I’d like to talk about countermelodies.
What are they?
Good question. I’ve seen both countermelody and counterpoint used. I’ll leave the difference to the experts. I’ll call them countermelodies when two songs start and end together and they seem to blend well.
Any example?
Yes. Three. One done by professional singers. One I did with a friend. And one I did by myself.
Okay.
I’ll call the first example “theirs.” Back in the 1950s, when I was attending college, the musical Call Me Madam opened on Broadway. In it, Ethel Merman and Russel Nype sang the song “You’re Just in Love.”
Nype, playing a younger man, sang a chorus that began
“I hear singing and there’s no one there.
I smell blossoms but the trees are bare.”
Then Merman sang a chorus that began
“You don’t need analyzing.
It is not so surprising.”
On the third chorus, they each sang their words simultaneously and they became countermelodies.
Incidentally, when a movie was made of the musical, Merman repeated her role and Donald O’Connor played the younger man.
Now this is what I would call “ours.”
At Bucknell a fraternity brother and I liked to fool around with music. So Don S would sing the first chorus and I sang the second. Then we would sing together the countermelodies. And we serenaded, uninvited, the other guys at our fraternity house
How did your audience react?
They were amused. At least we didn’t get booed off the stage.
Now this is what I call “mine.”
Fast-forward a few years. I’ve graduated, and I got to thinking about that song. I wondered if I could sing both parts. I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Reel to reel?
Yeah. This was still the 1950s.
So happens I knew someone else with the same recorder. The machines had only microphone inputs, so I had to record the countermelody acoustically.
How?
Into the first machine I sang Merman’s part, then Nype;s part, then Merman’s part again. Then I rewound the tape.
And?
Then I started the second machine recording and the first machine playing what I had recorded. When it reached the third chorus, Merman’s part, I sang live Nype’s part. Both the playback and my voice into the mike. Confusing enough for you?
I think I follow.
The resultant tape on the second machine had me singing with myself on the third chorus. It was crude, because it was done acoustically, but it worked.
Guess so.
Incidentally, the Merman-Nype duo wasn’t the only countermelody at the time. Bing Crosby recorded several with his teenage son, Gary. The most popular was “Play a Simple Melody.”
As a light-hearted twist, the performers were listed as “Gary Crosby and Friend.”
Also, Kay Starr recorded one but with her voice doing both parts.
She sang “Side By Side” in her normal singing voice and, on top of that, added a jazzed-up, syncopated version of the same song.
End of lesson on countermelodies.
Thank you.