I'm sure you all know it, play it, etc. etc., but has it got a name ?

You know the one I mean, played on old school pianos across the land - in C major - left hand secondo player plays C A F G with the RH playing the tonic broken chord after the bass note has been sounded ? Perhaps it hasn't got a name, but I would be interested to know if it has.

Heart & Soul

Yep, tis called Heart and Soul. Not sure why.

Tis the most annoying piece on the planet though!!

There are actually lyrics to this:

Heart and soul, I fell in love with you,
Heart and soul, the way a fool would do
Madly, because you held me tight
and stole a kiss in the night

Heart and soul, I begged to be adored,
Lost control and tumbled overboard
Gladly, that magic night we kissed
there in the moon mist

Oh but your lips were thrilling, much too thrilling
Never before were mine so strangely willing

But now I see what one embrace can do,
Look at me, it's got me loving you
Madly, that magic kiss you stole
Held all my heart and soul

^Brilliant!!

Will have to remember those next time annoying little people start playing it!!

The words are by Frank Loesser ( of Guys and Dolls fame), the music by Hoagy Carmichael and it was published in 1938. You can buy the music

Wow !!! Incredible lyrics...!!! Singing those along with the tune might just put people off it !!

Reminds me of the film "Big" where Tom Hanks plays it on the giant keyboard

In the case of a few persistant pupils... it's a banned piece

yes, it can be really annoying! However why not use it to start off some improvisation, or to build up understanding of key structures by moving the starting note from C to G or F, alongside with learning the relevant scales? I've tried this with a few pupils who have really enjoyed it, and broadened their knowlege at the same time!

I once had to write out "Chopsticks" during my lunch hour and then transpose it into another key (don't recall which, but it was a nasty one) as a punishment for playing it whilst the teacher was trying to tell us something important

I probably learnt more about writing music in that one detention than I did in a year's worth of school music lessons.

I think they're gorgeous lyrics - deeply romantic and straight from another era. Come on, you can't put down Frank Loesser!

Violinia

They play/sing it in Stuart Little.

I'm astonished to hear it has a composer, especially Hoagy as it's not at all like most of his stuff. I always thought it was a generic "vamp" that you could bang out in the background to a lot of things. Are you sure he didn't take a generic tune and twiddle it about a bit, while Loesser put lyrics to it in the same way?

The version I know is a medley of 'Heart and Soul' and 'The Way You Look Tonight'.

I had great fun with that the other day. We use it as a good way of introducing variations by asking students to take the bass line as the theme and come up with variations of it. I had to do an improvisation of a set of variations on it as a demo, and it was actually pretty fun!!

The temptation to put the top part in on flute while they were playing kept getting too great though!!

Nobody ever plays a bit to go with that middle 8 though do they? And the piano duet version doesn't have a proper ending so it can only be a b*stardisation of the original song surely?

Bev.

What a memory that brought back!

We had a Humanities teacher in the 1st year who was super strict and used to give me 'Essays' to write as a punishment for talking or looking out the window.

I had a vivid imagination and quite enjoyed having to write stories. I learned so much about writing.

If only I could say the same thing about the music teacher!!! That was in the days before Ofsted.

Steve