Roy Harris - 1945

from Letters of composers : an anthology, 1603-1945 / compiled and edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte., page 386:

In regard to the hearing and publishing and general dissemination of your friends’ “popular” songs, I am afraid that my advice will be somewhat cynical. The process is something like this: / First, a word about the songs themselves. As you know, they seem to be practically all the same songs. The melodies are composed of little diatonic sequences, the harmonic textures are all grouped in very much the same root relationships, with a special emphasis on altered dominants. They all contain exactly the same number of measures in verse and chorus. You could make a machine to turn out popular…   more >>
cite as

Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte (ed.), Letters of composers : an anthology, 1603-1945 / compiled and edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte. (New York, 1979), p. 386. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1424773766485 accessed: 13 October, 2024

Listeners

Roy Harris
Composer
1898-1979

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“Popular” songs

Experience Information

Date/Time 1945

Notes

Letter from Roy Harris to Ruth Bracher, [Colorado Springs], March 15, 1945.


Originally submitted by verafonte on Tue, 24 Feb 2015 10:29:26 +0000
Approved on Thu, 12 Nov 2015 14:40:30 +0000