tracker
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!
Home For You Chat My Shows (beta) Register/Login Games Grosses
pixeltracker

there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin

there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin

TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#1there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 6:04pm

similar to polyphony, but not so high-falutin...about songs that work together in harmony, as in YOU'RE JUST IN LOVE and OLD FASHIONED WEDDING. He was the king of those on B'way, and this term i think is more about popular music than classical, which uses things like "fugue" etcetera....any help? don't know how to Google it well.


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#2re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:10pm

Quodlibet?

Irving certainly didn't invent this very old word, but I associate it with him, somehow.

Probably not what you're thinking of.

Q
#2re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:21pm

Reg - only you would think that wasn't "so high-falutin" re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#3re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:25pm

You're right. That was dumb.

Q
#4re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:29pm

I thought it was great!

But I'm still curious what the answer is.

TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#5re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:39pm

high falutin is a lyric he'd use, prolly rhymed with "tootin' (your own horn)"

it is a word kinda like rhapsodic to my failing memory, damn i'm OLD


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."

StickToPriest Profile Photo
StickToPriest
#6re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:39pm

Both of those songs utilize Retrograde Inversion. Is it a kind of counterpoint? I'm not sure. Literally, Retrograde Inversion means "backwards and upside down."

But I don't think he coined the term, so it might not be what you're looking for.


"One no longer loves one's insight enough once one communicates it."

The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.

TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#7re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:53pm

Talisman (sic) might have hit it...i just didn't know the term was so old....i thought he did it, due to the humorous aspect (not something you find in classical music outside the Surprise Symphony until PDQ Bach). Maybe Berlin just popularized the word's use?


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#8re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 8:28pm

Berlin referred to them as "contrapuntal duets," but it's just the adjectival form of the word "counterpoint"--I don't think he coined its use.

Merman said in an interview that she sang "contrapuntally"--that may be the coined word you're thinking of.


Q
#9re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 8:51pm

I always thought of the Merm singing Cuntrapointedly - as in 'leading with' - but that might not be a technical term of common usage.

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#10re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 9:41pm

PJ, are you sure you're not thinking of that Charlotte Rae bit about Tchaikovsky ("They express their love . . . contrapuntally.")?
Updated On: 11/16/09 at 09:41 PM

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#11re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/16/09 at 10:50pm

Ah...yes...it was Charlotte Rae who used the word-- in an imitation of Ethel Merman!

Fiction and fact, artifice and reality--it all blends together, as Al Zeimer's Disease sets in.


TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#12re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/17/09 at 5:10am

PJ did you that Cherry Jones/Swoozie Kurtz show about fact and fiction? J Mitchell choreo, songs by Hamlisch, i think play by Ephrons....

anyhoo, you guys have made this thread lovely. Thank you.


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."

TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#13re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/17/09 at 9:01am

i believe those two ladies played Mary THE GROUP McCarthy (sp?) and Lillian CHILDREN'S HOUR Hellman (sp?)....who sposedly had a bitter feud all their professional lives. Perhaps they sang "pontroon-****ally."


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."

Jon
#15re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/17/09 at 11:07am

The great comic songwriter Tom Lehrer actually used the word "contrapuntally" in his song "So Long Mom (I'm Off to Drop the Bomb)":

While we're attacking frontally,
Watch Brinkally and Huntally,
Describing contrapuntally
The cities we have lost.

For you youngsters out there, "Brinkally and Huntally" is a reference to 1960's news anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
Updated On: 11/17/09 at 11:07 AM

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#16re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/17/09 at 11:11am

We may need a whole Tom Lehrer thread. "I Wanna Go Back to Dixie" may be the funniest song I've ever heard.

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#17re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/17/09 at 12:53pm

And I, of course, love "National Brotherhood Week":

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews.


Mister Matt Profile Photo
Mister Matt
#17re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/19/09 at 1:51pm

My favorite has always been "Who's Next?":

First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?


"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

Phyllis Rogers Stone
#18re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/19/09 at 1:58pm

I was always partial to "The Masochism Tango" and "Oedipus Rex"

Reginald Tresilian Profile Photo
Reginald Tresilian
#19re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/19/09 at 2:21pm

Let's not forget "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."

JohnBoy2 Profile Photo
JohnBoy2
#20re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/19/09 at 4:17pm

Is this BWW's answer to the Algonquin Round Table?

TxTwoStep Profile Photo
TxTwoStep
#21re: there is a word, i think invented by Irving Berlin
Posted: 11/26/09 at 12:51pm

i WISH i could aspire to be at such a Round Table.


Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys. "I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."


Videos