Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has one of the most famous examples of the mystical flute TV trope. From out a secret pocket in his velvet frock, Willy pulls a penny whistle and plays a quick ascending melody to call upon his loyal oompa-loompas. Check out this Wonka Bar. Of course, Willy would be […]
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Promethean Melody
The 2012 movie Prometheus features a race of ancient astronauts called “Engineers” who created humanity from a black goo. That’s not a white goo, mind you, like the kind found here on Earth, inside each and every one of us—no, this is a black goo. It’s a distinctly Luciferean substance. So in the scene above, […]
Chromatic Melodies
I like chromatic melodies, especially when they descend in tuplets. It can be mystical like a mystic cave, mundane as playground song, or silly and sad like a Catholic carnival. Let’s take a look at Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair”. This song features a highly-sexualized celebrity daughter whipping shots of paint into the faces of […]
Morse Code
Morse Code is in G. It’s a minimalist monotonal music that relies on rhythm for comprehension. Drag your cursor over the black stemmed noteheads. The Morse G can be played in two lengths―the quaver (1/8 note ) and the semiquaver (1/16 note), or dit and dah. Try spelling out some of these words. Don’t forget […]
Do The Wart
There is an unnamed melody which everyone knows in their heart of hearts, heard in the mind’s ear, appearing in variations from Pop and Classical to Nintendo. Let’s call this melody the “Wart Melody” after the villainous frog: King Wart. In 1988’s Super Mario Bros. 2, the agile Luigi takes on final boss Wart while […]
Off-beat
Did you ever notice how clock time is counted on the wrong beats? It goes “tick-tock” when it should go “tock-tick”, like drums do. In the popular drum beat, the lower tone kick drum is played on the One, while the higher tone snare drum on the Two. Boom pah, boom boom pah, not pah […]
We Jammin’
There is a severe lack of improvisation in this world, in music and in life. Each day is scripted, habitual, routine, indistinguishable from the day before and the day after. The tide comes in, and the tide comes out. We march through eternity: left right left, death life death. Everything has happened once before, at […]
