{"id":1335,"date":"2022-10-21T17:19:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T17:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/?p=1335"},"modified":"2022-10-21T17:19:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T17:19:44","slug":"the-surprising-origins-of-the-door-knocking-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/2022\/10\/21\/the-surprising-origins-of-the-door-knocking-song\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Origins of the Door-Knocking Song"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1336\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/10\/door-knocking-song.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Anyone who has ever stood in front of a door has probably performed the door-knocking song at least once in their lives. The strange thing about it is we all seem to know how it goes \u2013 like it was somehow part of our collective musical DNA.<\/p>\n<p>You know the one:<\/p>\n<p>dut, dut-dut dut, dut\u2026 dut, dut.<\/p>\n<p>The tune originated from a song written in 1899 by Charles Hale called \u201cAt a Darktown Cakewalk\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"My piano solo of At a Darktown Cakewalk by Charles Hale, 1899\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LHhZbkEMmUM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Did you catch the rhythm? It came to be called, \u201cShave and a haircut, two bits,\u201d and was most often used at the end of a piece of music for comic effect.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1338\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/10\/Shave-and-a-haircut-score.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over the past hundred years, it has become one of the most recognizable rhythms in North America. It\u2019s been used on car horns, Morse code \u201cdah-di-di-dah-di, di-dit\u201d ( \u2013\u00b7\u00b7\u2013\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00b7\u00b7) and even at the end of communications by ham radio operators to sign out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We leave you with one of our favourite knock-knock song inspirations&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8230;.Leonard Bernstein&#8217;s<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cGee, Officer Krupke\u201d from the\u00a0<em>West Side Story\u00a0<\/em>[see video below starting at 4\u201911\u201d])<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"West Side Story - Gee, officer Krupke!\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K-WhNC630wU?start=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look into where the seemingly universal door-knocking song comes from and why we use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/10\/door-knocking-song.gif","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}