Music of Revolution - PHH 007

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan and I'm a harpist, teacher, and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I, although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started.

Welcome to today's show. Like some of you, I'm sure I grew up on the protest songs of the 1960s. They inspired a generation, they created an uprising, and they changed things in our nation forever. Well, today, in honor of our Independence Day celebrations, we I'll be talking about a protest song, but not one from the 1960s, one from the 1760s. And we'll talk about how it inspired the colonists in its time and moved them toward their quest for independence. So we'll be talking about that. I'll be sharing some information about the music, the words, the people who wrote it, and of course, I'll be playing it for you. And I will give you a link so that you can download my arrangement of it for free. Just a little Independence Day gift. Plus I have some very interesting and entertaining trivia to share about the song and about the people who wrote it. So we'll be talking about all of that. I know you want to get back to your Independence Day celebrations, so let's get right to it. The song that is the subject of this episode is a song that you probably don't know called the Liberty Song. And while the music was borrowed, and we'll talk about that in a minute, the words were written by John Dickinson. John Dickinson was. He's commonly referred to as a Philadelphia lawyer, but he grew up in Maryland, had a law practice in Philadelphia, was very active not only as a lawyer, but in the political struggles of the time. Everything, of course, being centered in Philadelphia, or at least so much of it. He was right in the thick of things. He was very active in the framing of the Declaration of Independence, but was really more in favor not of separating from Britain, but just changing the Relationship a little bit. The taxation issue was key for him. When the Townshend act was passed in 1767, he was really incensed, and he was moved to pen the words that became the text for the Liberty Song. And we'll talk about that in a moment. I just want to give you a little bit more context behind Dickinson. He was very active. He was a framer of the Declaration of Independence, but actually refused to sign it. However, he went on, and just eight days later, after he had refused to sign the Declaration, he went on, he presented to Congress a proposal for a plan for the new government. So he was certainly committed to being part of the new nation. He served as a militia officer. He later became president of Delaware and president of Pennsylvania. So he was continuing to stay active, even though his first idea had not been to separate from Britain, but rather to reframe their relationship. And so that's a little bit of Conte for Dickinson. And this is the man who wrote the words that inspired the colonists to unite. But now let's just give a thought to the music that he used. Dickinson was not a musician, so he needed to borrow a tune, and he chose one that was quite popular at the time. A smart move on his part. And the tune he chose went like this.

If that tune sounds familiar to you, I'll give you some frame of reference for it that. That might help you with that a little bit later. But this was the tune that Dickinson chose. The tune itself is called Heart of Oak. It was first used in an opera called Harlequin's Invasion that was written and produced and staged by the actor David Garrick in 1759-1760. It was a Christmas production, and the production itself celebrated the British victories of 1759 in the seven Years War. The tune Heart of Oak was instantly adopted as the Royal Navy official march. So the British Royal Navy was using the tune Heart of Oak. And it is. You know, it's a naval tune for sure. Heart of Oak. The title refers to the heartwood of the oak tree, which, of course, was the, you know, very strong, densest wood of the tree, and it was the wood used in the manufacture of British ships. So. So the Royal Navy was using the. The oak wood, the heart of the oak tree for its ships. So you can see the association. The tune became extremely popular, and so it was a smart choice for Dickinson to usurp it for his own purposes. And we'll get to get to that in just a moment. The tune was composed by William Boyce. William Boyce was well known he started his musical care as a boy Chorister in St Paul's in London and assumed all sorts of different musical posts. His choral music, particularly his church music, is what he is most remembered for today, other than the tune Heart of Oak. But he also wrote some chamber works and wrote some symphonies as well, most of which are not much played today. It's his church music that you will find most often. But.

This particular tune was the one that Dickinson chose, and as I said, the tune itself was adopted as the Royal Navy Official March. And it is to this day, the official march of the British Royal Navy, as well as the Canadian Royal Navy and New Zealand's Royal Navy. It had been the official march of the Australian Royal Navy, but then they came up with a new one. So what's interesting is that while this was the Liberty Song in 1768, which was when Dickinson put his words to.

Was previously and continues to be a very definitely British song. Sort of interesting. But let's talk a little bit about those lyrics that he added. If. When you look at the PDF for the sheet music, you will find Dickinson's words on the back. There are numerous verses and too many to go into here, but.

You have to realize that Dickinson would have well known the association of this tune with the Royal Navy. So it was clearly a pointed choice on his part.

Definitely one that was going to stir up trouble, and that's what he was looking for. Clearly. A couple of interesting things. In the sixth stanza, you'll see that he uses the words essentially, united we stand, divided we fall. This was.

To anybody's understanding the first time that that phrase was. Was used for the American colonies, and it certainly has become part of our general American lexicon today, comes directly from this song. So whether or not the song is remembered in terms of its words, that particular phrase certainly is. So he wrote these words, sent them to a friend in Boston and said, this I enclose for you a song for American freedom. I long since renounced poetry, but as indifferent songs are very powerful on certain occasions I venture to invoke the deserted muses. So he meant this to rile things up, stir things up just a little bit. And it certainly did. It was promptly published in the Boston Gazette and.

Taken up by just about everyone. It was published in Philadelphia as a broadside, which was a large piece of paper which was printed only on one side. They were printed to be inexpensive and to be put out quite quickly. And this quickly became a song that was sung in.

In the public houses, in social gatherings, and meetings of just about every kind. It was quite popular as a protest song and ironically, of course, it stirred the population to a point where Dickinson really didn't want to go. The last stanza of the words that he wrote are really a tribute, little bit careful one, but a tribute to the King and to Britain's continued glory and wealth. It's not necessarily a song of separation, a song of revolution. It is a song of protest about the taxation, it's quite clear. But Dickinson never meant it to to provoke exactly the level of protest that it did. So with that in mind, why don't I play it for you.

Sam?

So there's the tune Heart of Oak that John Dickinson used for his text, the Liberty Song. As I mentioned before, you will find the sheet music that I played for you and his text on a free PDF that you will find at the end of this episode. Just look for the links in the show notes and you will see them there. But I wanted to share with you some interesting trivia just around the people involved with this song. First of all, David Garrick, the producer of the opera Harlequin's Invasion, that was the vehicle for William Boyce's music Heart of Oak. He was an actor, producer, playwright, and he was known as the originator of the phrase break a leg. Right. Who knew.

William Boice himself, I told you that he's most known for his choral church music, but he did write eight symphonies and the first movement from his Symphony Number One in B flat was used as the first piece of music played for the processional of the bride and groom at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. So there's an English William Boyce music trivia fact for you right there. The piece itself, the Liberty Song, was likely the first published secular sheet music in America. I told you that. It was published in Philadelphia as a broadside. It was also published in the Boston Gazette. But that Philadelphia broadside was published as a piece of sheet music. And it was likely the first sheet music that was not church related, that was published in America. Interesting little fact.

Now, the Heart of Oak, the tune itself may sound familiar to you. It has been used in many places. You may know it as the song Steady Boys, Steady, which is one of the lines in Heart of Oak. Steady boys, steady from the Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost, which starred Peter Ustinov. For a more recent reference, it was sung by Captain Picard in an episode of Star the Next Generation. He leads his crew in a singing of Heart of oak.

You never know when these things are going to turn up, do you?

So it's just interesting little trivia about the song.

In the show notes at the end of this episode. I've also given you a link to a blog post that I wrote about our musicians in the military. There's quite a long history of music in our military, and of course all of our services have bands and orchestras and all of them have harpists serving in those organizations. And while the blog post isn't specifically about the harpists, it does give you an idea of some of the history of music in our military. And so if you're interested in reading that blog post, I share that link with you below. And of course, in the show notes, you'll also find the link to the sheet music, the little arrangement of Heart of Oak that I played for you. Don't miss next week's episode. When we get back to a more harp kind of a subject, we'll be talking about those hiccups that you have, those things that are preventing your music from flowing, how to create that continuity, that flow. You know that lots of times you feel like your music isn't steady, like it's not particularly expressive, or that it seems to have stops and starts in it. We'll be talking about the three elements of musical flow and how to achieve those in your playing and the things you might be doing in your practice, well intentioned, well meaning things that you're doing in your practice that are actually preventing that flow from developing. So that's what we'll be talking about next week. Please don't miss that episode. And and in the meantime, I hope you enjoy a little bit of Heart of Oak and the Liberty Song. Thanks for being here and I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.