Dressing up the beer barrel – music and style

 

[beer barrel*]

Clothes make the man, the woman and apparently the song. It is truly amazing how a change of style creates a completely new vibe in a known tune, no matter how plain it is. As I enjoy listening to music (and strongly regret my lack of discipline in actually making it), I was flowing through YouTube  when I saw the Chico Marx version of the Beer Barrel Polka. This rediscovery led me to listen to several other versions, almost identical in melody but so different in style and feel.

The basic version available is that of Frank Yankovich. He plays, well, a polka. I suppose for Polka enthusiasts it represents the peak of polka-ness.  A few pints of beer might also increase appreciation. Alas, the number of such fans today is rather small, with most people under the age of 70 finding this “quaint”, if not absurd. For a standard standard, listen to this.

If you add some fancy finger work and jewelry, not to mention a musician with an imposing presence, this song takes on a completely different feel, sort of a poor-man’s Rachmaninoff concerto. It is a pleasure to watch the entertaining Liberace, one of the ultimate showmen, play this song and turn it into an almost elegant melody appreciable by the widest audience, probably mainly because of the pianist, not the song, but who cares. Enjoy:

However, there should be moderation in everything. I find bringing in a full orchestra in fancy dress a bit too rich for this plebian song but that is a matter of taste. This is what you get after André Rieu get his hands on this. You can judge for yourself:

Taking this song back to the people but adding an amazing trio, I enjoy the Andrew Sisters’ version as they have a Midas touch even with the plainest of songs. It does not really feel like the original but still is a pleasure in itself. Listen and appreciate the singers (even they are before your time):

I end the polka run with my favorite, the version that started by beer bar-hopping musical trip. Chico Marx brings out the fun and joy that this song elicited when it came out and makes it sound as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago. I just smile and laugh as he plays not only because of his hands and face but also the music is simply happy, even without being drunk.  Am I being nostalgic?

After listening to all these polkas, I feel a bit of an audio hangover. Still, the comparison brought out the human factor in the impact of a song. True, without an appropriate melody, no song can succeed. However, each performer can take it to a different place. The trappings do make the song. 

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

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A bid too far – On reaching for and losing projects

 

[statue of Icarus*]

The question of when is a price proposal too high is quite complex. Last week, I submitted a bid for a specialized service to an experienced professional. In my proposal, I took into account my investments in terms of time and energy as well as my assessment of his perception of value and ability to pay for and appreciate the result. I would like to say the negotiation ended in agreement but, alas, he wrote to me that I was far too expensive. My responding email providing further justification of the amount elicited a respectiful but delaying reponse.

This process of guestimation is present in all price negotiation. The service provider needs to consider all the inputs, including the cost of living,  time involved, material, paperwork and a factor for the difficulty involved in the work. On the other hand, since the value of any object is what another person is willing to pay for it, the service provider wanting to maximize profit must somehow guess based on known factors the amount beyond which the proposal is not relevant. For example, in translation, these factors include status, i.e., agency or end customer, price expectations of the location, e.g., Germany vs. India, competition, and personal loyalty, e.g., does the customer know and trust the service provider. To explain the last term, the expression better the devil you know frequently applies to price choices. In most cases, the provider does not actually know the budget or actual price proposed by other bidders. Thus, the minimum price reflects all the costs while the ceiling is the assessment of the customer’s definition of value and ability to pay.

Even with experience, it is difficult to accurately make that calculation every time. Sometimes, it turns out that a higher bid would have been accepted. Other times it appears that that the proposal was too high, either after receiving a response stating that message or by the lack of any response at all. The best strategy is to respond to a price complaint is to explain or restate the benefits and ultimate value and possibly provide a small discount as a matter of good faith, especially when dealing with people whose culture involves negotiation, such as in the Far and Middle East. When a proposal is tacitly or explicitly rejected without explanation, it is good business practice to invest a few minutes reviewing the bases of the proposal and ascertaining which lessons, if any, can be applied in the future. No service provider wins them all.

Most of the time, individual cases without full knowledge of the reasons for the rejection create a poor basis for changing pricing policy. First, it is often impossible to know if price was the actual issue. Secondly, even if lowering prices in future bids does lead to greater volume, the resulting jobs may fill the calendar, often making it impossible to take on higher paying work, a phenomenon called opportunity cost. Instead, a better long-range strategy is to imagine, identify, locate and market to customers that can and will pay the desired rate. Granted, in the short term, it may mean less income but, in the long term, it greatly increases the chance of success on high bids. As an example, luxury car manufacturers market to potential customers with the relevant income, not young couples. While immediate needs may require a reduction of rates, it is a risky strategy over time.

In practice, it is necessary to emotionally accept failure. No service provider wins 100% of its bids. Furthermore, it is often impossible to understand the factors involved in the final decision, which may only partially involve price. To survive as independent, it truly helps to believe that a great project is right around the corner. Admittedly, such a belief requires faith but also is the product of a solid client base and consistent marketing, two elements that the entrepreneur does control.  It should be noted that some clients do later return to the ‘high” bid when they discover that price and quality sometimes correlate. As a positive factor, the failure to attain a job can mean more time for children, family hobbies, and mushroom picking, to name just a few pleasurable activities. All work and no play do not make for a balanced and happy life.

Every freelancer occasionally reaches for a bridge too far and proposes a price too high. Such events may be disappointing but help us grow and even prosper. To apply that famous line by Tennyson (not Shakespeare), it is better to have bid and lost than not to have bid at all.

* Picture subtitles help the blind access the Internet.

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Impure thoughts – foreign influence on native language use

 

[distillation image*]

Languages are alive. They are born, often create conflicts as they grow, thrive, struggle and, unfortunately, even die. Above all, languages develop as they interact in the world around them, whether in the place of birth or in new homes. This dynamic leads to the creation of local versions, some close to the original, as in American English, and other much distinct, such as Moroccan Arabic. Even today, it is possible to see this process in action and even view the evolution as the most natural of phenomena.

Fundamentally, people learn how to express themselves in a language by observing, listening and interacting with the language. By the time children start formal schooling, they already have a strong sense of intonations and their implications, sentence structure and the underlying meanings of countless words, including positive and negative implications. Parents and close family members shape the language of their children by encouraging through positive reactions, e.g., smiles and immediate response, and correcting through negative feedback, e.g., hard looks and formal correction. Even adults receive such feedback from their children when they use the wrong technical term or massacre the name of a singer or musical group. Thus, it is impossible to isolate language from continuous feedback from the environment.

Therefore, when the speakers of a language choose to spend extensive time in a country or area where another language is spoken, not to mention raise their children in such a foreign environment, it is inevitable that their native language undergoes gradual but constant changes. These modifications may not be noticeable to the speaker but natives will immediately notice the differences, sometimes even to the point of asking for clarifications on what was said. These changes involve intonation, syntax and vocabulary.

Every language its own song, its audio ID, without any reference to words. For example, most Westerners find it easy to identify Italian just by its song-like cadence. Some languages feature greater tone differential, such as French and Spanish while other are known for their flatness, such as Russian. English is somewhere in the middle. Living in foreign countries provides constant exposure to another rhythm, modifying the native language. Thus, Russian speakers in Israel tend to speak more sing-song over time as do English speakers, reflecting the Hebrew rythyms of everyday life. LIkewise, Canadian French speakers use a slightly flatter than their French counterparts. The words may be the same but somehow the foreign version sounds different.

A slower process involves sentence structure. Each language has its own ways of arranging sentence parts. English tends to be short and direct, i.e., subject, verb and object, while Russian is on the other extreme where word order is quite fluid and adjectival phrases precede the noun they describe. The continual exposure to foreign syntax eventually creates a hybrid version of the first language that can be most easily identified in locally produced newspapers. I have read Hebrew newspapers produced in the Los Angeles and Russian magazines published in Israel. They sounded strangely alien even if the vocabulary was essentially the same as the original language. I was told that traditional Odessan Russian sounds very Ukrainian in terms of phrasing, not a surprise given its geographical location. The local language casts a shadow on the original language.

The easiest modification of local versions to identify is vocabulary. Insidiously and unavoidably, local useful words enter the daily vocabulary of the speaker. Almost no Russian in Israel, immigrant or 1^st generation Israeli, says “policlinica” to say medical center but uses instead the Hebrew kupat holim. Israelis in the United States do business, not esekim. French Canadian easily integrate French and English to create such wonderful hybrids such as courriel, which is a combination of courrier and electronique, i.e. email, and try to enjoy their week-end. The French may laugh at them at every opportunity (and do so) but the average Metropolitan French does not speak  a completely pure French as the English word often sounds much cooler, being from a foreign language. Thus, it can be truly difficult for expats to visit “home” and avoid use of words from their adopted language.

To clarify, this human linguistic evolution is lifelong and natural. Just as the human body never stops changing. neither does language. People react and learn, with the ultimate goal of trying to be fully understood by the other party. There is nothing unnatural or even impure about the process. While the differences in speech may sound lazy or even illegitimate, they are obviousment, as my late father would say in jest, just the result of natural chemistry.

* Picture captions allow the blind to have fulll access to the Internet.

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