Board 8 > Who does Rudolph go down in history with?

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

lol so mad

bruh

he has a point

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redrocket posted...

bruh

he has a point

His point is that syllables aren't important to the rhythm of a sung line, except they are. So no, not really.

Lopen posted...

Uh huh. The guy who went into a 3 paragraph rant about music jargon is totally the calm one here

You erroneously accused me of "dumbing down singing", so I assumed you'd want a more thought-out response. I didn't expect you to get mad and insult me for it!

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I actually heard Corrik's version once with Dumbo and Football once a very very long time ago, like over 30 years ago so it might be a false memory.

After I moved at the age of 7 I only ever heard the George Washington version, so I thought I made the first one up.

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You were dumbing-down singing and then to compensate you over complicated five-year-old singing.

I remember how we butchered George Washington kind of rushing through the Washington part and said to myself " hey could I say Columbus in a way where it flows (roughly) the same?" And I could easily.

Simple as that!

(PS I took band for 7 years in school so I knew the relevant part of that and in particular how it's not relevant for children chanting on a playground)

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You know, if you didn't include the line about "dumbing down singing", we wouldn't even really be disagreeing about anything?

Syllables are linked to rhythm, even in melismatic singing. You agreed with this yourself. Yes, a single syllable removal doesn't change the line much at all, but keep in mind, you were responding to a rather innocuous post.

I'd explain how 'over-complicating children chanting on a playground' is not a thing, but I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in me going over the studies of Zoltan Kodaly and children's folk songs in western culture through the ages so I'll leave that one alone.


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"Like George Washington" has the same amount of syllables/rhythm as "Like Pinocchio" and "Like Monopoly," so anybody trying to use the syllable argument against it is wrong and needs to get off my lawn.

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And if you didn't treat me as though I didn't know syllables and rhythm are linked I wouldn't have said you were dumbing things down-- I didn't say that you, host of classical music mafia, didn't know better, just that you were oversimplifying. I just saw a lot of people going 2 2 2 4 4 4 and it's like "does it really matter to that level?"

Like obviously it's relevant but you could leave all lines in the Washington variant the same and replace with Lincoln or Columbus and make it flow fairly well if you draw certain parts out. I mean properly trained child choral warriors would not but yeah...


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It's a stretch already to make Columbus work, how the hell does Lincoln work

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I'd draw out the Lin part, brief pause, say coln as normal.

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That's pretty dumb since none of the other lines get drawn out like that.

Columbus sorta works since you don't gotta draw it out that much, but Lincoln's just a straight up no.

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I mean I wouldn't but I could absolutely see kids doing it I'd they liked Lincoln or something. It flows by 5 year old standards.

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"It flows by 5 year old standards" is like saying "It flows by the standards of people that have no standards" and thus it doesn't flow

I've named myself the authority on this. Lincoln is out.

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The problem is if you extrapolate your point further, then you would say "there's no difference between singing 'like George Washington' and 'like Trump'". Rudolph is a syllabic song. And all the additional 'playground additions' are as well. Syllables do matter. Not really enough where 'Like Columbus' doesn't fit, but yes where 'like Lincoln' does not.

My response was just along the lines of saying that if you discount syllables, which is rhythm in this instance, then you are contradicting yourself.

Because syllables are cadence, with regards to this song.

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Everybody knows the song has always been "Like Trum-puh-puh-puh." And honestly, the song is about him. Who cares about Rudolph? Was Rudolph's crowd size for his inauguration as lead reindeer the biggest in history? I don't think so. Fake news!

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But I'm not extrapolating further. This is case for case and not a hard rule. I wouldn't say Trump works. I actually would say Charlie Brown works less well than Lincoln too despite it having one more syllable because I can't figure out how to draw things out/add pauses on that one

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Lopen I know you'll argue literally anything, but "Lincoln" is something you just need to take the L on.

Those kids are wrong and we should be mocking them.

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HashtagSEP posted...

It's a stretch already to make Columbus work, how the hell does Lincoln work

It's incredibly odd because the rhythmic structure is entirely unique.

Ignoring the middle section of the song, the lines follow a simple ABABABAB all the time. The echoes follow this as well.

Reindeer
Like a lightbulb
Saw it
Like a lightbulb
Reindeer
Like Pinocchio
Rudolph
Like Monopoly

Loved him
Yippee
Reindeer
Like (historical figure)

Every single A line is a two syllable echo, with every B line followed by a silly line that has small enough rhythmic units to demonstrate the song is in compound meter (aside - this IS important because studies of children's songs show that kids default to compound meter in their folk songs as they default to minor thirds as intervals that are sung).

The only time where that pattern is broken is with 'Yippee', which makes sense because rhythmically, it's adding variation that lends itself to setting up the line as being dominant leading to a cadence.

"Like Lincoln" is just three beats. It breaks from rhythmic tonality, which doesn't make sense, and there isn't a single other time in the song where the echo is only three beats, unless you follow other weird things like 'like Dumbo'.

tl;dr - incorrect rhythm in the final echo is the same as ending the song on a different chord

Lopen posted...

But I'm not extrapolating further. This is case for case and not a hard rule. I wouldn't say Trump works. I actually would say Charlie Brown works less well than Lincoln too despite it having one more syllable because I can't figure out how to draw things out/add pauses on that one

It is a hard rule though. Columbus just doesn't break the rule.

Charlie Brown is also weird, but makes a tad more sense than Lincoln. You just make the rhythm "two three-ah four". But in the song, we're used to having the third partial on the second beat for the echoes and that's why it is also weird in this situation.

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My main point was about Columbus anyway. Corrie already said they had a whole set of wacky lyrics

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Oh, also, if you're wondering how this information ISN'T useless -

I've had to compose music for preschool-Kindergarten children, one school of which had a majority student base of ESL students. Understanding the study of folk song rhythms and intervals makes it so that one can write music that is more developmentally appropriate for students of that age.

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all i got out of this topic was the mental image of rankin/bass rudolph trying to kick a football and lucy pulling it away as he comically does a flip and goes "good grief"

so 10/10 topic good work everyone
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Oh, also, if you're wondering how this information ISN'T useless -

I've had to compose music for preschool-Kindergarten children, one school of which had a majority student base of ESL students. Understanding the study of folk song rhythms and intervals makes it so that one can write music that is more developmentally appropriate for students of that age.

Which may actually make you lose sight of the simplicity of this topic because composing something that's easy to sing isn't exactly the same as changing the lyrics of something and still making it sound close enough to the same.

Like there's a big difference between songs composed for children and "what kids will throw into a song for lols"

Like I consider rudolph the red nosed reindeer a "folk song" but I don't consider the adds at the end to follow those rules, particularly spinoffs of the original. They generally end up following those rules because that sounds natural but if you've got a bunch of kids who want to say "like Robin Hood" instead of George Washington they'll find a way and it'll because that stuff is somewhat intuitive for enough kids that the rest where it's not will copy

If it's far enough off it'll be rejected but I think in terms of "working" it's George Washington >= Columbus/The Flintstones > Lincoln > Hitler > Charlie Brown > Trump (I'd put the work line between Lincoln and Hitler because the hard t is harder to draw out) and while syllables are relevant they're not the only factor there and it shouldn't be a hard "different syllables" = can't work or that all three syllables kinda work because Columbus kinda does. Depends on the words, sounds within and how easy it is to draw em out. I'm sure you can drop the jargon here and I can't as I haven't studied this in depth, but I don't need to have that amount of depth to know what I can and can't make "sound right" just from some basic music knowledge and vocal experience and just listening to music (in particular listening to the same song in different languages is enlightening for stuff like this cause a lot of the time they want to keep the meaning the same and you can't do that with the same amount of syllables so they end up drawing certain sounds out with varying results)

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well lopen now i'm imagining rudolph slipping off the roof and into a window to steal from rich familes while santa is busy going down the chimney and putting presents by the tree

thanks
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Sounds awesome. Much better than doing the Charlie Brown schtick dude's makin that cash now

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nono, he then gives that cash to the poor families

luckily, he got a good job that has him visiting both in one night
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