Tequila by the Ventures.
I found a site where people sang and posted tunes they didn’t know the name of. You could then listen and answer. O Fortuna was the answer to AT LEAST 1/2 of them.
This is a good list. I’ll only add the Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem.
I would think The Champs version (the original) would be the iconic one.
As this extended version will show, the overture to William Tell starts with another passage almost as familiar as that which will forever–for better or worse–be known as “The Lone Ranger Theme” . . . :
http://www.classicsforkids.com/music/music_view.asp?id=21
I’d be surprised if anyone here hasn’t heard it, but for those who haven’t, it’s very frequently used to introduce a calm pastoral scene, or indicate the passage of a storm.
PS–Whoops! Got scooped on this one.
I don’t see anyone mentioning that mainstay for people who spin plates on sticks:
What about all those songs we heard as kids?
Frere Jacques
Farmer in the Dell
A-Tisket A-Tasket
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Heigh-Ho
Bye Baby Bunting
Where, Oh Where, Has My Little Dog Gone?
The Worms Crawl In, The Worms Crawl Out
Brahms Hungarian Dance #5 (famous as the music to the video game Spy’s Demise)
Continuing the Rossini theme, selections from Barber of Seville (o/ How do? Welcome to my shop, let me cut your mop, let me shave your crop! Daintily, daintily! o/)
From Tom & Jerry cartoons: “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?” “Mama yo quiero! Mama yo quiero! Mama yo quiero, Mama! Dash of pepper! Dash of pepper! BlahblahblahIdon’tknowtherest”
I didn’t even have to follow the link to know you were referring to “Sabre Dance.”
Another piece of classical music that finds its way into many movies:
I’m trying to give videos for my post now that I’m home from work, but YouTube is being a bitch and a half tonight. I’ll get them up eventually…
Thanx–that list was a real help to a musical near-illiterate like myself.
There’s still one that I’d hoped to identify. It’s a cloying, rather twee piano number, usually used in a humorous context to indicate delicate effeminacy. Think Bugs Bunny in a dress, wafting, more than walking into a room to play out some nefarious scheme on Elmer Fudd, and it will probably spring immediately to mind. Any help on this?
How about famous waltz’s by Strauss that most if not all know from somewhere
Most of these are the proper names for the melodies. A couple are from Disney cartoons: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf is from “The Three Little Pigs”, and Heigh-Ho is from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.
We’re talking about familiar melodies that you don’t know the proper names for.
Here’s one Christmas song that I remember featured in various commercials over the years, the latest being the Garmin GPS unit ad of a few years back: Carol of the Bells
Everybody sing! "Give-a Give-a Give-a Garmin…"
Off topic, but the coolness of the SDMB is demonstrated once again - for ‘Take 5’, it was mentioned as the theme song for the late 1980s British series ‘The Secret Life of Machines’ - going to a site I won’t mention, I ended up watching 6 episodes at one sitting - yeah, maybe a bit dated here and there (I couldn’t make out why Tim was fooling with long rolls of thin paper in the fax episode, until I realized plain-paper faxes were rare in 1990) but the history parts and demostrations are very good, and the show holds up fairly well.
I’m araid I don’t really know. I am not familiar with the music and am only relying on a discussion which appeared in Straight Dope several years ago, maybe even an article by Cecil himself, which cited it as a source of “indian music”…
I guess I misread the title and the OP. Sorry.
Is this the one that starts with a basic pattern of four drum beats with the accent on the first, followed by low string music? (I’d like to be able to just hum a few bars, but this isn’t the format for such . . .)