Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School - Collegiate Yearbook (Sarnia, Ontario Canada)

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98 THE COLLEGIATE THE FGRGODTTIEN MAN HN MUSEC N THESE Clays when there are so many soloists on the radio, in concerts, and in motion pictures, most of us are so carried away by the ability of the individual artist. that we fail to notil:e the beautiful background being played by the orchestra. To the average listener this is the case, for after all, our whole attention is being appealed for by the soloist, vt bile the orchestra sits in the background and is there for the sole purpose of supporting the performer. However, this background is carefully prepared so that it will give the soloist the most support possible without detracting the listener from the rendition of he solo. Nl'ho then, is responsible for this accompaniment? It seems that many people are unaware of the number of men who spend years of work and study in developing an ability in this profession. These men are known as arrangers or orchestrators. They take the bare melody of a tune andi create from it the beautiful score which you hear. Only a person with an extensive knowledge of music and an abundance of originality can make a success of arranging. lt is especially difficult to get started in this line of work, because of the scarcity of good teachers and texts. First, one must acquire a thorough knowledge of harmony and coun- terpoint and familiarize himself with the instruments for which he is going to write. .Xfter he is enlightened upon these fundamentals, the aspiring or- chestrator puts himself to work, gaining experience by the trial and error method. .-Xt lirst he may have to follow examples of other men's work and, if he is fortunate, the student might be able to have his attempts criticized by someone who is already adept at this work. Even with this help, the man who wishes to be successful in this profession must keep working at it until he attains accuracy, originality, and speed. The arranger is constantly confronted with new problems. One phase of arranging is the work done in preparing background or mood music for moving pictures. I have often remarked how perfectly the music fits into the scenes of the picture, how there is just the right type of music in the right place. ln order to reach this state of perfection, the arranger has -the film shown to him. He notes the exact times at which important, events 'take place, the emotions displayed in them, and their duration. Then he is given .1 minimum of time in which to complete a suitable score, and must meet this deadline so that the picture can be shown at a planned premiere. However, this is not the best-known job of the orchestrator. His biggest job is in writing arrangements for conductors and soloists. In this work he tries to satisfy his clients and yet write the type of music which he himself enjoys most. Often arrangers become so tired of trying to satisfy the tastes of or- chestra leaders and soloists, that they organize their own orchestras so that they can have their own style of nicusie played in the way which they desire. The arranger always remains in the background. His work is not done on a brightly-lighted concert stage or in a gaily-decorated ballroom. He re- ceives few compliments from the listeners, and usually his name is not even known to them. So, the next time you are impressed by the music of a good musical organization or soloist, remember that the arranger contributes to this success, without making an appearance in the performance. -Bill XVilkinson, IZB. Really, said Maxine Palmer to a fresh fellow, You take your arm from around my waist or keep it still-l'm no ukulele.

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THE COLLEGIATE 97 THE DEAF COMPOSER ECALL for a moment the great musical composer. Haydn. lYhen Haydn was dying in Yienna, in ISOQ, the French were bom- barding the town. Haydn's servants were terrified, but he took it all very calmly. He asked to be lifted from his bed to the piano' and when he was seated, he played his own Austrian Hymn three times over, while 'the guns were pounding outside. Now at that very moment, there was another composer in Vienna, crouching in a cellar, with cotton-wool stutfed in his ears. This composer was Beethoven. His hearing was beginning to go and he was afraid that the sound of the explosives would still further endanger it. Think of a musician being deaf! You might as well think of a painter being blind! Yet Beethoven, in some respects the greatest composer that ever lived, be- came almost totally deaf. The inliiction embittered all his later years, and turned an originally lovable man into a kind of surly bear. Beethoven, like Handel, did not marry. He would throw the soup in his housekeeper's eyes when it did not please him, and stamp and rage and howl over the most trivial annoyances. Let us be charitable to him when we- read these things. But Beethoven with his deafness, had a very hard life. Born in I77O, at Bonn, a pretty little university town on the Rhine, where they have pre- served his birthplace just as it was, he had to work his way up in a home directed by a father who was a habitual drunkard. The father, who was musical had heard something about the triumphs of the Mozart children in Vienna, Paris and London, and he thought he would make some money out of his own Ludwig. So he set him to work at the piano, and visitors would often see the child late at night shedding tears over the keytboard. XYhen he was about seventeen he went to Vienna, where, it is said Mozart gave him some lessons in composition, A few years later he went again to Yi- enna to study, and made his home in that city the rest of his life. lVhen Mozart tirst heard him play he exclaimed: Pay attention to this youngster, for he will yet make a noise in the world. XYel know how true that prophecy was. Beethoven's works for the Piano, particularly his Sonatas. are the grandest things of their kind ever written. Take away Beethoven's nine symphonies-the immortal nine, as they are sometimes called-and we would take away the very backbone of music. He did not write very much for the voice, for he was essentia.lly an instrumenta'l composer. but he left one beautiful song, Adelaide, and one great opera, Fedelio. He passed away in March, 1837, at the age of 57, and Vienna never before saw such a funeral as his, the crowds being so immense that the soldiers had to be called out to clear a passage lfor the magnificent procession. NNY: Marion Schell: Hey, Bet, what is a military objective? Bet Buchanan: lValk by the boys on that corner and you'll hnd out. Xflfrlsils l-'le had just stolen a hurried kiss. M. L. XVadham frather disgustedlyl: Don't you know any better than that? Dean Hawley: Sure, but they take more time.

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THE COLLEGIATE 99 scnooi, oRcut2sTm ' Standing tlcft to right?-Miss Ramsden. Hill liruncr, H. Barnes, ll Yan .-Xlsyne, D. Guthrie, P. XYray, D. Eyre, T. Kenny, R, Gcere, Mr. Brush tionductorl. ' liront Row tlcft to right!-R. Allen, XY. Marshall. li. MacDonald: j. lftiwlev, lf. Young. Gray. a i W PERCUSSION IN THE Music 'WORLD HE MUSIC we hear today has a colourful past. XYhethcr you pat- ronize classical music, modern jazz, or both, makes no difference. Both forms go back to ooo A-XD. when an ambitious ltalian, intrigued by musical sounds, laboriously devised the music static and modern system of notation. Up until Guido d'.-Xrezzo came along there was no accurate method of transferring musical sounds to the written page. But long before d'Arezzo's time, even before the time of civilized man, savages in primeval forests had learned to utilize a crude form of music. That, of course, was percussion. By stretching the skins of animals across the open ends of hollow logs, it was possible to achieve a single tone musical effect. XYhen more than a single drum of this sort was used, there resulted a series of different tonesg and thus was the first music devised. Primitive people used the drum as a sort of communication. Probably one day when Mr. Cavemanf was far from home he must have accidentally knocked his club against a hollow log and was surprised when his spouse told him she had heard it from far off in their cave. From then on he hit the hol- log logs on purpose to notify Mom that he had been successful in a Dinosaur hunt and that Pop was bringing home the bacon ,for should I say Dinosaurb. At any rate, the drum was one of man's first inventions, and he used it to expect his moods, as a means of communication, and to entertain himself. Now, hundreds of years later, it is still being used in much the same way. Great composers have recognized the value of the drum in a sustaining mood. Berlioz, for example, scored parts for sixteen kettle drums and ten drummers in his Requiem. . ' Man has used the drum in peace and war, in happiness and sorrow. The roll of drums has been used to pay tribute to a nation's heroes, and to dmm Russian Cossacks, riding at the French, beating on drums slung on either side