The Musical Kaleidoscope Story
by Don Robertson
The DoveSong iUniversity
The Goals and Purpose of the DoveSong iUniversity
In March, 1997, Mary Ellen Bickford and I established our two educational projects DoveSong.com and Musical Kaleidoscope – the fruit of ideas that we had first initiated during 1980. The iUniversity section of DoveSong.com was then announced in November 2011, with publications to be made available beginning in 2012. The goal of the iUniversity is to help create a new direction in classical music by providing study scores based on a revolutionary technique of color-coding and analysis that I developed to arm the next generation of composers with the tools they will need to create the 21st century’s classical music.”
– Don Robertson
Three sections to choose from:
Learning from the World’s Greatest Melodic Traditions
It All Began in Song
The heart of music is SONG and its greatest expression is when it is produced by the human voice. The study of melody in the iUniversity is based on three great world melodic traditions:
- Gregorian Chant: The importance of this great melodic tradition cannot be over-emphasized. Thanks to inter-library loan and to the great 21st-century online library imslp, we have been able to gather the formerly extremely rare old books of Gregorian Chant scores and texts that deal with every aspect of this great melodic art form.
- North Indian Classical Music Ragas: The study of one of the most important melodic traditions in the world, the study of the ragas of North Indian Classical Music is a definite next step for 21st century composers and musicians.
- Song: This section is devoted to leaning about melody by studying the works of the world’s great songwriters, and the melodies of the world’s great folk traditions. We will share techniques that Mary Ellen and I learned during the period of preparation for the book that we co-authored with Dave Austin and Jim Peterik: Songwriting for Dummies.
Learning from the Masters
The European harmonic tradition began a thousand years ago and developed century-by-century, enhanced by the greatest musical minds of Western classical culture. The harmonic idiom was not fully explored by other cultures, which developed melody and rhythm instead.
During the 20th century, the European harmonic tradition evaporated into discord and noise as greed systematically began destroying nature, art, and finance. The 21st century has a new agenda! The discords of 20th century music will fade away as the young composers of tomorrow turn instead to concord and to the great music given to us by the musical masters who have left us with their blueprints: their printed musical scores. These, instead of textbook rules, will now – thanks to 21st-century digital distribution technology – provide the tools for the classical music of the 21st Century.
Section One
Gregorian Chant
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Gregorian Chant, or what is sometimes called “plainsong,” is among the oldest classical music of the European Harmonic Tradition. It is also the basis for all of the great choral music that was sung in the Roman Catholic church and contain some of the greatest melodies that have been written. These Gregorian melodies were incorporated in the choral music of every century. I first heard a recording of Gregorian chant back in 1965 in a university music appreciation course. I knew immediately how beautiful, powerful, and uplifting this ancient music was! Millions of people re-discovered Gregorian chant during the period of popularity of new age music in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s when the album “Chant,” recorded by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain hit the pop charts in England. My study of Gregorian chant began in 1971, at the same time that I began a ten-year study of Renaissance sacred music. Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the 16th century are very closely interwoven.
The best source of information about Gregorian chant are old publications of the Catholic church that we will be offering as reprints.
Two Sequences from the DoveSong Sheet Music Library
Scores
(in modern notation)
Gregorian Responsory Christus resurgens from SM-0001 – Gregorian Chant
Examples from MC004 Ave Maria (2011)
SM-0001 – Gregorian Chant
Score Reprints
RM-0001 – The Liber Usualis 1961
RM-0002 – The Vesperale Romanum 1913
RM-0003 – Versus Psalmorum et Canticorum 1962
RM-0004 – Offertoriale 1935
RM-0007 – Graduale Romanum 1961
RM-0008 – Matutinum 1936
RM-0009 – Ordo Processionem 1925
RM-0010 – Officium Hebdomadae 1935
RM-0011 – Antiphonale Monasticum – Solesmes 1931
RM-0012 – Antiphonale Sacrosanctae 1912
RM-0013 – Liber Responsorialis by Solesmes Abbey (Pothier) 1895
RM-0014 – Graduale Romanum – Editio Vaticana
RM-0015 – Psalmi in Notis
RM-0016 – Liber Gradualis 1895 (Pothier)
RM-0017 – Solesmes Graduale Romanum 1961
Book Reprints
BM-0001 – Missale Romanum 1920
BM-0002 – Text Book of Gregorian Chant According to the Solesmes Method
BM-0003 – Johner – A New School of Gregorian Chant 1925
BM-0004 – The Rhythm of Plainsong
BM-0005 – Gregorian Chant for Church and School 1944
BM-0006 – Le nombre musical grégorien, by Mocquereau, André, 1849-1930
BM-0007 – The St. Gregory Hymnal, by Nicola A. Montani 1920
Section Two
Ragas of North India
What raga is. Best example is so-called blues scale. Not just a scale, but a way to play the notes also.
at the bottom button for raga page.
Learn about ragas ->
“The study of the melodic tradition of North Indian classical music, called raga, is a primary educational necessity for 21st century musicians and composers” – Don Robertson
Raga is a melodic concept almost completely unknown in our culture. A raga is a blueprint for composing and improvising melody. The best way that I know to describe to Western musicians what a raga is, is to equate it to the “blues.” To learn to play or to sing the blues, a musician or singer does not learn a scale. There is much more to singing the blues – i.e. form (12-bar patterns), embellishment notes, riffs. One learns blues only by listening to great blues recordings. The same is true for learning ragas. Learning a single raga is like learning the blues. But once you know that raga, like knowning the various possibilities of the blues, you will be able to sing or play it, and you will understand, in addition to feeling, what singers from India are performing when they perform that raga.
I will be introducing various ragas from North Indian classical music for composers:
Morning Ragas
Ragas Bharavi, Bhairov, Bilaskhani Todi, Asawari
Afternoon Ragas
The Sarang Family plus Raga Desh,Miya Ki Mahlar, and some pentatonic Ragas
Night Ragas
Ragas Yamen, Kedar, Bagashri, Malkauns, Khammaj, Kausi Kanada, Darbari Kanada, Adana
Raga Studies
RS-0001 – The Morning (250 pages)
RS-0002 – The Afternoon
RS-0003 – The Night (370 pages)
RS-0004 – The Kanada Ragas
RS-0005 – The Seasonal Ragas (138 Pages)
RS-0006 – Pentatonic Ragas (160 pages)
Section Three
Song
This is the book that my wife Mary Ellen Bickford, Jim Peterik, and I wrote in 2002. My name is not on the cover because the publisher would only allow three authors’ names. However, I wrote one-third of the first edition of the book, as well as the initial plan submitted to the publisher. Songwriting for Dummies has sold over 600,000 copies worldwide. The second edition is now in print and both Mary Ellen and my names have been removed from the cover as we did not participate in the revisions made to this edition.
This book gave me the excuse to dive into a very professional and through study of the popular song literature. By 2006, I had composed a number of songs which Mary Ellen and I recorded in our album “Songs of Love and Joy.”
The study of popular song is a fascinating one and an important one for young composers. – Don Robertson
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Song Studies
Analysis of “You’re My Inspiration”
duh duh duh David Foster
SS-001 – Songs of Diane Warren
SS-002 – Reba and Martina McBride
SS-003 – Trisha Yearwood
SS-004 – Vince Gill and Tim McGraw
SS-005 – Male Country Groups & Singers
SS-006 – Backstreet Boys
SS-007 – Boys II Men and NSYNC
SS-008 – Country Music Songs
SS-009 – Various Songs
SS-010 – Songs from Europe
SS-011 – Boyzone – British Group
SS-012 – Westlife- British Group
SS-013 – Steps- British Group
SS-014 – Corrs – Irish Group
SS-015 – Celine Dion
SS-016 – Lara Fabian
SS-017 – French Songs
SS-018 – Jean-Jacque Goldman
SS-019 – The Good Shepherd Quartet Volume 1
SS-020 – The Good Shepherd Quartet Volume 2
SS-021 – The Isaacs
SS-022 – The Singing Cookes
SS-023 – The McKammeys
SS-024 – Southern Gospel Volume 1
SS-025 – Southern Gospel Volume 2
SS-026 – Bluegrass Music
SS-028 – Popular Music
SS-030 – Classic Ballads
SS-031 – Various Artists Volume 1
SS-032 – Various Artists Volume 2
SS-033 – Various Artists Volume 3
SS-035 – Various Artists Volume 4
SS-036 – Various Artists Volume 5
SS-037 – Art Song
Song Examples
Popular Songs
“A Taste of the Sixties”, a compilation by Musical Kaleidoscope
Country Songs
“Bluegrass America!”, a compilation by Musical Kaleidoscope
Gospel Songs
“Deep Mississippi Gospel”, a compilation by Musical Kaleidoscope
Southern Gospel Songs
“Gospel Songs from the Redback Hymnal”, a compilation by Musical Kaleidoscope
“South of the USA Border” Songs
“Sjfifjdi” by Ditty and the Dirtbags
Native American Songs
“A Taste of the Andes”, a compilation by Musical Kaleidoscope
French Folk Music
“Broken Vow” by Lara Fabian
French Chanson
Gabriel Fauré – Après un rêve with Sabine Devieilhe & Alexandre Tharaud (Warner Classics)
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European Song
“Broken Vow” by Lara Fabian
Art Song
Gabriel Fauré – Après un rêve with Sabine Devieilhe & Alexandre Tharaud (Warner Classics)
Link to MK Playlist