Tunes played upside down

Subject: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:03 AM

Sorry I got the thread title wrong on the first attempt.

Sometimes I re-write tunes into a different key. I do this on a naf piece of music paper I made myself. I don't put all the standard notation on - just the notes themselves. I dropped one the other day and when I picked it up I could not at first see which was the right way up.

I can't read well enough to try this out, and I bet lots of you note readers have spotted this years ago, but can the music be played upside down to reveal a new and exciting tune?

Is the Kesh jig just the Irish washer women upside down?

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: fiddler
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:09 AM

I've never thought of this - I will try it - I bet you get some interesting stuff!

It might however be bl**dy silly!

*GRIN*

A

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:16 AM

Interesting idea...If you turn the pentogram upside down and reverse the armature (right to left) so that the G clef, say, now points to what used to be the 3rd line of the pentogram, that would certainly produced up-scales instead of down ones, and alter the notes significantly. A new tune would be possible, I think.

On a lighter vein: It might be better to ask an Antipodean to play it, if you are from the Northern Hemisphere - and vice versa... And you might also hear then proof that the original composer is trying to contact you from the other side...No, that was Abbey Road, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:17 AM

I meant the 4th line...

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:29 AM

I tried this with a few tunes from O'Neill's, and they sounded like themes from Rachmaninoff.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:35 AM

This used to be done so that two musicians on either side of a table read a piece of music flat on the table between them, each reading the staff from their point of view and playing a harmonising duet.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 10:38 AM

If you played it upside down you also would be playing it backwards, wouldn't you?

~S~

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 10:39 AM

True, true........

How about mirror images?

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 11:03 AM

W.A.Mozart wrote a beautiful piece called "Zauberduett" (miraculous duet ?) for 2 violins which is played by two players sitting on either side of a table and playing the staff from their point of view.
A very nice piece indeed

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 11:39 AM

Tony McManus once told me that for a party piece Scott Skinner used to play tunes on his fiddle upside down.

Standing on his head, that is.

Wearing a kilt, even.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 02:11 PM

Mozart also wrote "Cannon Inversus" in which one player plays with the music the right way up and the other plays with the same music upside down.

Clever fellow that Mozart !

Doug C

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,M'Grath of Altcar
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 02:21 PM

Someone at Liverpool Irish centre told me years ago that a tune HAD been printed upside down in the old edition of O'Neill's (THe Yellow 2000 tune one I think). He assured that in its inverted form it had passed in to the tradition. I can't remember what it was though. Any ideas.

Inverting a tune can be done two different ways.
1. Turn the piece of paper round
2. Reversing the intervals - this will give a different result to 1.

Either way, its probably gonna sound like Les Dawson!

Schönberg wrote music that deliberately inverts and reverses a twelve note "tune", in which no notes are repeated. When I was at music college I invented a dodecaphonic calculator for doing this accurately. Mass production of this priceless tool awaits!

If you want to hear a piece of music written using the twelve tone system. Click here

Some Schönberg

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 05:46 PM

I was always impressed with left handed guitarists playing right handed instruments "upside down." Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Jimi Hendrix play this way?

I also for years played in a country rock band with an exceptional guitarist who played fabulous leads on his old Fender Telecaster. However, he was somewhat of a freak of nature because he alsways had to be told what key he was in. He was able to play a fine lead with the guitar held backwards over his head. Takes a good showman to pull it off.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,Anne Croucher
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 06:02 PM

For a long time I could write backwards as easily as forwards, and read it either the rightway up or upside down - I am left handed mostly and it was only the rabid reaction of my junior school teacher which terrified me out of continuing to practise this.

I have never been able to read music so it would make as much sense to me any way up or even sideways.

I can't make the notes - which I understand, both in length and pitch - and all the other information on the page, become a tune. Once I hear a tune I can play it, but I can start on different notes - that is 'transposing' I am told - but I get strife for making the tune fit the words so in some songs I play each verse with small differences, because playing a tune that doesn't fit seems a bit stupid really - I'm not a recording.

I don't think that being able to read in reverse/upside down or whatever is all that unusual - it was commonplace as either a learned or natural ability amongst printers and newspaper producers when movable type was the technology - except for some reason those employed at the Gurdania.

Anne

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 06:38 PM

MG, Jimi Hendrix definitely did NOT play his Stratocaster "upside down".

It was indeed a right-handed instrument, and he played it left-handed, but it was strung for a left-handed player, ie the treble E string was nearest to the floor.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Joybell
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 06:47 PM

Victor Borge did a routine based on this idea. He dropped his music from his piano, picked it up, upside down, and played it. I saw his act sometime in the 50s. It's a great idea though even if it isn't new. Joy

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Helen
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 07:49 PM

I went to a harp get-together once (strings not spit-&-blow harps) and we were given a piece of music which could be played right way up and upside down as a harmony. Every now and then I find it in my box of music. I'll dig it out and make a midi file of it.

Two postings have confused me. Can you both explain a bit more, please?

El Greko, I don't understand what you are saying:

"If you turn the pentogram upside down and reverse the armature (right to left) so that the G clef, say, now points to what used to be the 3rd line of the pentogram, that would certainly produced up-scales instead of down ones, and alter the notes significantly. A new tune would be possible, I think."

M'Grath of Altcar, I don't understand what you mean by this:
"2. Reversing the intervals - this will give a different result to 1."

I'm dyslexic and can read and write backwards and upside down very easily. It does make for some interesting music notation reading at times.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 03:53 AM

Helen,
Pentogram= the five lines on which we write the notes. The G clef usually is placed on it so as to define the 2nd line from the bottom.

Turning the pentogram upside down now had the G clef pointing to the 2nd line from the top (i.e. 4th from bottom). Reverse the armature (the clef-iness of it all) to bring it in line with the "new" 2nd line from the bottom). That is all. Easy to show, hard to describe in words.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 06:37 AM

All good stuff people but can any of you dot readers try some upside, back to front tunes and let us jnow what happens.

Now I come to think of it my wife reads dots........

...... back in a while.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 06:52 AM

Ok we tried Dingle Regatta. Played backwards it sounds nothing remotely like DG but it sounds good!

A bit kind of minor keyish and not structured like a jig or slide. Anybody else?

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: s&r
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 03:59 PM

one of the options in 'Harmony' is to reverse the tune. Some sound better than others

Stu

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: GUEST,McGrath of Altcar
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 04:13 PM

Helen.....

Take, for example, the first three notes of Freres Jacques. In the key of C this would be :

C D E C
(tune goes UP 2 semitones, then UP 2 semi tones then Down 4 semitones)

Inverted in the way I described this would come out as:

C   Bflat Aflat    C
(tune goes DOWN 2 semitones, then DOWN 2 semi tones then Up 4 semitones)

As you can see it gives a different result to turning the music round.

I hope that clarifies things.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: KateG
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 04:19 PM

I went to a PDQ Bach/Peter Schickle concert once where he unrolled a huge line of music on the stage and the musicians played it in all sorts of way while he talked. They played it straight, they played it upside down, they played it backwards, and they played it as a cannon/round in all of those ways. As always, his commentary was musicologically (is there such a word?) impeccable...and we were in stiches. I swear, the more you know, the funnier he is.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: mack/misophist
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 09:48 PM

In the Middle Ages there was a popular game called "The Musical Knot". The front of the staff was joined to the end and often twisted a few times in the process. The various players were supposed to pick their starting places and tempi at random.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: mack/misophist
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 11:02 PM

And the more skillful sometimes played their parts upside down. Or so the book said. And it was a history book.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: pavane
Date: 05 Apr 04 - 07:58 AM

As S&R notes, HARMONY can already reverse a tune. I will think about adding a new 'upside down' function that will do the job for you, displaying as well as playing it!

PS I will try Dingle Regatta myself, if I can find an abc for it.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 05 Apr 04 - 03:54 PM

Ok, are we on the edge of discovering a vast quantity of new tunes or what?

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 05 Apr 04 - 04:08 PM

If you play the chord F upside down, you get the first chord of Hendrix's 'Purple Haze.'

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 05 Apr 04 - 04:58 PM

Look folks we are really onto something here!

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Kaleea
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 02:58 AM

When I was in Jr. hi band, this is something we used to do while our director was, on occasion, not in the band room. (well, this & the George of the jungle cartoon theme song-led by the tympani player). It was even more fun when we had the rare substitute teacher! Course swapping my flute for my girlfriends' violin (we were 1st chairs) & sitting in the respective each other's sections made it even more interesting.
    Cancorizan & Retrograde (sorta sideways & upside down) were quite common techniques used by the Baroque composers like J.S. Bach when composing. No doubt this led to P.D.Q. Bach stealing it! During the Classical period, the fellers like Mozart & Beethoven & them thar other fellers back then revived some of those old Baroque techniques. It's sort of all about theme & variations. So next time you are reading music, turn it upside down & give it a whirl. Try it, it's fun!
    When I give hands-on demos for kids to try their hands at playing various instruments like the Mountain Dulcimer, we do Hot Cross Buns, then "My Buns Are Crossed," which is Hot Cross Buns upsidedown. The kids love it!
    Just for fun, try singing or better yet, playing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or another easy tune differently than you have before. My older brother & I did this every day after school when he was in his first year in Jazz band in College. We altered the chords as well as the melody. It was great fun when I began to notate the tunes & we did them sideways, upside down & inside out, elongated, speeded up, etc. --all Baroque techniques, by the way.

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:16 AM

I heard somewhere Ewan McColl used to do this to get new tunes. And putting on piano rolss the wrong way (either turn it left-right or rotate it so the top right becomes the bottom left, according to how it fits in you player-piano) you cangetspectacular results.

I've heard Victor Borge playing arounf with The Blue Danube, but I'm pretty sure he was making it up, as it was too recognisable.

Steve

Subject: RE: Tunes played upside down
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 06:45 AM

Bach and Mozart have been named; there is also an earlier German composer, Michael Praetorius (1571-1621). One of his canons is continued from back to beginning and upside down.
A modern example is here