Anatomy of a song - how the Divine enters the world

This incredibly simple folk tune illustrates something about the human mind that is central to art and communication: context.

In its simplest form removing the dropping scales embellishments the melody is just a fifth interval followed by a sixth interval. This is animated by a waltz skipping from the main beat onto two beats each bar and holding the last note of each phrase for a bar. How beautifully simple is that. But in this form it is also 1 dimensional and gets boring.

To add more character the flat bars are filled by a second phrase which runs down the scale from the fifth to the dominant. This second phrase works against the rising phrase to create a contrasting dynamic in the tune. But it also enables a piece of genius which takes the creation up to a critical sublime third level. All art should reach this level to liberate the audience. The "higher place" a dancer once described it to me as.

The pattern in the first 4 bars sets up an expectation and a context: fifth, scale down, sixth, hold but the repeat in the second part goes fifth, scale down, sixth, slow scale down. What happens is that the expectation is for a slow simple bar, but instead it gets the scale down phrase played simply. What is extra ordinary is that the scale down completely changes its character under these conditions and feels like a third phrase when in fact it is just a repetition of the scale down phrase. The sublime character comes from the magic way in which it changes it "spirit" or "character" simply from its role in the melody.

When art animates components in a well formed structure they gain an enhanced meaning, they gain life, they are embodied with a magical spirit that seems to come from somewhere outside. This is exactly as the ancient Greeks saw theatre, a religious experience where the heavenly realms brought mythological characters to real life upon the stage. So it is in all art that a shamanic possession appears to occur to characters that takes them beyond the mundane into the supra mundane. That setting of the down-scale in the closing 2 bars of the song does exactly this to just a sequence of four notes. Anything can be animated by the gods, and all arts, indeed all of life, is built upon this magic.