The Ira Awards Part 4
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Irving Berlin - Playing the black keyes
Great songs have long been a deep and rich part of the American culture and consequently the world culture as well. I can safely say that it would be any composer/lyricist’s dream to someday write a classic – a song that is so universal and so iconic that it becomes a part of the fabric of history and lives beyond its time.
This century’s, no make it this millennium’s Ira Award for Best Lyricist of classic songs goes to Irving Berlin. Of course he was also the composer of these songs as well.
The story goes that Mr. Berlin, who had small hands wrote most of his songs in the key of F# because he preferred to play on the black keys of the piano where the stretch was not so large for his fingers. Later in life, when he could afford it, he had Steinway make him a special upright piano with a large crank on the side that when turned, tightened the strings and thus changed the sounding key of his F# fingerings – sort of a guitar capo for the piano.
This man had his fingers not only on the piano but also on the pulse of America like no other lyricist since. Among the many great classic songs he wrote were “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Easter Parade”, “White Christmas”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, “God Bless America”, “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” “Always”, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, and “What’ll I Do”.
