Music hath charms, sometimes

By Richard Dickenson

So what on earth is the music they call grunge? And no, I’m not kidding! I had no idea so I looked it up. Now, when I was a kid and studied music there were only two kinds: classical and jazz. Classical was either instrumental or vocal (with a small extra slot for ‘church music’). Mostly it was played by a large band in evening dress and conducted by some ageing maestro. Jazz was all the rest and was either ‘trad’, my own favourite, or ‘modern.’

Anyone who knew his brass from his oboe, the latter being an ill-wind that no-one blows good, could tell the difference between Kid Ory’s Creole band and Handel’s Musicke for the Royal Waterworks.

Perhaps I should have known better than to disturb this simplistic classification, but no, I had to interfere. I looked up grunge. That it was defined as ‘a style of rock music characterised by a raucous guitar sound and lazy vocal delivery’ was a bit disappointing but worse was to discover that there are now over 450 different kinds of  non-classical music. I found that astounding as they all sound pretty much of a muchness.

And to think I can remember when the only music in Cyprus was the sound of the syrtaki sizzling on the barbie and chorus lines of bouzouki moving in unison among the taverna tables.

Now there’s House, there’s Acid Jazz, there’s Chillwave, there’s Garage, there’s Cybergrind, there’s Freestyle-rap, and there’s Gangsta-rap. And, of course, Hip-hop.

I was lucky enough to be born into a remarkably musical family. My father always blew his nose in G sharp minor and my grandmother was in the Guinness Book of Records as the first female octogenarian publicly to perform Mendelssohn’s Overture from the Haemorrhoids on the new concert-tuned electric deaf-aid. Other family members had drums in their ears, notes in their pockets and my brother used an old Blackbird fountain pen. Even our sewing machine was a Singer. And I had an Uncle Rupert who, in addition to playing scrum-half for Newport, actually died of music on the brain when an obese lady piano-tuner fell on his head.

As a result of this discordant and inharmonious upbringing I’ve never had trouble keeping up with the pop music scene. Just as well as nothing quite so labels one and one’s age and era as does your knowledge of pop culture. I have a dear lady patient in her late 90s and she still listens to Bing Crosby, on 78rpm vinyl records!

Anyway to avoid confusion and to be a light to enlighten here is a short run-down on a few of the main brands now gracing the airlines and channels.

Rock: This is a geological term derived from the way most of this music sounds like it is produced by rhythmically striking instruments with boulders.

Soul: This has nothing to do with the spiritual variety. You can cause fights by suggesting that the only real talent was Joe Cocker. Though immensely colourful he was the only one who was not actually coloured. Nearly all the others were and were drastically untalented though no-one dared say that. Names to drop are Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight who gives everyone the pip, and Ureter Franklin.

Dylan: Not a Welshman but, like Edward Lear, he wrote nonsense rhymes set to music. Although he wrote ‘Highway 61’ and ‘Desolation Row’ he wasn’t from the local planning office. He quite genuinely was one of the people who changed a generation’s thinking more than Tricky Dicky Nixon, Karl Marx and Maggie T put together. And there’s a nasty thought for you.

Country: The innocent unspoiled music that Roy Rogers used to sing to his horse, only the horse sounded better of the two.

Punk: Misspelling of ‘Bunk’ played by fellers – let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, with pink hair, torn trews and safety pins in their ears to keep them on.

Heavy Metal: Named for its unmistakable similarity to derelict old bangers and discarded railway lines being banged together. More watts to the square inch than beats to the bar. Think Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Grand Funk Railroad and you’re safe as all jargon is a mixture of drug-slang, streetwise gibberish and sado-masochism. Their noise is enough to fry your boots.

Finally, 10CC is only a small shot of ouzo, Bach had twenty children as there were no stops on his organ, and, even when Andre Previn plays Mozart, he sometimes loses.