Here’s an explanation for why I’m gathering these things.
Wagner, “Ride of the Valkyries”
I’m no great fan of Wagner, but there’s no denying that this is a killer hook. You don’t have much occasion to play in 9/8 time these days, but this melody can be adapted to fit 4/4 pretty easily. Also, because I’m a lowbrow goofball:
Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure”
Part of the sizable subgenre of musical simples using only scale degrees one and five. Memorably ripped off by Vanilla Ice.
Thelonious Monk, “Round Midnight“
The phrase “I do pretty well.” An E flat minor seventh arpeggio that lands on the natural sixth, implying a move to the IV7 chord. A lot of musical information packed into five notes.
A ubiquitous building block of modern jazz improvisation.
Joe Raposo, “Can You Tell Me How To Get To Sesame Street?”
The riff from the intro. Does this figure have a name?
Not to be an “enfant terrible” but are these memes? Maybe the answer would spin off to its own page.
The answer is: yes indeed!
Continuing to poke — “cultural replicators” – yes, I agree. Millions know that Beethoven riff and nothing else of the Fifth Symphony. So it is some sort of replicator (or the effect of a replicator).
Memes … hmmm .. I am still trying to decide … whether these fragments are memes (except in the loose Internet colloquial sense). Are memes more than/different from cultural replicators (meaning are memes a subset of cultural replicators — or are there different sorts of cultural replicators)? Maybe no one else cares particularly .. LOL. Still it is a question I have been gnawing at for a couple of years.
I would say that if anything is a meme in the Richard Dawkins sense, it’s “dun-dun-dun-DUNNN.”