I went to Caltech's graduation today. On the whole it was pretty much a graduation. I liked the inaugeration ceremony for the new president, though I had trouble actually understanding what he was saying. He seemed to have a good rapport with the crowd and was fun to listen to even without understanding what he was saying much (I have a hard time understanding anyone with a thick accent, I'm not sure exactly why).
The commencement speech, on the other hand... Well, let's say he did not have much of a rapport, if any, with the crowd. The choice of messages was a brave one, and at least somewhat interesting, but I got extremely bored with the delivery when I started to be able to predict the upcoming lines and themes. So I ended up reading the handy book I'd brought with about halfway through, checking every few minutes to see if I could still predict where he was. mf0m, says Cao Cao, who is trying to help me write this entry. I'm not sure what that means, but clearly Cao Cao had a strong opinion on the commencement speech too, and he didn't even go!
Let me see, what else about graduation. I still wish the glee clubs were allowed to sing the hallelujah chorus, rather than the adapted version, it just doesn't sound right to me. As far as people walking goes, I was there to see two people from my lab graduate (Jongmin, Rebecca), and one from another lab who I've worked with a decent bit (Justin). They all graduated, not much suspense there, but it was nice to be able to see it. :) I also got to meet (a little while later) the person who did all the paintings for Erik and our lab which were on display at the lab art show two weeks ago, she is a friend of Erik's and came by on a tour of the art display (still up since the art show, as Erik has been out of town.)
Anyways, that's about it for graduation. I'm glad I went, but I'm a bit tired cause I didn't sleep well and got up a bit earlier than usual for it.
8 comments:
No kidding on being exhausted! I'm only still up because I just got back from Day Watch and am doing some computer stuff before I crash.
In terms of "Halleljuah!", while I agree the alternate lyrics are asinine, I find the lyrics of the original song to be highly offensive. Through my junior year, it used to be sung (with the original lyrics) at graduation. During my senior years, a number of vocal people (including me, to some extent) pushed to get rid of this. (Well, others did official pushing. I have a vague memory of at least thinking about writing an editorial in The Tech about it.) 20 % of the seniors were very vocal and voted actively to get rid of it and just about everybody else evinced apathy, and it was axed.
I would have refused to participate in the graduation ceremony had that song stayed, and supposedly I would have been far from the only one. (It's conveivable that more than 10 % of the seniors would have refused to participate in the ceremony.)
Anyway, while the lyrics in the version that is currently sung are completely retarded, a song with lyrics praising god or even glorifying in gthe existence and reign of one has no business in a secular ceremony of any kind.
That's a fair criticism, my problem is that the original piece only sounds right to me with the original lyrics, regardless of their content. With the original lyrics, I've always thought it a beautiful piece and by changing them it just has a weird dissonance due to the difference in sound.
I should note that I don't pay much attention to lyrical content when I listen to songs, so it could be that the lyrics are offensive but I don't pay enough attention to them to notice. Anyways, I just wish they'd play something different, rather than a mangled version.
I agree completely that the mangled version should not be played. During my commencement, nothing was played, which is one viable solution. Another (probably better) solution is to play a different song entirely.
Yeah, I see the problem with using the original lyrics, but I agree with Zif that it takes some of the punch out of the song to change them. I have a similar problem with Belle & Sebastian's "If You Find Yourself Caught In Love", a song I really like despite disagreeing with pretty much all of the lyrics. And furthermore, if the lyrics were changed I wouldn't like the song nearly as much! If I can find a sensible way to explain this maybe I'll get a blog post out of it.
When did they change the lyrics? I don't remember them being different at L's graduation, but maybe I wasn't paying attention.
Mason, are you sure it wasn't sung at your graduation? I was in glee club and sang it at graduations 1998-2001 and remember it sung in 2002.
I remember there being a controversy about it in 1998, but in the end there was a compromise. The Glee Clubs did sing the Hallelujah Chorus, but it was directed by the Women's Glee Club president and not any member of the Caltech faculty.
It was definitely not sung as part of the "official" commencement ceremony in 1998.
I don't remember if they somehow separated it from the ceremony per se. I tried googling but couldn't find anything and that was before Caltech started putting any of the commencement programs online. I'll try to remember to look up the program next time I'm at my parents house to see if that gives any indication of what was finally done. Damn my hazy memory.
The lyrics were definitely already different by L's graduation.
Anyway, they should just replace it with some secular song (with non-retarded lyrics) that conveys the intended message.
I find it infuriating that someone presumed to muck up the lyrics to such a great piece of baroque music. It was awful at Lorian's graduation, and I'm sure it still is.
It is understandable that the original lyrics may be offensive to some segment of the population, which is fine, but I have to agree with all here that a better solution is to find a different piece to perform.
The Hallelujah chorus should be performed as written and intended, or not at all.
Don't offend the classical musicians of the world by butchering a piece of musical history.
Instead, sing something new, something different! For that matter, have a new choral piece commissioned from a young composer! There are so many more creative and satisfactory solutions to this issue.
Sorry Zifnab - that other post that was deleted was a worse draft of my earlier response... blah. I'll try to stop doing that :-)
Post a Comment