Music – Page 2 – OZTHOUGHTS

Ylvis – Norway’s Silly Songsmiths….

This will be a very short post, with a few examples of the work of those two Norwegian brothers known as Ylvis. as I have already written a somewhat longer one already today. While I was checking Facebook just now, I came across a video that a friend had posted there, and was so pleasantly […]

This will be a very short post, with a few examples of the work of those two Norwegian brothers known as Ylvis. as I have already written a somewhat longer one already today.

While I was checking Facebook just now, I came across a video that a friend had posted there, and was so pleasantly surprised by its happy idiocy, that I had a look at some of their other work, and whilst you all probably already know their work, I couldn’t resist bunging those two, plus a long and complex prank with a lift that talks to simply share the enjoyment.

So here we go, first a beautiful and soulful song called Stonehenge by Ylvis.

Oh, by the way, I have to warn you, the language in these two videos is extreme, so possibly not to your taste… you have been warned!

See what I mean? Silly but pleasing.

And now for something completely different… also full of very strong swear words, but very beautiful and even soulful at times…

Stand by for the poetry and soulfulness of the song called Someone Like Me.

Still with me? LOL

And to finish this brief post off, here is a long prank they played in a hotel somewhere, in which they set up a lift so that it apparently could talk to passengers in it… truly inspired and funny. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Continue reading “Ylvis – Norway’s Silly Songsmiths….”

The Ukulele – A Real Instrument Or Not?

If like me, you have probably never taken the ukulele seriously as a musical instrument, you might be surprised by the James Hill video below. I know that many musicians have played the ukulele and obviously regard it as a “real” instrument. But I have always found it somehow to be lacking some quality that […]

If like me, you have probably never taken the ukulele seriously as a musical instrument, you might be surprised by the James Hill video below.

I know that many musicians have played the ukulele and obviously regard it as a “real” instrument. But I have always found it somehow to be lacking some quality that is required for a musical instrument to be taken seriously. I know that musicians as diverse as Tiny Tim, Kate Micucci (in her alter ego of Oates in the duo Garfunkel and Oates) have played the ukulele with total commitment, and obviously consider it to be a very real and worthwhile instrument.

And of course, famously George Formby strummed away on one as well.

But for me, it has always been a sort of pre-pubescent sort of an instrument. With its high, squeaky voice, and the strumming way it is normally played, it seemed to me to be simply a silly thing.

To demonstrate my point, here is good old Kate Micucci strumming away on her ukulele…….

As always with her, this song is of course rather surprising…. But that awful plunky ukulele!. Continue reading “The Ukulele – A Real Instrument Or Not?”

Lark In The Morning – Amazing Instruments

I have stumbled upon a company called Lark In The Morning, who make the most amazing and extraordinary musical instruments, which they sell via their website. They make and sell these instruments as if selling a Bullroarer, a Stradivarius Musical Saw or a Walking Stick Fife were the most normal things in the world. […]

I have stumbled upon a company called Lark In The Morning, who make the most amazing and extraordinary musical instruments, which they sell via their website. They make and sell these instruments as if selling a Bullroarer, a Stradivarius Musical Saw or a Walking Stick Fife were the most normal things in the world.

Not only do they make these weird and wonderful instruments, but they also make relatively ¨normal” instruments as well, but it is the odd end of their market that interested me when I came across their website (link at bottom of this post). I love the eccentricity of a company that with a completely straight face offers to sell us a Crum Horn, a Jewish Ram´s Horn or a Dulcimer.

If you visit their website and click on the link that will give you a complete list of the categories of the instruments they make, you will be astounded (as was I) by the amazingly long list of instruments, some of which you may have heard of, but loads of the literally dozens of different types of instrument they make will be totally unknown to you I am sure.

Do you have any idea what a Kalimba or Thumb Piano might be? Nor have i.

Not surprisingly these instruments are not cheap, prices ranging from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars, but given the nature of their products, these prices seem totally reasonable to me. Obviously all of these instruments can be ordered directly from them online, and to help those of you, who like me, are not fully informed about what a Stroh Horn Violin might actually sound like, they kindly have small videos of many of their instruments to allow you to see and hear them on action – So this is what a Stroh Horn Violin both looks and sounds like in action – It will cost you $999 by the way should you fall in love with it and simply have to own one of your own.

Jazz Kids In Barcelona – Sant Andreu Jazz Band

There has been a quiet musical revolution in Barcelona since 2006 when the Sant Andreu Jazz Band was started as part of The Municipal School of Music in Sant Andreu, Barcelona, which up to that time had been concentrating on teaching kids to play classical music. The idea of the founder of this section of […]

There has been a quiet musical revolution in Barcelona since 2006 when the Sant Andreu Jazz Band was started as part of The Municipal School of Music in Sant Andreu, Barcelona, which up to that time had been concentrating on teaching kids to play classical music.

The idea of the founder of this section of the music school, a well known Catalan Jazz musician, Joan Chomorro ( a man, in spite of his name, which outside of the Spanish speaking world is a womanś name), was to teach kids between the ages of about 7 to 21 to improvise on their instruments, rather than the more normal methods of teaching kids the theory and techniques of playing music.

He puts it much better than I can in these worlds…….

¨Most of what is learnt in music should come from listening. When a child starts out, they should go straight to the music, the sound, not how it is coded through language, because as yet we do not know if the person will need to use it. Music should come before writing. It is not a new methodology, but many people are wary of it because, depending on how you look at it, it may be regarded as anti-dogmatic and anti-conservatoire. There are still many things that appear to be immovable. It is taken for granted that children should be grouped by ages or begin to learn through reading and writing music. However, by doing this we are telling the child that they should wait to have a perfect technique to be able to make music or take to the stage. It is believed that most children, particularly smaller ones, cannot climb onto a stage and give a good performance.”

This theory has produced some astonishingly creative and sensitive musicians, and not only that, but also has given kids as young as 7 years of age, the confidence to get up on a stage and perform intricate improvisations with aplomb, and a good technique, as in this video.

Isn´t that amazing?? That little girl plays that trumpet with such skill and feeling that I am left speechless.

That video demonstrates another important part of the bandś philosophy, namely bringing well known and highly professional jazz musicians into the mix to demonstrate to the kids how it can be done.

Kids and Music – A Documentary.

Continue reading “Jazz Kids In Barcelona – Sant Andreu Jazz Band”

Some Curious Musical Instruments To Amuse You

Aside from all the thousands of established musical instruments, which one would imagine would produce enough different sounds to meet any musician´s needs, there are always odd balls out there who absolutely have to have an instrument that will produce yet another sound, so here are a few that i have come across for your […]

Constance Demby:

This extraordinary woman has invented a whole slew of new instruments as part of her life´s work as a New Age Healer, and her music and instruments have been used by all manner of people and projects beyond her own use of them as an aid to healing.

She has invented quite a few instruments, but I shall simply give you one of them, it is easy enough once you know of her to find much more of her music online or on her own website. So here we go with a wonderful instrument she calls The Sonic Steel Space Bass.

First though, here is her description of the instrument itself, so you know what it is you are watching and listening to.

The Sonic Steel Space Bass is a 10 ft sheet of mirror finish stainless steel with 5 octaves of steel and brass rods. The rods can be bowed, struck percussively, and the metal sheet can be rubbed to create various effects. Several tones can be created by bowing a single rod, resulting in a multi-tiered overtone series. A sound scientist determined that the sound waves on the lowest notes of the instrument are approximately thirty feet long.

The instrument emits deep, primordial, archetypal resonances that put audiences into altered states in which listeners report transdimensional experiences. In healing modality, the ultra low sub-sonic frequencies have been known to break up and dissolve long held encrustrations held in the embodiment, resulting in healings.

I have chosen a short video of her playing this instrument so that you can see what it actually looks like, however there are many full length examples of her music online, but as sound files rather than videos, and I wanted you to see what it actually looks like.

Wonderful sound isnt it? And I have to say it, but she is a very alarming looking woman. So now you know what it sounds and looks like, I suggest you might want to go to her website and listen to much more music. ( http://www.constancedemby.com). She is also well represented on Youtube, of course!.

OK, so that was the first of the odd instruments I wanted to show you.

The Bazantar:

Here we have an instrument that more or less represents the likely outcome of a mating between a double bass and a sitar. There is only one of these monsters in the world, as it was designed and built by Marc Deutsch for his own use. Continue reading “Some Curious Musical Instruments To Amuse You”

Theremin – The First Electronic Instrument

Way back in about 1919, a somewhat strange Russian by the name of Lev Termin invented what I am sure had to have been the first purely electronic musical instrument when he created an instrument he called the Termin. He moved quite shortly after this to the USA, where he changed his name to Leon […]

Way back in about 1919, a somewhat strange Russian by the name of Lev Termin invented what I am sure had to have been the first purely electronic musical instrument when he created an instrument he called the Termin.

He moved quite shortly after this to the USA, where he changed his name to Leon Theremin for some reason, and his invention was thereafter always known as the Theremin.

What is a Theremin?

Well I have found a good and detailed discussion online all about the Theremin, and it describes it at some length. So here I shall simply give you the brief description, and if you are seriously interested in this instrument, you will find a link to that website at the end of this post.

It consists of a box-like body with two antennas: one is a straight vertical rod which controls the pitch (usually on the right for right-handed players), the other is a horizontal loop (usually on the left) shaped somewhat like a cane handle which controls the volume. The pitch and volume of the note are controlled by the distance of the hands from the antennas which generate an electromagnetic field.

So, now you know the essential essence of the Theremin, next thing is, what does it actually sound like? To answer this question I have found an old bit of film in which Theremin himself, in scratchy Russian, describes and demonstrates his instrument.

For those of you who do not speak Russian, here is an English speaker demonstrating it for you…..

OK, so now we know what it sounds like, and more or less how it works and how to play it as well, so what does it sound like when used as an instrument to play music with? Well obviously it sounds more than a little ethereal, and spacey as well – but it does have a sort of haunting quality I find. Continue reading “Theremin – The First Electronic Instrument”

Strange Fruit – A Powerful And Dreadful Song

Strange Fruit, the first song to crash headlong into the horrors of racism in the USA:- Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and […]

Strange Fruit, the first song to crash headlong into the horrors of racism in the USA:-

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

This was a poem written by a New York Jew by the name of Abel Meeropol, who wrote it in 1937 as a reaction to seeing the photo of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.

Seeing this image of those two dead men so upset him that he couldn’t sleep or function for days after seeing it, so he had no choice but to write the poem as a sort of catharsis. He first published it in a Teacher’s Union magazine (he was a teacher), and then felt he needed to take it further, and wanted someone to set it to music, but no one was game to take on such a sensitive and potentially dangerous task, so he did it himself.

Continue reading “Strange Fruit – A Powerful And Dreadful Song”

South African Anthem – Best In The World?

Generally national anthems are the most dreary and banal drones, not anything that anyone from another country would even consider to be music, let alone something that might move them in any way… Think of Britain’s awful dreary pean of praise to the House of Windsor – not even about the country – and you […]

However, a few countries have taken the trouble to give themselves national anthems that are not only a hymn of praise to their country, but also musically moving and powerful, and the best of these (to my mind) is the South African Anthem, which combines both a great melody (well two actually) and even has words that are not too awful.

Two Anthems In One.

As I mentioned above, the current South African anthem is actually made from two totally separate pieces, one that originated with black Africans, and was the anthem of the resistance to apartheid, the other was for many years the anthem of the white Dutch Settlers, and as part of the approach the South Africans took at the end of apartheid, they decided to simply join the two together and make that their new national anthem – Pleasingly gentle idea.

So, what were these two songs?

The first part of the current South African Anthem is ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ (God bless Africa) which was composed by a Methodist school teacher named Enoch Sontonga in 1897. He intended it to be simply a hymn to be sung in church, but it later became much more famous as a song of resistance to the apartheid policies of the white South African government.

Effectively becoming the alternative South African national anthem and was the song that the ANC sang at all their demonstrations and gatherings,

Here is a very powerful version, sung in Zambia by a whole slew of people who fought against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

See what I mean? That is one seriously powerful and moving piece of music.

The other part of the current national anthem of South Africa is rather less powerful, and to be honest, much more of a ¨classic¨ national anthem.

Continue reading “South African Anthem – Best In The World?”

Strange, Almost Music From Candles

A Dutch musician/composer has come up with a truly curious and rather pleasing musical instrument, well, perhaps calling it a musical instrument is a bit of an over-statement, possibly music generator might be nearer the mark.. or automatic music maker….. Well, whatever name you think is the best one for this construction, it produces a […]

The creator of this instrument, a Dutchman by the name of Ronald van der Meijs calls it a Candle Pipe Organ, which is actually a totally correct name for this gadget, as you will see when you watch the video of it below. Basically it consists of 9 organ pipes of differing lengths, each of which has its airflow controlled by a candle in a rather ingenious holder. So as the candle becomes shorter as it burns, the volume of air entering the pipe increases, which changes the pitch of the sound produced..

So in one sense, as he puts it, the candles are actually the musicians, and they control the sound the organ produces, not he.

He explains how it works as follows….

The candles vary in size. As the wax melts, the pitch of each pipe shifts slowly and irregularly. The shortening of the candles causes a vertical movement in each mechanism, pulling a wheel connected to a brass valve at the front end of each pipe. Opening the valves allows for different toned pitches.

So that is how it works…. Now is your chance to listen to its gentle music…..

https://player.vimeo.com/video/198366994

Currently the organ can be seen at De Vishal gallery in Haarlem, Netherlands,, but for more information about the creator of this wondrous instrument, you can visit his website at http://www.ronaldvandermeijs.nl/

Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh – Ethereal Singing

There are a number of very strange but wonderful singers in the world, as 5 minutes surfing on Youtube will show you, but one of the strangest and most enchanting of them is Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh who was born in Petropavlosk in Kamchatka (Russia) but who has lived most of his life in the Ukraine.

For most of his adult life he has worked as an animal impersonator and singer, and been modestly successful in both endeavours apparently. But of late he has come to our attention thanks to his taking part in the Ukraine’s version of “………. has talent”, in which he has introduced the world to his very individual way of singing, which he describes as Earth Sounds.

This consists of a mix of animal and bird imitations and a very unique and haunting form of singing – All very New Age and meditative. He mixes a whole range of musical genres into a huge acoustic construction. Highly meditative, but not sleepy by any means. As you will see in this typical example of his work, he ranges widely over a huge and highly coloured acoustic wilderness (for want of a better term).

As is often the case with this sort of musician, there is a sort of monotony about what he does, a certain sameness, but for us this is unimportant, as what he has done is so powerful and is absolutely a sound cloud that lends itself ideally to meditation, but in a more directed and intrusive fashion than, for example, Alpha Rhythms.

The first time I heard this guy’s singing, I was absolutely captivated, and promptly hunted up loads more of his music to get a wider feel of what he does. Luckily for me (and you) there is no end of material online about his work. So if you Google his name you will be offered a multitude of videos, recordings, articles and so on.

Continue reading “Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh – Ethereal Singing”