Weekly Blog #3 Cael Rowley

 "How Deep is the Ocean" Sung by Bing Crosby Written by: Irving Berlin

        
        I was super excited about this week, because of this song. A little background from me about this piece. In high school, I had the opportunity to do musicals( I know nerdy right), and my senior year we did "White Christmas" And I got to play Bob Wallace who actually gets to sing this song during the production. I love "How deep is the ocean" because of the key components that make this song catchy, and listened to from a broad range of audiences.

        The first thing that I have picked up is how they play one trumpet throughout the whole song as its base melody. The trumpet back in the day was very popular and caught a lot of attention. When Irving added this as a key melody to kind of guide the song the whole way through, it gave a chance for other instruments to harmonize and play on off- beats to add a little syncopation. This is what grabbed people focus and was considered very "catchy" for them back in the 1930's.

       In the Tin Pan Alley era, the golden age was prime time for the start to crooning and night club music. This specific style was slow, romantic, and well popular in its time. Because of these specific types of tunes, the song was able to be mor familiarized with the public as they produced it in musicals, reality tv shows and other clubs throughout the U.S. "How deep is the Ocean"is very popular, and doesn't get a lot of credit where credit is due.
        

Comments

  1. Lauren JensenSeptember 29, 2021 at 3:17 PM

    It is fun that you are already familiar with Irving Berlin, it makes listening to other pieces like this one even better. I agree that this song has many key elements of the Tin Pan Alley as it felt more private with the crooning, was romantic, and used first person lyrics. I also enjoy how the song goes from a minor to a major key and feels more hopeful at the end. Looking at the lyrics I can also get a sense that Berlin could have been alluding to wanting the great depression to end as he talks about how far he would travel and what great lengths he would go. It’s a possibility that we will never know.

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