a lot of fishing to find out what they mean. Ask for an example, sometimes that works.

 

Notes

[daddymack]

Upbeat means different things to different audience members. Sometimes it's hard to read them.

 

Example: We were playing songs at close to mm=176 and a girl came up and wanted it faster. Eventually we found out she meant louder, not faster.

 

Notes

Yep, hard to get the meaning when they don't communicate effectively....

Years ago, doing a studio gig, the producer calls out into the room and says 'do it again like that, but with more 'urgency'....'

 

I waved at him through the glass...

He hits the talk-back 'what?

I say..."can you define exactly what you mean by 'urgency'?"

He says...'I'll know it when I hear it...'

I did the next take standing up, but nearly identical to the prior take...he liked that better...jeez-louise...where do they get these terms?

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

In some ways I like the old Italian directions like Dolce, Vivace, Andante, Presto, pf, sfz and so on, because they have well defined and standard meanings for speed, dynamics, and expression.

 

Presto means fast, from mm=168 to mm=200 and so on,. More precise than uptempo.

 

Of course this goes for literate musicians and (hopefully) producers. We can't expect the general public to know our jargon.

 

And a little rant here.

 

When I was in the "Stage Band" in school, the director was an old Big Band musician.

 

We had a chart with "Funky" on it, and his interpretation (and the composer's directive) was light and bouncy. If you can stand to listen to Bent Fabric's "Alley Cat", that was Funky in the 40s and 50s.

 

Then when I was in a 60s rock/blues band, songs like "Stormy Monday Blues" (Bobby "Blue" Bland) style were Funky. The black folks called slow, intense 12/8 blues "Funky Blues".

 

In the 70s, the Brecker Brothers "Some Skunk Funk" and others defined what Funky Music was.

 

Then Michael Jackson's Disco/Pop music blend was called Funky.

 

In the 90s it was "House Music" that was Funky.

 

And so on to today's definition of Funk which is as far as you can get from "Alley Cat".

 

Same for R&B:

 

Ray Charles, Bobby Bland, BB King, Otis Redding, and Jimmy Reed all played Rhythm & Blues in it's original definition. Mostly Delta Blues on electric instruments designed for a crossover blues/pop market full of I, IV, and V7 chords with that occasional vi or ii. A far cry from what they call R&B today.

 

So if another musician comes up and says play something Funky, or play some R&B, you still cannot be sure as to what he/she means.

 

I know language is a living, changing thing. But why do we have to change the meaning of old words when a new term would serve communication much better?

 

Insights, incites, and minor rants by Notes

[daddymack]

Trut' so pure: dare ayn no blooz in ArranBee ennymo!

 

There is indeed a huge gap within the difference between 'funk' and funky'....and certainly that, 'cool', 'hip', and other once definitive and now co-opted terms have moved away from their original meaning...but the Alley Cat was NEVER 'funky'; sorry, your band leader was an old fuddyduddy...

[pogo97]

I have a performance of "The Alley Cat Song" seared in my memory. The Brunswick House in Toronto, an afternoon show with a good band and then an open mic inserted into it. And a regular, an old old lady (I was 20ish, say no more...) singing the Peggy Lee version and gyrating like an alley cat throughout. But it was the purring toward the end that cauterised my brain. And I shall never be the same again.

 

THE HORROR!!!

 

[video=youtube;65NxKuSaHTM]

[Notes_Norton]

It was the "stage band" director, because back in the stone ages, schools couldn't say Jazz. And yes, unlike the concert and marching band director (who just got out of college), the stage band director was an old fuddyduddy. He professed to have played in a few of the big bands, and was at the time, well past retirement age. But why retire when you are doing what you love? Stage band was fun because we got to play Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and other Big Jazz Band charts. Unfortunately, we didn't get any Kenton charts.

[pogo97]

Whenever I go to my daughter's concert band recitals, I'm just knocked out at how good their music teacher/director is. Great presenter, knows his repertory, and obviously operating at a high level of musicianship. I envy him a bit, too.

[Notes_Norton]

When in Montreal last week we heard the McGill University orchestra play a Symphony and a few short works Every bit as good as a touring pro orchestra.

 

Here in Florida we go to Lynn University, and they are also every bit as good as a famous orchestra.

 

In fact, for dynamic, romantic era pieces, sometimes those pieces are well suited for the youthful passion of a young orchestra.