In a discussion on Gaudere’s favorite topic, gestalt, Sake mentioned Happy Birthday as an organization of notes, and gave its first measure as:
I responded that, no, the first note in Happy Birthday is not the tonic note. If you begin with a C, you are in the key of F, since F is the last note in the song.
So, I gave it as:
But the more I thought about it, the more it ate at me. You know, maybe you could argue it either way. If you define the tonic note as being the first note, and if you begin with C, you could indicate the note in “Hap-py birth day to you,” at the end of the song by an A-sharp rather than a B-flat.
Does there exist in music theory two schools of thought on this? And is there a better argument for one side or the other?
It seems to me more natural to define the last note as the tonic note since the last note is where a song resolves… Or not! As in Come Down in Time by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The last note in that song is a B5! But the song, if I recall correctly, is in the key of E minor. (Melodic minor, not harmonic.)
The first or last note of a song doesn’t determine what key it is in, but it is a good indicator. Happy Birthday does start on the 5th tone of the key it is in, so your description is accurate, but it is So, not sol.
I know that whoever decided it would be “cute” for restaurants to ing variation on this song to their patrons should be drawn, quatered, salted, folded, spindled, mutilated and given lifetime tickets to Wrigley Field.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
First, the music and words to “Happy Birthday to You” is copyrighted material, by special act of Congress. (The Misses Hill who originally wrote it copyrighted it, and their copyright has been extended by Act of Congress beyond the normal span when it would enter the public domain.)
Second, the “tonic” for a song is the keynote – literally, i.e., the note which is “do” for the key in which it is written.
However, I believe that peaceful honest people may disagree on what characterizes the content of this song, analytically or in gestalt, and should be free to sing it at appropriate occasions.
Not necessarily. Happy Birthday and Come Down in Time are but two of countless examples.
But that’s true only if you use a major key. What if you write it in C minor? Granted, you will have some flats, but so what?
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: sol
Pronunciation: 'sOl
Variant(s): also so /'sO/
Function: noun
Etymology: Medieval Latin sol; from the syllable sung to this note in a medieval hymn to Saint John the Baptist
Date: 14th century
: the 5th tone of the diatonic scale in solmization
I think it is sol not “so” actually…the names for the notes were taken from the lyrics from a gregorian chant sung by the monks to warm up at the beginning of a choir session (or whatever). Each verse was sung to the nex note in the scale, so the first syllable of the first word in each verse became associated with that note.
this part is kinda WAG, but I did read this somewhere:
Do came from ‘docemus’
Re = ?
Mi = mihi?
Fa = facemus
Sol = solus
La = ?
Ti = tibi?
Let’s complicate it further. The first notes of Happy Birthday are pick-up notes (anacrusis), and not the first accented note of the first full measure, which would be “D” if “Hap-py” is “C”. So is “D” the key? The chord ususally played in the first measure (if “Hap-py” is “C”) is F-major, which doesn’t have a “D” in it, (if I remember correctly, “D” here is an appogiatura) so is F-major the key, being the first chord? Etc…
“Sol” is correct; “So” is a later revision to have consistency in the syllables, as “consonant-vowel” combinations. “Do” was originally “Ut”. Ugh.
I’m confused as to your point. Are you trying to say that it is not a good indicator? It is, but more importantly the indicator is what chord starts or finishes the song. Again, it is only an indicator, not the determining factor.
Again I am confused. Most musicians use actual notes or numbers when describing songs, not do-re-mi. Yes, if you write a song in C minor, you will have some flats. If you transpose Happy Birthday to c minor, you will have a slightly different song.
Well, F6 has a D in it, as does Dm, the relative minor of F.
If I were chording it in that key, I would chord it (for each syllable) as F F F6 F F[add octave] C, going to C on the “you” and inverting it so that the third is the highest note. That makes it F major, surely.
Well, maybe in folk music, but not reliably even then.
Well, the determining factor is the key signature. But as I said, you can write Happy Birthday in the key of C minor without changing a single tone in the melody simply by indicating accidentals.
You could also compose a funeral dirge for a banjo although fingering it might get tricky.
No, you wouldn’t.
Okay, think of it this way. For simplicity, let’s say that Happy Birthday is in the key of F. If we write it in F minor (melodic), we simply write the note for the first “you” as a sharpened seventh. See what I mean? It’s still an E. Course, if we’re in F harmonic minor, we wouldn’t even need to do that, but we’d have to at least sharpen the third wherever it might come in.
Certainly you can write the song in whatever key you wish and make liberal use of accidentals. The key is merely a convenience (but what a convenience!)
But I still contend that the first chord is a good indicator in popular music. Pick up any songbook for evidence. Jazz and classical buck that trend, but that is why they are jazz and classical
What is the relationship between the melody note and the chord on the first syllable of the person’s name (happy birthday mister PRES-ident)?
I do too… but I don’t think it could be considered a diminished chord. You have F-Bflat-E with a Bflat in the bass (left hand). A diminish chord would be Bflat-Dflat-E.
It’s kind of like a C chord with Bflat in the bass which then changes to Bflat chord.
I didn’t say it was a diminished chord, I said it had a diminished fifth. I also said that I do like diminished chords.
And it isn’t a C chord with B flat in the bass. But you could call it a C5 dominant seventh chord with a B flat bass. But that’s exactly the same as a B flat with a diminished fifth.
The OP asked for a debate on the assignment of context to melody.
