Posted 5/20/24
https://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/5.html
I don’t believe in Numerology or its ilk, but the number 5 has interesting symbolism in the Bible, eh?
The Sesame Street team like number 5 too: https://youtu.be/q7Ghyg8ZOyM?si=LbF9waENa4xIhXZY
Oh, and my favorite Jazz song, “Take 5” by Dave Brubeck: https://youtu.be/tT9Eh8wNMkw?si=VwN0aN5O5YZypQwd
It is this last mention of a hand full of fingers that will be my topic today. I know, I know…weird topic alert. Probably a little too niche too. When you have nearing 900 articles in your blog, you like to stretch your legs…uhh, errr…fingers now and then. 🙂
So, “Take 5”, by the jazz wizard Dave Brubeck, is amazing even if you don’t like jazz as a genre. Listen to the above and think on it in comparison to most songs you hear today. It is odd. It just is. Here are some reasons why this song, and Brubeck, are cool:
- It is in 5/4 time, not 3/4 or 4/4 like most every song we ever hear. Scientific American explains this difference thusly: “‘Take Five,’ which was conceived by Brubeck’s saxophonist Paul Desmond, is in 5/4 with the accent pattern one two three four five, so each measure can be thought of as being split into two uneven chunks. Langham says that from a dance point of view, the meter of ‘Take Five’ combines a waltz and a two-step, both of which were popular in the 1950s and 1960s with the parents of teenagers. ‘This allowed college students to be different, in the sense of adding a funky twist to it.'”
- In the same piece, Justin London, professor of music at Carleton College in Minnesota, states “These uneven meters play by slightly different rules than the symmetrical meters. For one, people’s brains can’t process the unusual meters as quickly as the standard ones, so they can’t be performed as quickly. “Uneven beats are perfectly fine, but we can’t do it quite as fast as with even beats.” They also can’t “swing” the way a lot of jazz does. When a piece swings, two eighth notes in succession aren’t played evenly; instead, the first is longer than the second. This can make the figure sound like a triplet (with the first two notes slurred together) instead of two eighth notes. “When you’re swinging, you’re very close to blurring the lines between duplets and triplets,” London says. But “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” which relies on the listener hearing sets of both two and three, would get too muddy if it started to swing. “Brubeck was criticized for not swinging, but you can’t swing the music in those meters the same way you can if you’re just in a straight four.”
- AARP adds this piece of trivia on Brubeck “Brubeck’s heavy, tortoise-rim glasses became his trademark – and probably inspired a lot of would-be hipsters to head to the optician. But they weren’t just a stylish affectation, according to Hall. Brubeck, who was born cross-eyed, had vision problems in his youth that actually made it difficult for him to read sheet music when his mother was teaching him. He managed to hide the problem, because his musical ear was so sharp that he could listen to other students play piano exercises and then imitate them.”
- In a great piece by WRTI90.1, this theme was continues saying “These are beats you can’t dance to and can’t sing to, or so we’d think. The album was a gauntlet slammed into the ground of jazz. With Time Out, it’s as if Dave Brubeck were announcing, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one rule in jazz. It’s got to swing. And we can swing in 4, 3, 5, 7, 9, or anything. Here we go.’ And off they went. “Take Five” was not only the Quartet’s biggest hit, it is still the biggest jazz single in history. Desmond’s tune, and his sound, epitomize the ice-smooth and pungent spice of his talent. He likened his own playing to a dry martini, and there’s never been a better description. His supple, mid-air twists still amaze, but he’s a giant because of the non-headlining gifts he prized above all others. In a letter to his father he listed them: ‘beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.'”
OK, Jazz Boy, what about dementia, the supposed topic of your blog???
Friends, there are few songs, to me, that better illustrate the intrigue of this terrible disease.
- Time signature– Can we throw out these songs because they don’t use the same time signature or do we take a deep breath, clear our musical palate, and appreciate what we are hearing instead of shoehorning normal cognition into a wooden shoe? I suggest to you that when things aren’t “normal”, that is still ok. It can even be better than OK if you listen closely and appreciate what you are hearing. When my mom was first struggling, I often missed out on her true strength because I was comparing her to a 4/4 song. She was fighting the disease hard when she asked me one day “Is there something wrong with me?” despite already being placed in a memory unit because of the unsafe conditions otherwise. She was 5/4ing and all I could see is the 4/4 of my pre-grief. Later, when mom “Unsquare Dance“d in 7/4 time, I/we made it all about us as we spent the whole time sad that she would mess up on the piano and failed to soak up every note and enjoy the happy accidents. Here was a happy accident that still made us all happy, including Mom: https://youtu.be/bkuQ9-caUG0?si=u3QdTa3jiLRG4_ka Was it “correct? Nope. But it was a joy.
- Mom’s sense of humor was still in tune: https://youtu.be/KiRBeCilJ_c?si=o9hLHmkLOdx4yWcH Music can have tumor without words. Sometimes it sounds funny because what it makes us do, like the above song causing some verbal gymnastics. Dave Brubeck would make us dance like mom was making us sing….like we needed vocal cord reinforcements. She would also play songs and change songs in the middle. https://youtube.com/shorts/k0EXoga5sCA?si=IsyCLkpLZY9ZD7Ul The key here, like when the disease gets hard, is being willing to pivot.
- Sometimes our forcing a musical norm on the real song sounds ok, but more often if you just let them play, they will do just fine thank you very much. https://youtu.be/MPG4v4XqpE0?feature=shared Don’t get caught up doing everything for your loved one. Let them do it their way and praise them and enjoy it all at once. Perfection, in caregiving, can be our arch-enemy.
- Dave’s un-dance-able beats– Routine is so important that the temptation is to stick with what works even after it ceases to work. Be flexible to dance to the beat you are given within reason. The longer you care for your loved one, the more this will make sense. Routine is good, but a malleable routine is even better.
- Taking 5- Sorry…I had to mention it again here and in nearly every piece. Please take care of yourself as a caregiver. Find respite help. Your local Area Agency on Aging may have help. The Alzheimer’s Association’s Caregiver Relief Program can help. Hilarity for Charity’s caregiver grants can do the same! Find and receive caregiver band members and let them have some solos too. Take 5!
- Last thought…Brubeck left this ole Earth in 2012, passing away on his way to a cardiologist appointment. We never really know when we will hear our loved one’s last song. Rather than letting them fly by without noticing, soak them up as if they could be the last. It has been said here and everywhere….focus not on what is missing, but what is left…even until the final note.
Brubeck isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I get it. It can make one that only wants 4/4 time bristle. However, please know this of caregiving…you won’t have 4/4 time very often. Your only options are spend your days sad or enjoying the new sounds as best you can in this music journey of dementia…
#EndALZ
Update: Mom is still struggling with her oxygen levels. She will drop to low-to-mid 80s some days, a very bad number, and will require being hooked to the O2 machine where it will rise to its normal happy place…the mid-to-upper 90s. She is still eating and still drops her parkinsonism-struck arms in joy when I play the old hymns on my phone. Oh what a wonderful musical and all around experience awaits her in heaven some sweet day!
My Longest Day week event, Walkin’ for the Wanderers is in full out prep mode. It will be very hard. I am beaten up and weigh too much. However, I am working on it. 🙂 Pray for my feet mainly. Plantar fasciitis, an all out assault by mosquitoes, and other challenges abound. Here is my event link: https://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=17194&pg=personal&px=14575499
I will do my best. It may have to be a “How many 37 mile trips can Mark finish in a week?” event rather than a guaranteed one/day. I am pretty darn beaten up. However, this disease needs a beaten’ too. So we play on.
Some more fun Brubeck songs that are out of whack. Who needs whack anyway???
