What would you play IF you're aboard the sinking Titanic?
Ok,
i know maybe this is a weird question, but i hope you don't mislead me as being an "insane",
let's get started,
honestly i dislike "mourning syle" song, like a death sentence was being called upon me.
but Nearer God to thee, for me, is exceptional, sometimes when i'm under severe stress, feeling down, like nothing else could be done, this song gave me the power to carry on,
the lyrics, for me, it basically means you're surrendering whatever trouble you may come accross, to God.
just as Wallace Hartley did, once before setting out to sail with the Titanic, he said if he were on a sinking ship, he would play this piece, as his last prayers to God.
i like the song the way it was written, the intonations, the lyrics are just perfect for me as a Melancholic,
and if I were Hartley, i would play the same song,
what would you play if you were Hartley during those horrible moments?
Replies (51)
I'd play loudly, dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit.
That's Morse Code S O S.
Row row row your boat...
If I were on a sinking ship and I knew that I was about to die, I'd rather spend my last few precious moments doing something else instead of twiddling on a violin.
I vote with Elise. In fact, let's just empty the Little Brown Jug.
For more enjoyable Atlantic crossings, read Joseph Wechsberg's biographical accounts in "Looking for a Bluebird." The first chapter ("Pier 99") has some "little jug" adventures during the time of prohibition in the US. Wechsburg went on to write "The Glory of the Violin" 28 years after he wrote this book and 44 years after the adventures I refer to. He worked as a ships' "fiddler for a number of crossings."
Andy
Maybe the Bach Chaconne. But I think I'd be better off keeping my violin in its case, and trying to use the case as a flotation device!
PS "Row your boat" - love it! lol!
I have to say that my sense of self-preservation would have had me using my Musafia case (with Johannes in it) as a battering ram to ensure that I fought my way through the crowds to get on one of these lifeboats...!
"How deep is the ocean, How high is the Sky."
which I'm soon going to find out.
"And where are all those little dreams that never did come true
Cheerio and toodle-loo, ooh"
And off course I,ll play a Paganini Caprice just to show that nothing scares me!
Sorry, forgive my humour but I can't think of a better one than this one (yes again...) in the Titanic situation...
The nutcracker specially for the Captain to have crashed his boat on the deadly iceberg!!!
Thanks to the school of hard knocks, I wouldn't do a refined version! (not to mention that I would play it at 40 on the metronome for it to last very long...)
For the others? Vitali Chaconne, Bach E maj 2nd, Dvorak 2nd and Schindler's list (the latter being perhaps the saddest music ever written)
Weird question to think indeed...
Anne-Marie
En Bateux (In the Boat) ---- Debussy
The Sunken Cathedral ---- Debussy
"Ah, I am Suffocating" (Aria from Opera: Boris Gudonov) ---- Mussorgsky
"In Questa Tomba Oscura" (In This Dark Tomb - Aria from Opera: Fidelio) ---- Beethoven
If I HAD to play something, it had better be fast so I could make it on to one of those lifeboats.
Flight of the Bumblebee.
Greetings,
Handel`s Water music, Beethoven Sprung Sonata, and the Butterfly Stroke concerto.
Cheers,
Buri
How about Mendelssohn's "On wings of song" - to get the heck out of there...
and if that does not work:
"I'm going down" (Norman Whitfield)
As starboard disappears;
"When the Saints goes marching in"
I won't be in that number.
"Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over."
"Yellow submarine"? by, The Beatles
"Message in a Bottle / S.O.S." by, the Police
The Bach B-Minor Mass
(By the time it's over, the rescue ship will have showed up)
The Lark Ascending would work well too...
Handel's water Music? Vaughan Williams's Sea symphony? La Mer?
Tears. I would be crying, not playing. ahaha.
I'd be too busy rearranging the deck chairs to worry about music.
"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore"?
I'm not sure they'd let me take my violin on the life boat.
then you'd just have to find another way ...
hmmm..... definitely no List or Leakeu, perhaps something seacular rather than wholy. Maybe some Boathoven.
I'd get inside a double bass and use the fiddle as a paddle.
Nigel... gaaaaaggg
Perhaps you could also make a tree Bach canoe? Or quickly use the instruments to build Moet's Ark.....
L'Albatros of Ernest Chausson ( poetry:Charles Beaudelaire)
Link of l'albatros: must be heard, really... Youtube Marie-Nicole Lemieux contralto, L'albatros
"The Flying Dutchman". Hey ya got to go out with style!
Pretty cool ideas you guys have! :hahaha!:)
however, during those final moments,
Wallace was ordered to play some music to keep the passangers calm and 'warm", and i don't think by running to a lifeboat was an honored way,
he's not an official employee, instead was a hired musician,
so actually they don't have to "give up some space in the life boat", as compared the employed sailor have to, prefering all available spaces for the passangers.
he and his colleges remained onboard, and played on until the last note they can bow.
Julian: well, i think your double bass might be flooded, even before you might clear the ship, Hahaha! :LOL!
perhaps i'll just run a "test play" on those songs you guys said one by one, as some of them i've never even heard before!.
any more ideas of song that might fit mine?
"Devils Trill"
Could also double as an audition.
" "Devils Trill"
Could also double as an audition."
Audition? For the Pearly Gates Orchestra ^ ^ :)
ee
No wrong direction;
The Fire and Brimstone Teeth Grinding Symphonia.
who plays with a devil may care attitude
Anton Rubenstein's The Ocean Symphony would be an appropriate selection...
In case anyone is interested, there is a nice novel, Psalm at Journey's End, by Erik Fosnes Hansen, a fictional account about the musicians of The Titanic. It's well written and worth a read.
As for me, I would join Holzman and start re-arranging deck chairs. What else could one do?
Didn't Mendelssohn write a piece based on a painting called, "calm sea and prosperous voyage"? But I guess that ship would have sailed! Perhaps "15 men on a dead man's ship. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
But in the end, I think that Rosalind had the best idea - using the case as a battering ram to the life boats!
Couldn't play on my violin on the way down - rather put him in his case, seal him in a trash bag and throw him overboard.... perhaps he will float to someone worthy of him?
@Elise ;
There must be a message stuck underneath the tail piece of Doodie, what will it be?
A last will and testament, a tale of unrequited love, a secret no-one knew, a fond farewell with instructions?
Bold Venture a tale of mystery and intrigue starring .......Doodie
"Down In The Swamp" perhaps? Even though sinking into a swamp would be way worse than sinking into water.
Or something by Ysaye! :)
@Dion: There must be a message stuck underneath the tail piece of Doodie...
In your hands
You hold
A lady’s last love
ee
The tears are running down my cheeks. I last had that emotion in the dentist chair.
"Nearer My God to Thee"
Whether I want to be or not.......
@Dion
I hope it was not that painful... angstful perhaps?
How about a Mozart concerto - well he was from Saltzburg wasn't he?
What about The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?
Elise, thanks. Now I'll have an exuse to eat chips while listening to Mozart!
Anne-Marie
... and hamburgers too ;)
Definitely NOT "My Heart Will Go On." :P
Gene:She can't sink anyways...God I am tired of her ( I know, it is not nice from a fellow of Quebec)
hehehe Thats a funny question. Paganini's 5th caprice really fast cuz its fun. But I think I would be too scared and my fingers would be shaking too much. Maybe the 2nd movement of the Tchaikovsky concerto cuz that is easier to play. Im really happy cuz my Dad is bringing my violin tomarow. Ive been in hospitals and now Im in a nursing home and I havent played for 2 months. I broke 2 bones in my leg ( Tibia and Fibula? ) and then it got infected cuz ( because ) there was bone sticking out when I broke it. Im gonna play it all day.
OK, all this lighthearted discussion about a terrible tragedy has gone on quite long enough.
On the other hand, "Nearer my cod to thee."
That sounds a bit fishy.
I read this whole discussion and laughed.
Maybe anything by the beach boys? Such as... "Don't go near the water"
Smoke in the water... (If I have this title ok) for those who enjoy smoking.
once in the deadly water who cares about "healthy" habits...
Anne-Marie
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June 17, 2010 at 05:43 PM ·
hahaha, hehehe, little brown jug do I love thee :)
[why be somber when you only have a few minutes to go?]