Inspector Morse
DAVID
>it will only make sense to us Brits anyway, but here goes...
>The theme tune to 'Inspector Morse' contains the word 'M-O-R-S-E' in
>Morse code. The pattern repeats itself from the start of the piece of
>music until the end, and provides the rhythmic underpinnings for the
>rest of the melody.
>Just a small piece of trivia. :-)
>Louise
Hi Louise,
Despite also being a Brit, I have never actually watched the highly popular
Inspector Morse, so I don't know how that tune goes. Can you hum it for
me....?
Incidentally, did you see the thing in the news about the woman who was
imprisoned for annoying her neighbours by continually playing Whitney
Houston's "I will always love you" (oo-eey oo-eeyoooooooo!). Next day
psychologists were popping up all over the newspapers to talk about noise
nuisance. But the best article I saw was in the "currant bun" (Sun), which
quoted at length Dr Judy Edworthy from Plymouth who explained why this song
rapidly becomes boring on repeated listening. Apparently, its popularity
can be put down to the extreme simplicity of its underlying chord
structure. However, because the song doesn't incorporate any variation to
this basic structure it rapidly becomes exceedingly monotonous, and turns
ordinarily peaceful folk into crazed psycho-killers. One way of preventing
simple chord structures from getting monotonous is (eg) to weave complex
harmonies around them. Dr Edworthy's fav example of this was the BeeGee's
"How Deep is Your Love" which, she said, had such complex harmonies she
couldn't make out the lyrics. Personally, I've always understood the lyrics
to that one whereas rather simpler numbers defeat me....for example, the
famous lyric from Bohemian Rhapsody that goes "Spare him his life from his
pork sausages...", or the Phil Collins number that goes "She seems to have
an invisible tough s**t.." (listen to them and see what I mean)
I should add that the above info is highly unreliable, being based on my
memory for something that I read in a paper whilst waiting in an Indian
Takeaway, so I hope I haven't misrepresented Dr Edworthy any more
than the Sun probably already has :)
Dave "rambling" Hardman
har...@uk.ac.cf.taff
David Stretch
> Dave Hardman writes,
>
> > to that one whereas rather simpler numbers defeat me....for example, the
> > famous lyric from Bohemian Rhapsody that goes "Spare him his life from his
> > pork sausages...", or the Phil Collins number that goes "She seems to have
> > an invisible tough s**t.." (listen to them and see what I mean)
>
>
>Phil Collins' tune is one he did with his group Genesis, and the song title is
>"Invisible TOUCH" not 'tough'.....and the s**t you think you heard after the
>word Touch, is the word "yeah"
>
>and that's the REST of the story......Good Day! (a little Paul Harvey
>reference for you radio fans)
Hmmm..... Can I make a request to people who may have emailed me directly
recently.
I haven't received the email Todd was quoting here, and this is not the only
list that this has happened recently to me either. From previous problems
we've had at Leicester, I am sure that email durected to me from any source
is intermittently disappearing down a black hole. They have admitted this is
a problem in the past, but do not believe anyone who talls them this unless
some more proof than a feeling is offered them (quite reasonably). So, could
I make a couple of polite requests:
1) Where can I get the archives of messages on PSYCGRAD? (pref. by
anonymous ftp, as we don't have gopher or anything like that)?
2) If anyone on psycgrad has emailed me privately since about last Wednesday,
and not received any reply yet, could they possibly send me the email again?
3) Additionally, could people also send the private email to my alternative
email address of: da...@mugwort.demon.co.uk (This is a private home machine,
and I have to pay bills for phone connections which can be large with a slow
modem, so please don't go overboard)?
Many thanks
David D Stretch
Greenwood Institute of Child Health
University of Leicester, UK.
-----
d...@leicester.ac.uk
David Stretch
> Dave Hardman writes,
>
> > to that one whereas rather simpler numbers defeat me....for example, the
> > famous lyric from Bohemian Rhapsody that goes "Spare him his life from his
> > pork sausages...", or the Phil Collins number that goes "She seems to have
> > an invisible tough s**t.." (listen to them and see what I mean)
>
> Dave,
>
>Phil Collins' tune is one he did with his group Genesis, and the song title is
> "Invisible TOUCH" not 'tough'.....and the s**t you think you heard after the
> word Touch, is the word "yeah"
>
> and that's the REST of the story......Good Day! (a little Paul Harvey
> reference for you radio fans)
Ok - I must have missed some of the info here, but since we're talking about
misheared lyrics and so on now, I have a few. First of all, I can't usually
remember names of pop singers very much, as I don't like their music often
- I'm more a Leonard Cohen, Clannad, Tangerine Dream person away from modern
"classical", old folk, and classical music. However, there is a song whose
title or main line is "When the going gets tough", and at various times
throughout it, to myself and others, it sounds like he's singing "Go and
get stuffed". Or another - the song was (I think) "Ring of Ice", which
sounded like "Ring the Vice" (Vice = short for "Vice Squad" in the UK - the
police department concerned with investigating pornography/prostitution).
From the opera: I once heard a radio presenter explain that his daughter
asked him to play the song about "Elephant's Ears". He wondered what it was,
and eventually found out that it was the last line from the aria "Donna E
Mobile" (excuse the spelling). At this point, my story grinds to a halt as
I can't remember what the original Italian is for this line.
Or in lectures: In my first year, we had perception lectures that mentioned
a now-old book by Richard Gregory called "Eye and Brain". I was puzzled by
the title of the book, however, as I had interpreted it, and written it down
as "Iron Brain" (echoes of iron lungs and so on made me wonder whether it was
a grotesque joke about artificial intelligence).
Moving even further away from music, I remember having to give a practical
class to first-year psychology students which looked at memory research in
the style of Bartlett's work, and explained in his classic work "Remembering"
(There's still a lot of good stuff in that book which modern research into
memory hasn't exploited enough, but from which script theory *seems* to have
taken sensible ideas from). I was illustrating his reserach into Serial
Reproduction, in which sequences of people try to memorize and then reproduce
stories (a bit like the children's game of "Chinese whispers", if anyone is
unfamiliar with this type of research now). I was showing the kinds of
simplifications, elaborations, and distortions that happen over succesive
occasions in one particular story, "The Art of Lawn Tennis". Call me naive
if you like, but it was only when the whole class of about 150 students was
convulsed in almost hysterical laughter that I realised that one of the
reproductions had this line in it "It is considered bad form to smash your
opponent's balls into the net."
> Todd
DON GALLOGLY
>Todd D Nelson writes:
>> Dave Hardman writes,
>>
>> > to that one whereas rather simpler numbers defeat me....for example, the
>> > famous lyric from Bohemian Rhapsody that goes "Spare him his life from his
>> > pork sausages...", or the Phil Collins number that goes "She seems to have
>> > an invisible tough s**t.." (listen to them and see what I mean)
>>
>> Dave,
>>
>>Phil Collins' tune is one he did with his group Genesis, and the song title is
>> "Invisible TOUCH" not 'tough'.....and the s**t you think you heard after the
>> word Touch, is the word "yeah"
>>
>> and that's the REST of the story......Good Day! (a little Paul Harvey
>> reference for you radio fans)
For years (when I was a child) I thought Jimi Hendrix was saying, "'Scuse me
while I kiss this guy."
Just thought you'd all like to know.
Don Gallogly
Experimental Psychology
Miami Univ.
DGAL...@MIAVX1.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU