Folksong? Someone else's original tune?

[krummholz]

Attached is an extremely simple, 8-bar melody that is one of dozens of similar earworms that first started to infect me after watching Ken Burns's Civil War Documentary. They come into my head every once in a while and then leave; this one occurred to me recently after listening to a friend's string quartet movement, as it employs similar intervals in a way that to me suggests an American, perhaps Appalachian folksong. I've decided tentatively to use it to open a one-movement string quartet that will quickly become complex, contrapuntal, and troubled in the manner of Nielsen's 6th (or perhaps Brian's 31st) symphony. But I didn't want to waste too much time on it if the theme is actually by someone else.

At first I thought it was a variant of Jay Ungar's Ashokan Farewell, which is heard dozens of times in the Burns documentary, but I listened to the Ungar tune the other night and concluded that the connection is distant enough that it's not an issue - ditto the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, which is if anything closer to it in character but still not nearly a match.

So, does anyone recognize this? I'm posting this in Composing instead of Name This Tune because I didn't want to post an audio file, and I think everyone here reads music. So...

[gprengel]

I never heard this tune before - it is indeed beautiful! Only the C in the 6th measure I don't find so fitting - wouldn't be a F more fitting?

[lunar22]

it is actually remarkably similar to my 11th quartet variation theme -- now that I've finally got round to playing this through. I don't agree with Gerd about the C in bar 6 -- certainly an F followed by the Eb would be rather odd to my ears and the C fits fine.

As for my own theme, I've never heard any of the ones mentioned so it's purely a coincidence -- or possibly a common cultural heritage.

Composing a theme which starts innocently and then becomes more threatening like Nielsen's 6th first movement (arguably the greatest thing he ever wrote) would certainly be an interesting idea. No idea if you've gone any further with this since first posting?

[krummholz]

I never heard this tune before - it is indeed beautiful! Only the C in the 6th measure I don't find so fitting - wouldn't be a F more fitting?

Thank you Gerd! But the C sounds right to me - it's perfectly idiomatic in American folk music. What would follow the F? The Eb? That really doesn't work for me.

But I've tabled this piece for now. With the current situation where I work, I've had to forget about composing and am now teaching a class I haven't taught in ages, because a colleague decided to accept a position elsewhere earlier in the summer - and there's a hiring freeze, so our department of 5 full-time teaching faculty is now down to 4.

[krummholz]

it is actually remarkably similar to my 11th quartet variation theme -- now that I've finally got round to playing this through. I don't agree with Gerd about the C in bar 6 -- certainly an F followed by the Eb would be rather odd to my ears and the C fits fine.

As for my own theme, I've never heard any of the ones mentioned so it's purely a coincidence -- or possibly a common cultural heritage.

Composing a theme which starts innocently and then becomes more threatening like Nielsen's 6th first movement (arguably the greatest thing he ever wrote) would certainly be an interesting idea. No idea if you've gone any further with this since first posting?

Yes, as I said to you privately, your theme reminded me of Ashokan Farewell and similar themes that became almost like earworms to me for a while when I first saw the Ken Burns Civil War documentary. So I played around with the few of those (rather stale by now) ideas that I could still remember, and came up with that.

Unfortunately I haven't gone any further with this. I don't think I've lost interest, but I can't really devote the kind of attention to any work in progress that composing requires. That's been true for the last half or so of the summer, and it's worse now that classes have started up again.

[lunar22]

Nice to hear from you ---it's a shame you can't find more time for composing (not that I myself have any inspiration to start on something new at present). My own treatment of the innocent theme certainly becomes increasingly melancholic and chromatic but that's a long way from the terror of Nielsen 6 and I imagine that's something you would be capable of.

[krummholz]

Nice to hear from you ---it's a shame you can't find more time for composing (not that I myself have any inspiration to start on something new at present). My own treatment of the innocent theme certainly becomes increasingly melancholic and chromatic but that's a long way from the terror of Nielsen 6 and I imagine that's something you would be capable of.

Not sure that *terror* is a good description for the ideas that I have for that quartet - and real terror would be a hard thing to pull off in this medium, Shostakovich #13 notwithstanding - but definitely some very troubled and disturbing events will be in the offing if I can ever get back to it. Though there were a couple passages early in the development that were inspired by Nielsen 6, overall my conception was closer to Brian 31 than the Nielsen - and the overarching, perhaps overdone by now, theme of "innocence to experience".

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Thank you Gerd! But the C sounds right to me - it's perfectly idiomatic in American folk music. What would follow the F? The Eb? That really doesn't work for me.

But I've tabled this piece for now. With the current situation where I work, I've had to forget about composing and am now teaching a class I haven't taught in ages, because a colleague decided to accept a position elsewhere earlier in the summer - and there's a hiring freeze, so our department of 5 full-time teaching faculty is now down to 4.

Sorry to hear that.  Hope that your work load hasn't become too burdensome and that they are able to hire another professor soon!  Or at least in the meantime that you are compensated for your extra duties and fittingly--though probably not considering how educators are treated these days by most institutions (and lack of funding, etc.). 

PD

[krummholz]

Sorry to hear that.  Hope that your work load hasn't become too burdensome and that they are able to hire another professor soon!  Or at least in the meantime that you are compensated for your extra duties and fittingly--though probably not considering how educators are treated these days by most institutions (and lack of funding, etc.). 

PD

Thanks PD. No, when my colleague left his parting shot to me (by email) was "don't let them give you extra work without extra compensation", or something to that effect. I just laughed to myself. We won't be allowed to hire anyone probably for at least a couple of years. And the Provost's office has designated all of my courses to be in a category that they micromanage, so I'm frequently dealing with instructions to do things differently from what has always worked for me.

All this is fallout from the pandemic, when they had to refund many students' room and board fees and wound up several million in the hole. I think we'll survive, but it won't be a very enjoyable time.

[DavidW]

That was rude of him.  When I was going to leave my previous job, I gave notice when I started the search so that they could find a replacement.

For those that don't know, academic positions take a long to fill.  You really have a good season to advertise the post, and then it takes weeks to collect applications, and even the rounds of interviews will take weeks as well.  Let alone negotiating, hiring, moving... if someone just ups and leaves then the rest of the department just has to take over their duties while still doing their own for at least a semester.  Even hiring a temporary adjunct takes time.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Thanks PD. No, when my colleague left his parting shot to me (by email) was "don't let them give you extra work without extra compensation", or something to that effect. I just laughed to myself. We won't be allowed to hire anyone probably for at least a couple of years. And the Provost's office has designated all of my courses to be in a category that they micromanage, so I'm frequently dealing with instructions to do things differently from what has always worked for me.

All this is fallout from the pandemic, when they had to refund many students' room and board fees and wound up several million in the hole. I think we'll survive, but it won't be a very enjoyable time.

That was rude of him.  When I was going to leave my previous job, I gave notice when I started the search so that they could find a replacement.

For those that don't know, academic positions take a long to fill.  You really have a good season to advertise the post, and then it takes weeks to collect applications, and even the rounds of interviews will take weeks as well.  Let alone negotiating, hiring, moving... if someone just ups and leaves then the rest of the department just has to take over their duties while still doing their own for at least a semester.  Even hiring a temporary adjunct takes time.

I suspect that he did give them notice (at least some).  It might have been decided after that that they couldn't afford to replace him--at least for a while (see Liz's post).

@krummholz  Did he end up retiring or found a better paying job or had to move for other reasons?

PD

[Rons_talking]

I haven't heard it, but if the first note were C, you'd have the "Flintstones" opening .

Attached is an extremely simple, 8-bar melody that is one of dozens of similar earworms that first started to infect me after watching Ken Burns's Civil War Documentary. They come into my head every once in a while and then leave; this one occurred to me recently after listening to a friend's string quartet movement, as it employs similar intervals in a way that to me suggests an American, perhaps Appalachian folksong. I've decided tentatively to use it to open a one-movement string quartet that will quickly become complex, contrapuntal, and troubled in the manner of Nielsen's 6th (or perhaps Brian's 31st) symphony. But I didn't want to waste too much time on it if the theme is actually by someone else.


At first I thought it was a variant of Jay Ungar's Ashokan Farewell, which is heard dozens of times in the Burns documentary, but I listened to the Ungar tune the other night and concluded that the connection is distant enough that it's not an issue - ditto the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, which is if anything closer to it in character but still not nearly a match.

So, does anyone recognize this? I'm posting this in Composing instead of Name This Tune because I didn't want to post an audio file, and I think everyone here reads music. So...

[krummholz]

That was rude of him.  When I was going to leave my previous job, I gave notice when I started the search so that they could find a replacement.

I suspect that he didn't expect to be offered anything, but I agree, he should have at least told the department chair, so that he could look into a possible Plan B.

For those that don't know, academic positions take a long to fill.  You really have a good season to advertise the post, and then it takes weeks to collect applications, and even the rounds of interviews will take weeks as well.  Let alone negotiating, hiring, moving... if someone just ups and leaves then the rest of the department just has to take over their duties while still doing their own for at least a semester.  Even hiring a temporary adjunct takes time.

Under normal circumstances we could have hired a temporary person, a visiting professor or lecturer. But there is a hard hiring freeze in effect, so vacancies created by someone leaving or retiring are left unfilled. We were 5, now down to 4, so this departure had a really major impact on our workload.

[krummholz]

I suspect that he did give them notice (at least some).  It might have been decided after that that they couldn't afford to replace him--at least for a while (see Liz's post).

@krummholz  Did he end up retiring or found a better paying job or had to move for other reasons?

PD

No PD, he gave absolutely no notice to anyone that he was searching for another position, not even the department chair. We knew he was unhappy so it didn't come as a complete surprise, but still, it's a really unethical thing to do without telling someone, and he's all about ethics when it comes to teaching, so we didn't expect this level of hypocrisy from him.

His new position pays a little better because he'll be teaching during the summer too. But it's a step down to a non tenure-track position, so it shows that he was really desperate to get out of this situation.

[krummholz]

I haven't heard it, but if the first note were C, you'd have the "Flintstones" opening .

It's been so long since I watched that show that I'm drawing a complete blank on that theme.

[DavidW]

Lee Smolin did that at Penn State (where I went to grad school).  He left for the Perimeter Institute without even telling his grad students (who had to start over).

I actually started my teaching career because my predecessor just walked away from his position in the first week of class.  I interviewed for another position, and so they called me about the one with unexpected vacancy.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

No PD, he gave absolutely no notice to anyone that he was searching for another position, not even the department chair. We knew he was unhappy so it didn't come as a complete surprise, but still, it's a really unethical thing to do without telling someone, and he's all about ethics when it comes to teaching, so we didn't expect this level of hypocrisy from him.

His new position pays a little better because he'll be teaching during the summer too. But it's a step down to a non tenure-track position, so it shows that he was really desperate to get out of this situation.

Oh, sorry.  I see that I had missed that.  Wow!  That's quite shocking!  He must have been eager to get out of there to have accepted a non-t position.

In any event, I'm sorry for your extra workload...and the micromanaging of your classes; that would drive me crazy.

Lee Smolin did that at Penn State (where I went to grad school).  He left for the Perimeter Institute without even telling his grad students (who had to start over).

That stinks!

PD