Well hello there avid and rabid readers, long time, no speak. My own fault really, I've jusy been too damn lazy to write a blog. But then, I thought to myself, what would my millions of viewers be thinking of me? So I've resolved to get out the ol' blog and start writing again =]. See? I knew you'd be happy (Y).

Now, I'm in the middle of the Christmas holidays, and I'm listening to some good heavy metal, and it feels good to be back . However, with holidays, comes the dreaded Holiday Fever =O. Now, as self respecting geeks and nerds, we all know what holiday fever is. For those who haven't experienced this, it's when after three or so days of holiday, and there is absolutely BUGGER ALL TO DO. I even went on a long walk today, but unfortunately, nothing doing. So now, instead, I'm resolved to waiting another three hours, before mum and dad take moi, et ma petit soeur, to see a play in Manchester called 'See How They Run', a full report of which is expected to be on your virtual desk by the end of tomorrow.

Any way, I thought I'd leave you with a truly cool mini essay I wrote on Myspace last night at One Thirty in the morning, as geeks, I'm sure you'll all appreciate it =D.

Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Rufus Wainwright, et cetera.


The lyrics in it are all very religion-orientated, that's basically a given. Although the beauty of the song lies in the ambiguity of the lyrics.
Now in them there lyrics Leonard Cohen writes:


"I heard there was a secret chord,
That David played and it pleased the Lord.

But you don't really care for music do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall, the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.
"

Now point A:

Word Painting


Word painting is when something in the lyrics is mirrored by the song, right? Like when you talk about climbing higher, and the pitch gets higher.


Well in this verse:

"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall, the major lift..."

When he says the fourth, he moves to chord IV, and when says the fifth, hey presto, chord V =].


Also, on the word painting point, the minor fall is a minor chord, and the major lift is major chord.


Cool or what?

Point B:

This one's a little more contrived, but I like it.


"I heard there was a secret chord,
That David played and it pleased the Lord.

But you don't really care for music do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth..."

There's always been some debate as to whether the word is secret or sacred, either will do here.


In music there is a chord known as the tritone/diabolus in musica/Devil's chord. You don't really need to know it, but it's an augmented fourth, or diminished fifth (Whichever fits with the chord progression I suppose), and it sounds nasty. Hence why people thought it summoned the Devil, and why the band Black Sabbath used it lots (Being rebels and all).


That's a fairly well known musical fact.


HOWEVER...

Less well known is the secret/sacred chord, this is a dominant seventh, if I am not mistaken, and was believed to be an all round good chord.


As a final point, in Gregorian Chant (The chanting monks did their prayers in), they only went up in intervals of Fourths and Fifths, therefore, these were called perfect chords, as they were used by holy men (Coincidentally, the tritone falls directly in between the chords IV and V, not sure if that has any relevance, just thought I'd throw it in there). Now isn't it clever, that Leonard Cohen used chords IV and V, when he was talking about pleasing the Lord, because the chords he used were chords that monks used in Prayer and Praise of God.



So, until next time, my only friends, keep it real, keep it nerdy, stick it to the man, and legalise the usual stuff.

Micah Deegan