The replicator is working perfectly well

January 9, 2014 4:57 PM

A clever little examination on the replication of musical motifs.
posted by salishsea (13 comments total)

That link bounced me to the CBC Music front page. Is this the video?
posted by Sys Rq at 5:06 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Don't they know what happens to people wearing red shirts??
posted by greatgefilte at 5:41 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

That link bounced me to the CBC Music front page. Is this the video?

Yes, though the title totally spoils the fun.
posted by sparklemotion at 5:50 PM on January 9, 2014

It's an episode of Musical Hoarders.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:56 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was worried that the stairs would just continue to go down and down, until it turned out Lucifer wrote the first version.
posted by mittens at 6:10 PM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Delightful!
posted by TwoWordReview at 6:20 PM on January 9, 2014

Charming...
posted by jim in austin at 6:57 PM on January 9, 2014

This was fun, but I'm curious whether this chain of influence is attested to by any source outside of the scores themselves. They obviously sound similar, but all of these examples are rhythmically unadorned, having them play out over a tonic pedal is not an especially left-field choice, not to mention that you'll see the sixth scale degree following the fifth after a leap of a fourth down at least 90% of the time in music from the Common Practice period since convention held that reversal of direction after a leap was necessary to maintain the melodic integrity of the line. Plus with the Mahler you hear the brief tonicization of the b2 and so forth, but I guess that comes after the area of focus here. Basically I wonder if these weren't all written independently, since the motive in question is fairly obvious. The only thing in the music itself that would make me think otherwise is the textural similarity between them, with the wide gap between bass and treble voices and the low dynamic level, which while not especially weird is not the most common opening gambit.
posted by invitapriore at 7:12 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Fascinating!
posted by maudlin at 8:48 PM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I so do not buy it. First, it's just four notes, and they're very common ones for a minor key. Big deal. Second, what's this blithe assumption that each "got it from" the one before, when there were probably many other instances of it? It's kind of a correlation/causation fallacy, combined with cherry-picking.

It's always fun to find these similarities, fun enough without jumping to conclusions.
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 11:47 PM on January 9, 2014

I so do not buy it. First, it's just four notes, and they're very common ones for a minor key. Big deal. Second, what's this blithe assumption that each "got it from" the one before, when there were probably many other instances of it? It's kind of a correlation/causation fallacy, combined with cherry-picking.

It's always fun to find these similarities, fun enough without jumping to conclusions.

Guess you didn't watch to the end then?
posted by cincinnatus c at 6:47 AM on January 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was excellent, and while of course it can't be proved that Mahler got it from Brahms who got it from Beethoven, it makes sense given the continuity of tradition (and Brahms's known obsession with Ludwig). I gotta tell you, though, that "copyright 2014" at the end gave me a brief chill: I'm... I'm in the future!
posted by languagehat at 8:11 AM on January 10, 2014

That was beautifully done.
posted by yoink at 8:48 AM on January 10, 2014