Viral Dancing?

My sister sent me this Youtube video of a "happening" in Antwerp. As a promo for a Belgian reality show searching for Maria for a revival of Sound of Music, 200 dancers started dancing to "Do Re Mi" in the Antwerp Central Station. Even though it has a commercial purpose, it does capture the spirit of brightening peoples days with unexpected art. This sounds like an interesting project to get my college students involved with, not necessarily dance mind you. Especially not me dancing, except to horrify my friends and family.

Movie help

Yes, this is an official bleg. One of my colleagues is running an Oscar pool (no money, just bragging rights). Despite having seen almost none of the nominated movies, I feel very confident about my picks in all the main categories. After all, I listen to NPR's Fresh Air regularly. But, ironically, the categories I feel I have no clue in are the soundtracks. Perhaps it is because I care most about these categories, and don't want to make a rash decision based on no information (I've only seen one of the movies). I don't feel the same way about acting, so I'm willing to go out on a limb with no reasoning whatsoever. Anyway, here are the categories and the nominees. Tell me who you think will win the Oscar, and why.

ORIGINAL SCORE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Despiat)
Defiance (James Newton Howard)
Milk (Danny Elfman)
Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman)
WALL-E (Thomas Newman)

ORIGINAL SONG
“Down to Earth” from WALL-E (Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman)
“Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman and Gutzar)
“O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam)

As a related bleg, I'm also not certain about the short films (documentary short subject, Animated short film, and Live Action short film). Any advice on those also appreciated, but I won't clutter the blog with those more unrelated topics.

Down to the River to Pray

I surprised my wife by announcing that I really liked this song from the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack. This was in response to her professed admiration for Alison Krauss' song. She was surprised because of the conflict between the religious text and my agnostic beliefs, since the lyrics were a large part of what she liked.

My admiration stems from several intriguing characteristics of the music itself. First is the asymmetric phrase structure. There is an ametric pause after each refrain, and each stanza includes one 5/4 measure among the regular 4/4 beats. This causes the conscious to listen closely, without necessarily knowing why it needs to pay attention. Some might regard the asymmetry as a type of primitivism, but I don't hear it that way. The 5/4 measure adds a level of sophistication, and the pause keeps you guessing as to when the next stanza begins, another attention-getter. The 5/4 measure also throws the poetry into confusion (see the lyrics at the bottom of the post). "And who shall wherewear" is added to the previous line with the extra beat, so the rest of that line is combined with the final line of the verse.

The second interesting characteristic is the lack of closure to the primary melodic line. Each stanza, including the last, finishes with Do - La - Sol. The Do does not sound final, coming on a weak beat and leading to the final Sol. It could be a modal finish, but the harmonies don't support that interpretation. This does create some sense of primitivism, at least to my Schenker-biased ears, though it also seems to fit the lyrics well. The river keeps rolling along without ending, just as the tonality of this song does.

The harmonies, beautifully realized by human voices alone, also deny closure and create a sense of both sophistication and "old-time" aesthetics. There are many 6/4 chords (triads with the fifth in the bass) in structurally important places, destabilizing the harmonic progression and therefore the sense of tonality. The bass line tends to follow the melody in similar motion, rather than create any sense of root motion from chord to chord. The avoidance of roots even as more and more harmonic strands are added is both frustrating and intriguing. In the end of the last stanza, all voices move to unison/octaves mostly (some embellishments), so all the voices end on Sol.

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh sisters let's go down
Let's go down come on down
Oh sisters let's go down
Down to the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh brothers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh fathers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh mothers let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way
Oh sinners let's go down
etcetera

As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord show me the way