Rialto Ripples

Most of you reading this post probably don't have exactly the same interests and views on a topic as the next person who is going to come here. Everyone is different, and that's really a good thing in many ways. If every blog you ever found was exactly the same as this one and every post on every one of them was exactly the same, then you could just read the post and then forget about all blogs because nothing would be new. And if everyone was George Gershwin, the composer of this song (I know some of you are starting to say things because I talk about him - and play his songs - a lot), then no one would bother listening to his songs, and no one would think that he was a good composer.

I'm not really sure where he got the name Rialto Ripples from. Again, people are different. I'm not sure what a bridge in Italy - I found that when I looked up "rialto" - has to do with this song. (Maybe the Rialto Bridge crosses a river with ripples on it. Alliteration, just like the composer's name.) Maybe Gershwin took a trip to Italy and noticed the bridge, and decided to write a song about it.

That's the nice thing about songs. They don't always just appear in your head for some unknown reason. Sometimes they're inspired by something that you remember for some reason. And music is almost always a creative thing, so the music will reflect the uniqueness of the person that wrote it. Unless you directly copied another composer, you couldn't make a song that sounded like they had written it unless you really took time to think about what makes their music, well, their music. 

And of course, time affects what the style of music will be like as well. In the 16-, 17-, and 1800s, classical music seemed to be the thing that everyone was doing. Of course, you'll see major changes that occurred during that time period as well. But with a song like this, that was written in the early 1900s, it's not exactly jazz but not exactly classical. That's when the transition was happening to change to a different style of music that is commonly played today.

Because, once again, everything is different. If music never changed, our interest in it would probably go D-O-W-N. Why would you want to listen to this if you know it's a 2% change from the song that was written 500 years ago? At that rate, it would take many, many, many years before any significant changes happened.

And if everyone wrote songs like this one, it would take many, many, many years for George Gershwin to get appreciated.

But maybe he can get appreciated right now, by you listening to this song.

Rialto Ripples.