Octaves roasting

It being the day before Christmas, it's time to air out the old interval song, which dates back to graduate school, with various tweaks and revisions since (Kathy Dupuy and I made up the first version in 1983 while walking in Princeton from a restaurant; we were obviously tipsy, and were likely doing it loudly). Sung to the tune of Mel Tormé's Christmas Song (original words by Robert Wells). Credit to Hayes Biggs for the second, and maybe the fourth, lines of the bridge. So get into the holiday spirit and learn your intervals.

Or else.

N.B. since this original post, Dave Swenson (in 2012) added even nerdier stuff, and sang it in a video that has had a few trillion views and has been reposted in various places four hundred seventeen million times.

For the uninitiated, I have put the intervals in red. Because you are worth it.

Octaves roasting on an open fire,
Major sixths nipping at your nose,
Major seconds being sung by a choir,
Chromatic alterations of the scale.

Diatonic scale.
A turkey and some mistletoe
Major sixths make the season bright.
Major seconds with their eyes all aglow
Will drop a perfect fifth tonight. (or "Will drop diminished fifths tonight")

There's minor sevenths on their way.
They've loaded lots of minor seconds on their sleigh.
And every minor sixth will want to spy
To see the supertonic prolonged over five.

And octave offering this simple phrase
To major sixths one to ninety-two.
Although it's been said many times, many ways,
Meet the Flintstones. To you.


Eighth line the way Tormé sings it:
Will drop diminished fifths. Tonight.



Hence Judy Garland and Mel Tormé




Or you could go with the other gold standards — Nat King Cole

and Tony Bennett.