Is there a "gay" chord?

HotBulge

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Gino Vanelli -- I saw people (perhaps Naughty) post songs of his not too long ago in the thread about favorite lyrics. I was introduced to Gino Vanelli, as a joke, by a friend who is 20 years older than I am. His 70s era, Stevie Wonder meets The Doors meets Steely Dan, imitation style was supposed to be cool and perhaps was a hit with the ladies. To me, though, his synthesized chords sounded gay like something you would imagine coming from a 70s era bathhouse :smile:. Can anyone enlighten me....

Perhaps it's the late 70s era gender bending aspect of some rock-n-roll that is throwing me off. Gino's sound, though, has a gay vibe to me.
 

fortiesfun

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I'm not sure you have to be gay to write gay music in the sense LPD proposes, and I am not sure gay musicians write gay music all the time, but I sure think that Melissa Etheridge is unmistakable and I concur about Gino Vanelli. In a more classical vein I really do think that both Shubert and Tchaikovsky not only were gay, but sound that way. I also think the entire Anglican Hymnal, except for the war marches, sounds pretty gay to me.
 

leatherbottom

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It is very difficult to say if historical figures from before the construction of our current orientation paradigm were or weren't gay, but Albinoni doesn't (based on what little we know) seem a particularly good candidate. He was married, for what that is worth.

But this piece of music absolutely is gay. We claim it as our own. (You can have Wagner's Ring Cycle, and I mean all of it, in return.)

I know 100's of gay men that are married to women, so that means nothing.
 

briefs

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Stravinky's Rite of Spring is one big rut, but the single most sexual piece of music I know is "Pur ti miro" from Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea. (Sorry, there is another piece attached at the front of the video. The Monteverdi starts at about 4:00.) The two vocal lines intertwine in such a way that they, well, fuck. Str8, but very hot.
That is certainly a wonderful ending to the opera! In the recent L. A. Opera production there were also plenty of homoerotic moments, particularly in the duet between Nerone and his manservant.
 

D_Gunther Snotpole

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It is both the tone of the music and the over-the-top tradition of performance that made me suggest we own him, but I did find this tidbit on the internet this morning: "Chopin had a gay mate, a physician, called Sciefan Dziakon."

He spent all of his time in the Paris parlors of young countesses(to whom he dedicated several of his pieces). When he wasn't giving the young countesses piano lessons, he was performing in front of a salon audience filled with either the wealthy or literary types. He's a genius as a composer, but he lived an enclosed effete parlor lifestyle brimming with "les sentiments du coeur". That lifestyle would turn anyone gay :smile:. (Chopin is one of my favorite classical composers to play. I even adored playing Chopin growing up).

From a more positive perspective, you need gay artists and musicians who (arguably) have time on their hands to help advance cultural and civilization. It's sad that child-rearing is given first prize as some form of accomplishment and achievement when so much more focus, energy, and attention is required to create pieces that culturally endure.

I'm not saying that the two of you are wrong, merely that there's nothing that directly supports the notion. Which may mean nothing, of course.

What may seem to us highly effeminate behavior in our times may have had quite another significance two centuries ago among the European aristocracy ... indeed, almost certainly did.

I'm not fighting the suggestion that he was gay. I mean, if he were, well, I might like him just that tiny bit more.

Which is saying something. I love his music, know (as a listener) virtually all of it, and play a few of the waltzes and nocturnes. Good stuff.
 

fortiesfun

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I'm not saying that the two of you are wrong, merely that there's nothing that directly supports the notion. Which may mean nothing, of course.
I, in turn, was not suggesting that he bats for our team, but that his music has a "gay" sensibility (much of it, anyway) whatever his own orientation might have been.

As I have argued at much greater length here, I am not sure that our orientation categories make sense historically, (and in fact, I am not sure they make sense in our time either) but that to the degree LPD proposes things like gay chords, Chopin's compositions have a real case.
 

invisibleman

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Very good, invisi.

Actually, there are several gay modalities, among them F flat major, c flat minor, B sharp major, and e sharp minor.

E MAJOR, B minor, C MAJOR. and F minor? (Enharmonics noted. :smile: ) I think that you guys aren't writing your chords and melodies right. One could write some bi sexual tunes, extreme straight, extreme gay tunes using any key tonality and very well-thought out lyrical composition.
 

D_Gunther Snotpole

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To the degree LPD proposes things like gay chords, Chopin's compositions have a real case.

The chords, yup.
I think I just decided to agree with you.
(In my heart, I've always known about him, ff ...)
In fact, I sometimes find Arthur Rubinstein's more masculine approach, while certainly persuasive, running a bit against the grain of what I will call the music's inherent impulse ... entirely subjective though any such notion must be.