Wednesday, March 16, 2011

They Write The Songs

This is a series Barry Manilow is doing for the BBC in the UK, featuring the lives and works of some of the great American songwriters. If you love music (I do), it's definitely something you'll enjoy. It's only up via their web site for a limited time, so be sure to check it out quickly. Tuesday night's show was the first of what is 10 shows.

They Write The Songs On BBC

One of the interesting parts he points out in the first episode - George Gershwin - is the introduction to the song. You don't see this too much anymore in music. When I play the hymns at Church, a brief introduction is played to give everyone the key and tempo of the hymn, but this is different. It's a section of the song that sometimes doesn't even sound like the song itself.

I first learned about this when I was much younger, and saw, for the first time, the actual sheet music to Someday My Prince Will Come from the Disney movie Snow White. There was this first section that never made it into the movie I never knew about!

Most versions of the song have also cut it out, with one exception. It was moved to after the 2nd verse of the song for added effect in the arrangement recorded by Barbra Streisand. I was really happy it actually made it into a recording because it's a brief, but sweet part of the song. On the video below, the introduction is 2:25 into the song.

No comments: