How The Classical Gas An Enigma of Modern Music.

The classical gas is one of the most requested and most familiar musical instruments of all time. In an episode of The Simpsons called "Last Exit to Springfield", Homer leads nuclear power plant workers into bang to recover their lost dental plan. As they picket the plant, Lisa plays a sad worker's song. As she finishes, Lenny yells, "Turn on the classical gas". Lisa plays the guitar and everyone watching the episode on TV says, "Oh yeah, that tune!" Whenever a bunch of people and a nylon string acoustic guitar are in the same room, there is always need of classical gas. It's not really a great technical performance for a finger style guitarist, but it is a great vehicle for showing off the sound of a classical guitar. Classical gas was released to the world in 1968. A song by The Doors kept it from turning into a number one hit, but it stayed at number two for two weeks. Forty years later it is still one of the most familiar tunes and, along with The Anonymous Romance and Malaguena of Lacuna, is considered an essential element of the classical guitar repertoire. The effect of a classical gas is much greater than the sum of its parts. There are very few musical ideas in the tune. It is mainly a repetition of a theme made up of a few notes. There are some parts that are unforgettable "surprises" that use syncopation, scales, strums, and sudden time signature changes. Somehow all the bits join together like pearls on a necklace, and the final note adds a sublime resolution. The composer, Mason Williams, explains on his website, "I didn't really have any big plans for it, other than maybe having a piece to play at parties when they passed out guitars. I used it for classical guitar-only performances." Mason Williams' day job was as a comedy writer and stand-up comedian, who had many other skills in addition to writing classical guitar instruments. There were projects. It was Mason Williams' work on the Smothers Brothers' "Comedy Hour" that gave him the opportunity to have his pet creation heard by the American public. The basic score of the piece shows only the chord and a few notes. Mason Williams had a twenty three-year-old musician named Mike Post. At the Grammys, it won Best Instrumental and Best Instrumental Performance for Mason Williams, and Best Instrumental Arrangement for Mike Post, who has had a winning career in TV theme music. His first victory is the theme for the series "Law and Order". Classical gas has been employed as the theme music for many news programs, background music for the film Apollo 4, and has been featured in many other films and TV shows. Many mistakenly attributed the tune to Mason Williams' solo version for the cover by Eric Clapton. While Classical Gas is a fairly easy piece to play, the challenge is to play it with passion and dynamism as it appears, to the non-guitarist, more difficult to play than it is to actually play. This is probably why it is one of the most requested guitar pieces of all time.