Post 612: CRAIG FLORY'S 'MINOR FRET'

What a wonderful and complex composition Craig Flory’s ‘Minor Fret’ is. Through-composed, it is possibly the most striking and challenging piece Tuba Skinny ever set itself to learn by heart. 

Beginning (in recent performances) with a single beat played on the washboard, the rest of the first bar has the band holding an E flat minor chord, followed by four (in earlier performances two) more bars of Introduction, establishing the key by firmly laying down that chord on every beat.

This is followed by a 12-bar blues theme in E flat minor, led by Craig on clarinet, with Shaye playing a pretty counter-melody in bars 2 and 4. Then Shaye herself leads the way through the 12-bar blues theme, this time with Barnabus playing the counter-melody.

Now something extraordinary happens: the rug is pulled from under us! There is a startling switch up by just one semi-tone to the key of E minor! The acid E minor chord is hammered out over eight bars, during which Craig plays that counter-melody again – but in the new key. The eight bars end with a heavily-struck B flat 7th chord, which leads us cleverly back into the principal key of E flat minor.

We now have the 12-bar blues in E flat minor again, but usually with the trombone (Barnabus) taking the lead in the final eight of those bars.

Now those final eight themselves become the pattern for a new theme: we have this little theme, played three (in some performances four) times and usually led respectively by the cornet, the clarinet, the tuba and (against offbeats) the guitar. This eight-bar theme uses the chord structure of the final eight bars of the 12-bar blues in E flat minor.

The last of these mini-solos ends on a crashing B 7th chord, taking us for a second time into that wailing Interlude of eight bars in E minor, again including the counter-melody and ending on a sustained B flat 7th chord, which of course takes us neatly back into the key of E flat minor for another run-through of the twelve-bar blues theme and a lingering drop on the final E flat minor chord. Wow!

You can hear Tuba Skinny play this piece in its mature form, after some months of gestation and tweaking, in this video filmed by my good friend James Sterling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDWAJvhN_4

Post 593: KEYS USED BY JAZZ BANDS

Here are two astonishing facts:

1. Our jazz bands play 43.5% of the all their tunes in just one key - Bb.

2. Our bands play over 90% of all their tunes in just three keys - Bb, F and Eb.

And yet there are twelve keys available. So why use only three?

Knowing many of my readers are not musicians, I will try to explain things as simply as possible.

When a band is going to play a tune, the musicians have to agree on which key they will use. Twelve keys are available:

G

Ab

A

Bb

B

C

Db

D

Eb

E

F

Gb.

Think of it this way: on a piano, Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, and Gb are the black notes. All the others are white notes.

The key indicates within which scale the tune is played and also which is the 'Home' note. For example, a tune in F will usually end on the note F.

The 'top five' keys are:

43.5% of all tunes: Bb  : (made up of 42% in Bb and 1.5% in the related minor key - G minor)

29.5% of all tunes: F : (made up of 26.5% in F and 3.5% in the related key of D minor)

18.5% of all tunes : Eb

4.5% of all tunes : C 

3.5% of all tunes : Ab : (made up of 2% in Ab and 1.5% in the related key of F minor)

Of course, any tune could be played in any key. To change a tune from one key to another, all you have to do is raise or lower all the notes by the same amount in order to reach the key you want. But most tunes are traditionally played in one agreed key.

Bearing in mind that there are twelve keys available, why on earth do we find that almost half of our tunes are played in Bb? And why are most of the others played in either F or Eb?

Put simply, it is because those are the keys in which the various musicians of the band are most likely to stay well in tune with each other. For example, when a trumpet plays in these keys (especially Bb), the notes require minimal use of the valves and all notes are reasonably well in tune.  Other keys require far greater uses of the valves. Each of the three valves on a trumpet adds an extra bit of tubing through which the column of air has to pass. Notes at six different pitches can easily be achieved by any combination of valves; but the physics of sound would require the length of tubing to be slightly different for each of these six notes to be perfectly in tune. So the manufacturers compromise by making tubes of the 'least worst' lengths.

On most instruments, the lower notes played with the use of valves are a tiny bit sharp. Some manufacturers provide expensive instruments with levers to extend the tubing just a little on these particular notes. You can see such levers in the centre of this picture:

The keys of Bb, F and Eb are used so much that musicians become increasingly comfortable with them and the fingering they require. So there is not much incentive to use other keys - even just for fun or for practice.

This is why traditional jazz musicians sometimes find it tricky when suddenly asked to play a tune in an unfamiliar key. This happens mostly when they accompany singers. You play a tune for years in F and then come across a singer who wants it in D because that is the key that best suits her voice.

Despite all I have said, the young band Tuba Skinny - in this as in so many respects - has made us re-think our attitudes. They are unafraid of 'tricky' keys and may be heard in a few of their recordings and YouTube videos playing  in such keys as G.

============

How 'scientific' is the survey above?

Sufficiently, I think, to justify my findings.

I chose two hundred different tunes from the standard traditional jazz repertoire and noted the keys in which they were played in YouTube videos and in performances I have attended. I omitted tunes such as early rags which usually comprise two or three sections and use different keys for different parts. I also omitted a very small number of tunes (such as 'Willie the Weeper' and 'At The Jazz Band Ball') which have two parts - one in a minor key and the other in the related major.

In the case of tunes in minor keys, as shown above I counted them within the total for the related major key: for example, G minor uses the same notes as Bb, so I classified it within 'Bb'. 

Post 477: 'CHLOE (SONG OF THE SWAMP)'

Let us have a look at Chlo-e (Song of the Swamp) which is a lovely and unusual tune from the 1920s. Some of our jazz bands still play it and I am very pleased that this is so.
Chloe was composed in 1927 by Charles N. Daniels, under his pseudonym of Neil Moret; and the lyrics were by the great Gus Kahn, who was very important in the history of our music. Working with various composers, Kahn wrote the words for such songs as these:

My Baby Just Cares For Me
That Certain Party
Making Whoopee
Carolina in the Morning
Love Me or Leave Me
I Never Knew That Roses Grew
Yes, Sir, That's My Baby
I Wonder Where My Baby is Tonight
I'll See You in My Dreams
Spain
It Had to be You
Pretty Baby
Memories
On the Road to Home Sweet Home
It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight
Coquette
Crazy Rhythm
Toot Toot Tootsie
Ukulele Lady
Ain't We Got Fun
Chloe
Side by Side
On the Alamo
Nobody's Sweetheart Now
You Stepped Out of a Dream

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Chloe may have been used first in the 1927 musical called 'Africana' but there is no definite evidence for this, even though, on the original sheet music, a picture of the singer Ethel Waters apparently connects it to that show.

Whatever the truth, it must have soon become popular because it was recorded during the late 1920s and during the 1930s by several famous orchestras and singers.

Chloe begins with an interesting but somewhat spooky 16-bar Verse in a minor key (usually A minor). The words of this verse are:

'Chlo-e! Chlo-e!'

Someone calling, no reply.

Night shade's falling, hear him sigh.

'Chlo-e! Chlo-e!'

Empty spaces meet his eyes.

Empty Arms outstretched, he's crying.....

(and so we are led into the 32-bar Chorus in the related major key [C]).

'Through the black of night, I got to go where you are.

If it's wrong or right, I got to go where you are.
I'll roam through the dismal swamp land searching for you,

'Cause if you are lost there, let me be there too.
Through the smoke and flames, I got to go where you are,

For no place could be too far, where you are.

Ain't no chains can bind you,

If If you live, I'll find you,

Love is calling me.

I got to go where you are.'

Searching for a girl at night, through swamp lands, and going through smoke and flames? How on earth did this situation arise? Weird, isn't it? 

The important thing is that the Chorus, which is the only part that most bands play these days (and the only part that is played on many of the classic recordings), has a memorable melody, almost as strange as the words. The way it achieves its effect, I think, is by giving itself a sort of minor flavour while it is actually written in the major key. It does this partly by beginning each 16 with four bars on the dominant seventh rather than the tonic and then following these with some bars on the tonic seventh and, what is more, beginning these bars by using the flattened seventh as the melody note.

I am sorry if I make it sound complicated but it is an easy tune to learn and to improvise upon, so I think bands would be well advised to have it in their repertoire, if only to provide something to contrast with other tunes in their programme.

It is not easy on YouTube to find a simple, straightforward version (featuring both Verse and Chorus). Here's a highly arranged recording by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, but you have to wait till 1 minute 22 seconds to hear the Verse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YKWKIfEN8Y

There was of course a famous irreverent version by Spike Jones, which you may also find on YouTube if you wish. It includes the Verse.

At least four video-makers have filmed Tuba Skinny playing this tune (Chorus only) and you may find the resulting videos easily enough on YouTube.

The lead-sheet for this tune is readily available: it has been provided in The Firehouse Jazz Band Fake Book, with which all jazz musicians are familiar. 

It is also available on the famous site run by Lasse Collin, though he does not include the Verse and his suggestions for chords are slightly different from those of the Firehouse Jazz Band. Here's the Firehouse version:

Post 472: 'CRUMPLED PAPERS' - MYSTERY SOLVED

A few years ago, a new tune appeared on the streets of New Orleans.

I heard that it had been used in the TV series Tremé, where it had been played by the most important band in the 21st-Century Revival of traditional jazz - Loose Marbles.

It is a tune I like and recommend, for several reasons. It is short (essentially a 12-bar theme), lively  and very catchy. It is in a minor key (D minor) and it's good to have a minor-key tune in our programmes occasionally. As it seems to use a very small number of chords (possibly only D minor, G minor and and A7th), it is also easy to improvise on.

It was called Crumpled Papers and I could find no reference to it in earlier jazz literature. So where had it come from? Who was the composer?

For a long time, that was an unsolved mystery. However, John Dixon has let me know it is a Michael Magro tune. John told me: Michael ‘wrote’ this, as in just came up with a nice simple melody for a basic 12-bar minor blues. We actually recorded this a couple years ago with him on clarinet, Marla on trumpet, Tyler on bass, Justin on snare drum, and Ben Polcer on piano. Not sure if the recording will ever see daylight though.

So the mystery is solved. Michael, as you probably know, founded Loose Marbles way back in September 2000 and he still runs that band in New Orleans today.

Michael Magro

Modest though its beginnings may have been, Crumpled Papers is a great little tune, given the way it lends itself to improvisations. Have a listen to it, as played by Tuba Skinny. There's a choice of videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSLTjnqs648

For a slightly more pedestrian performance, but less affected by audience noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mzwmIzkB4w

Thanks as ever to those two great video-makers digitalalexa and RaoulDuke504.

Post 441: MINOR KEY VERSE; MAJOR KEY CHORUS

With thousands of tunes available in the traditional jazz repertoire, there are bound to be many that musicians never learn or get to play. However, I am sure we all keep striving to learn new ones - especially those we have been intending to pick up for months.

That's why I set about learning I'm Coming, Virginia today. It was a tune composed in 1927 by Donald Heywood and Will Marion Cook. I first enjoyed it on a Jack Teagarden recording decades ago. And of course the Bix Beiderbecke version is a classic.

I wanted the full song - Verse included. So I found the 'dots' on Lasse Collin's wonderful site (many thanks, Lasse!) and I entered them into my mini filofax system.

But what was this? The verse was in a minor key but the Chorus was in the major.

This made me wonder how often this switch from minor to major occurs in the popular old songs.

I guess there must be many whose verses in minor keys have been long forgotten and only the Chorus is now played. An example is the very popular Hindustan. It has a minor-key 16-bar verse, but I do not recall hearing any band play it in recent years. Similarly, Japanese Sandman has a 20-bar Verse in a minor key (usually Eb minor), followed by a 32-bar Chorus in the major key (Eb major, usually).

I think I'm right in saying that At The Jazz Band Ball, That Da Da Strain, She's Crying For Me, Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble, Willie The Weeper and Lil Hardin's Droppin' Shucks all start with a minor theme and then have a second theme in the related major key. And the 1929 song The Ghost of the St. Louis Blues by J. Russel Robinson, with words by Billy Curtis, certainly has a 'spooky' minor Verse with a major Chorus. Exactly the same is true of Chloe.

Another is a nearly-forgotten song called I Don't Know Nobody Here and Nobody Knows Me, composed in 1924 by Jo Trent and Will Donaldson. The piano music shows a 16-bar Verse in D minor leading into an 18-bar Chorus in the key of D major.

And Lil Hardin uses the minor very heavily in the early stages of Perdido Street Blues before inviting the musicians to play 12-bar choruses in the related major key.

Cole Porter worked wonders with the minor-major effect in I Love Paris, where the first sixteen bars offer a lovely melody in a minor key and the second sixteen - like a flower suddenly blossoming - use virtually the same melody an octave higher but now in the major key.

Cole Porter plays a similar trick in My Heart Belongs to Daddy, which is essentially in a minor key, though there is a 'blossoming out' into the major in the second half of the Chorus, before the tune settles back on the minor in its final bar. And if you look closely at Cole Porter's You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, you discover that he very skilfully contrasts minor with major chords.

There are tunes such as I'm The King of the Swingers, where we begin in the minor (I'm the King of the Swingers, the Jungle VIP.....) and then switch to the related major key (Oh oobee do, I wanna be like you.....) for the second half of the Chorus. And I think Mama's Gone, Goodbye may be said to have a minor verse leading into a major chorus.

But I am stumped in trying to think of other interesting examples.

Maybe you can help me?

=============
Reader responses

It seems that readers are just as stumped as I am. Only two responses have arrived so far. Robert Duis in the Netherlands offers Chega De Saudade, which has a verse of 32 bars in the minor, followed by a 36-bar chorus in the major. It is a 1958 bossa nova by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I have not personally heard a traditional jazz band play it. And Richard Bogen in Phoenix, Arizona, has told me that Shine On Harvest Moon (music composed in 1908 most probably by Nora Bayes-Norworth) has a 16-bar Verse in the relative minor. I did not know the Verse, but I have found it on the internet and yes: Richard is right.
===========

Post 372: CHOOSING KEYS FOR MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS

Traditional jazz bands play 43% of their tunes in the key of Bb, 29% in the key of F and 18% in Eb. They don't have much use for other keys.

Why is this?

It is because the instruments used in jazz bands (particularly the 'front line instruments') are easiest to finger in those keys and also because (for technical reasons to do with their construction) a few of the notes sound very slightly out of tune in other keys.

But what about classical music? There, it's a different matter.

My friend Stephen Brown, who is a Canadian composer, wrote a classical piece called 'Northern Journey' that runs to 38 minutes and is in four movements. The key he chose was A minor. (Incidentally, Stephen takes traditional jazz very seriously too and has played plenty of it over many years.)

Now you would have to search very hard to find a traditional jazz band playing a tune in A minor!

Stephen Brown

But to a classical composer, with a wide range of instruments available, all keys are theoretically commonplace.

I told Stephen I found something curiously appealing about the key of A minor as I listened to his composition; but I also said I had no way of explaining or understanding why the key seemed so perfect in that context.

He sent me this very interesting reply, which both added to my education and gave me much to reflect on:

No explanation about why some keys affect folks in one way or another, but they certainly do. Beethoven chose C# minor for his most gut-wrenching  music. D major for Mozart was bright and cheerful, and on and on. Debussy preferred 5 & 6 flats for his quiet pieces on the piano. Some of it has to do with the keyboard (one hears the bone on the end of your finger on the white keys and the flesh pad when you get on the black keys and also the finger is extended and relaxed on the black keys - tap on your table top the hear the difference). It also depends what one is writing for. Orchestra works rarely go beyond four sharps because writing them is a pain and strings favour 1 - 4 sharps. Of the four most popular violin concertos (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn), three of them are in D major and one in E minor.

You might want to have a look at this book by Deryk Cooke, 'The Language of Music'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_Music

For instance when we come to express death in a funeral march the tempo is quite slow, in a minor key appropriate to the the mood, and the rhythm used is pretty much quarter, dotted eight and 16th:

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# minor,  'Quasi una fantasia', Op. 27, No. 2, dreadfully nicknamed (not by him) 'The Moonlight Sonata' uses this rhythm in Mvt 1. Note the key - C# minor, the tempo, and the rhythm of the melody (bar 5 - 6 and elsewhere). To me this mvt is a funeral march and is so darn sad I have trouble listening to it. How folks take it as a comforting night piece I’ll never know. Maybe the gentle triples in the intro imitate little waves on a lake at night but once we get to the theme it does anything but soothe. However, it is found on all the classical relaxation CDs:

Stephen's composition 'Northern Journey' can be enjoyed on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv4-AW1mZ9w

Post 326: THE FIRST CHORD

I wanted to find out on what chord most of the popular old songs start, and what effect this chord has.

I selected 60 songs that have stood the test of time - tunes such as Tea for Two and I Can't Give You Anything But Love and It Had To Be You. I then noted the chord with which they start. I am referring to the first chord of the first bar of the Chorus (i.e., omitting any anacrusis).

Five of the tunes turned out to be in minor keys. That's just 8% of the total. These tunes certainly had a 'minor' feel but this did not necessarily make them sad.

I am going to give my attention to the other 92% - those in major keys.

Of these, no fewer than 50 tunes (that's a whopping 83% of all the tunes I looked at) started on the major chord of the tune's key. A tune in the key of F, for example, would start on the chord of F major.

I found the effect of this is to establish firmly and clearly where we are: there's no attempt at subtlety.

Of these 50 tunes, I categorised 38 as bright and cheerful in character, which means about 63% of all popular tunes are likely to be bright, cheerful, un-challenging and starting on the major chord of the home key.

The figure is about what I would have expected.

But this leaves twelve tunes (20% of all I studied) that begin on the major chord of the home key but are more subtle and complex, perhaps with elements of sadness, nostalgia or melancholy. These include such tunes as I'm In The Mood For Love, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. If you look at the inner workings of these tunes you find minor chords, diminished chords and other surprises (such as a 7th based on the flattened third note of the scale in I'm In The Mood For Love). These chords make the tunes harder to learn but they also give the songs their distinctive colours and make them linger in our minds, it seems to me.

The only tunes from my original 60 not yet considered are five in major keys that do not start on the chord of the major key, so that's just 8% of the total. Four of these are 'bright' tunes, the other one less so. These tunes do not seem to lose any impact as a result of not starting on the key chord. Usually they begin on the Dominant 7th, and very quickly inform our ear of the key we are in. An example is (The Bells Are Ringing) For Me And My Girl.
=====================

To sum up some findings:

83% of popular songs are in major keys and begin on the major chord of the home key.

8% of popular songs are in minor keys.

(Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number. This was an unscientific survey. But I wouldn't be surprised if my general conclusions are about right.)

Post 305: 'MICHIGANDER BLUES'

Jabbo Smith

Michigander Blues was apparently written in about 1929 by Jabbo Smith and the word 'Michigander' simply means 'a person from Michigan'.

Having enjoyed very much listening (on YouTube) to the great young New Orleans band Tuba Skinny playing this tune, I wanted to play it myself. It's good to have a few minor key tunes in your repertoire. To hear Tuba Skinny perform Michigander Blues: CLICK HERE.

I spent a couple of hours writing it out. Like Tuba Skinny, I put it in D minor. Here's what I came up with. It doesn't sound too bad to me as a basis to work on. I tried it with some friends, playing pub lunch jazz at The Dog and Gun, in Syston, Leicester, and it sounded reasonably good. The first four bars are the Introduction; the next 16 bars are the Verse; and the rest (final 32 bars) are the CHORUS, which has an a-a-b-a structure.

Post 219: ANSWER TO THE CHALLENGING PUZZLE

In Post 217, I set you a puzzle based on an Irving Berlin song.

The correct answer is Steppin' Out With My Baby.

Congratulations to the twelve readers who got it right!

Post 190: TUNES WITH SIMILAR CONTENT

Shake It and Break It (the 1920 tune of that title by Qualli Clark and Chiha), That Da Da Strain (1922, Dowell and Medina) and Willie the Weeper (1920 Melrose, Bloom and Rymal, but probably taken from an earlier song) are examples of tunes that have a surprising amount in common, if you analyze their opening strains. There are plenty such groupings, I think, in the canon of traditional jazz tunes.

Here's Shake It and Break It.

And now consider That Da Da Strain.

Finally, here's Willie the Weeper.

All three tunes have a first theme that comprises sixteen bars in a minor key (the Verse, if you like) followed by 16 bars in the related major key (the Chorus).

Look at those first themes. All three tunes begin by tumbling down the arpeggio of the minor chord in a very similar way.

All three tunes make considerable use of the related 7th in those sixteen bars.

All three tunes use an 8 + 8 structure in those first 16 bars, with each 8 very similar to the other.

Even in the major key second strain, two of the three tunes open with the same V7 - V7 - I  -  I structure.

Footnote: I am very grateful to the correspondents who supplied me with these copies of the music.

Post 179: 'CARAVAN'

'Caravan' - according to one of my busker's books - was composed by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills and Juan Tizol in 1937.

Traditional jazz bands rarely play it. Why is this? Possible reasons are these. It has a tricky melody (even the 'Middle Eight' melody notes add 9ths to their chords). It is considered to be a 'big band' number. Its structure - as written in 64 bars - deters players who like neat 32-bar packages.

However, I know there are a few traditional jazz bands who have attempted it with success, for example as a feature for the trombonist.

It is such a good and unusual haunting tune that I encourage more bands to try it. It would give variety to programmes, and as it's very distinctively in a minor key, it is useful as a contrast with the major key tunes that normally fill a programme.

Here's how to make it approachable.

Re-think it as a tune of 32 bars. Do this by halving the length of all the notes as printed. You then have a tune as follows:

a(1)   :  8 bars

a(2)   :  exactly the same as a(1)

b       :  middle eight

a(3)   : exactly the same as a(1)

So you really have to learn ONLY 16 bars. That should not be difficult.

It is all the easier because 'a' hovers for the entire first six bars round one chord, so improvising is easy.

For b, the melody needs to be learned (not too difficult) and improvising on these bars is easy because they have an intuitive chord progression. For example, if you play the tune in D minor, then the chords for the Middle 8 are:

 D7  |  D7  |  G7  |  G7  |  C7  |  C7  |  F  |  F:A7

Give it a try. I'm about to do so.

Post 146: THE HARMONIC IMPACT OFTHE FIRST NOTE

I wanted to find out on what chord most popular songs start, and what effect this chord has.

I carried out an unscientific survey. But I believe my general conclusions are about right.

I selected at random 60 songs that have stood the test of time - tunes such as Tea for Two and I Can't Give You Anything But Love and It Had To Be You. I then noted the chord with which they start. I am referring to the first chord of the first bar of the Chorus (i.e., omitting any anacrusis).

Five of the tunes turned out to be in minor keys. That's just 8% of the total. These tunes certainly had a 'minor' feel but this did not necessarily make them sad.

I am going to give my attention to the other 92% - those in major keys.

Of these, no fewer than 50 tunes (that's a whopping 83% of all the tunes I looked at) started on the major chord of the tune's key. A tune in the key of F, for example, would start on the chord of F major.

I found the effect of this is to establish firmly and clearly where we are: there's no attempt at subtlety.

Of these 50 tunes, I categorised 38 as bright and cheerful in character, which means about 63% of all popular tunes are likely to be bright, cheerful, un-challenging and starting on the major chord of the home key.

The figure is about what I would have expected; and probably you would too.

But this leaves twelve tunes (20% of all I studied) that begin on the major chord of the home key but are more subtle and complex, perhaps with elements of sadness, nostalgia or melancholy. These include such tunes as I'm In The Mood For Love, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. If you look at the inner workings of these tunes you find minor chords, diminished chords and other surprises (such as a 7th based on the flattened third note of the scale in I'm In The Mood For Love). These chords make the tunes harder to learn but they also give the songs their distinctive colours and make them linger in our minds, it seems to me.

The only tunes from my original 60 not yet mentioned are five in major keys that do not start on the chord of the major key, so that's just 8% of the total. Four of these are 'bright' tunes, the other one less so. These tunes do not seem to lose any impact as a result of not starting on the key chord. Usually they begin on the Dominant 7th, and very quickly inform our ear of the key we are in. An example is (The Bells Are Ringing) For Me And My Girl.

To sum up my main findings:

83% of popular songs are in major keys and begin on the major chord of the home key.

8% of popular songs are in minor keys.

(Note: all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.)

Post 144: LANGSTON CURL AND 'TIGHT LIKE THIS'

Ever heard of Langston Wesley Curl? Probably not.

But he was a useful musician in the mid-Twentieth Century. Curl, who was born in Virginia in 1899, became a fine trumpet-player in New York and Detroit and appeared on many records - notably those made by McKinney's Cotton Pickers.

But he withdrew eventually from the music scene, switched to a different career, and lived to the age of 92.

He was also a composer. And I'm particularly interested in his simple but very effective 16-bar tune called 'Tight Like This', which uses catchy repeated minor-key arpeggios. Even Louis Armstrong liked and recorded this one.

But I was first attracted to the tune when I heard Tuba Skinny playing it.

You can hear them doing so BY CLICKING HERE.

Or you can watch them in a more recent performance BY CLICKING HERE.