Music Makes Me: Scottish

Showing posts with label Scottish. Show all posts

Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Playlist - Vol. I

Timbre, as Frank Zappa says in the Real Frank Zappa Book, is everything. But it’s also confusing. To a Westerner, the sitar eternally signifies the mysterious allure of the East, while – as Talvin Singh once pointed out – ‘in Bombay, an electric guitar is exotic’. Why is this?

ABOVE: A rare and dangerous example of the urethra flute.

This playlist argues that context, rather than the instrument itself, is the key. I hope to demonstrate this by putting fifteen instruments in an unexpected context.

It’s a playlist that plunges into the world of exotic tones with a banjo in one hand and an ocarina in the other, and comes out the other side with a sore head, yodelling.

It would be doing the merely obvious
to include such gimmicky instruments
as the trapezoidal harp (ABOVE).

I have deliberately steered clear of the more familiar examples of instruments being used in an unusual context. Much as I love the sitar on the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, or Jethro Tull’s use of rock flute, and the whole of the Tubular Bells album, I’m looking here for juxtapositions of timbre that still have the power to surprise.

I hope you find yourself marvelling at the sound of a violin screeching across a dub track, or a sousaphone powering an rock tune, as much as I did.

Jungle Flute – Don Tracy & the Voodoo Family

Flute

(Dance to the Music of) The Ocarina – Irving Berlin

Ocarina

The Twisted Nerve – Bernard Hermann

Harp

Jan Pahechan ho – Mohammed Rafi

Electric guitar

Got a Match – Frank Gallop

Harpsichord

I Touch Myself – Rolf Harris

Wobble board

A Day In The Life – The Koto Ensemble

Koto

K.G.’s Half Way Tree – Augustus Pablo & The Simplicity People

Violin

Yaman (The Colonel’s Lady) – The Indo-British Ensemble

Sitar

Donna Lee – Tom Slavicek

Banjo

Prodigy Medley – The Banana Sessions

Sousaphone

Take Five – Cayman Islands Steel Pan Jazz Trio

Steel pans

Bag’s Groove – Leon Thomas

The yodel

Oboe Mambo – Machito And His Afro-Cuban Orchestra

Oboe

It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ’N’ Roll) – AC/DC

Bagpipes

Timbre! Unusual Instrumentation Podcast – Vol. I

If you can suggest any more for the next playlist, please leave a comment or contact me.

Oh, and have a happy new year!

My Great Web page

English with a Dialect - English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Accents (1971)

Despite this being called “English with a Dialect” it’s not a study of dialect words. Rather, it’s a load of archive recordings of speakers with regional accents, cobbled together here as a “pronunciation guide” for actors and a “study guide” for teachers.

Some of the accents have really changed in just 40 years – Liverpudlian being a case in point, and isn’t the Brummie accent on here very different to the accent we now expect – while some, like the Suffolk accent (my own: see this post if you’re not aware of it), are slowly vanishing through the onslaught of Estuary.

Also, I think it amusing (as someone who’s lived in the area for a while) that Yorkshire is covered in one all-encompassing accent.

Here’s something new to the site: an interactive map. Simply click on the area to listen to or download the recording. If you prefer traditional links, they're at the bottom of the page.
Feel free to email/tweet/comment if you hear anything you like (or if you notice any great absences)!

More after the jump >>

Burns Night (2011) - The Hills of Glenswilly

I've had my haggis. Now time for the whisky.

As an Englishman, it's hard to judge how wrong it would be to put out an Irish song on Burns Night. Well, I've run out of Scottish 78s, and I thought this was (the word ‘Glen’ tricked me), so this will have to do. I've wanted to post it for a while anyway.

The Hills of Glenswilly - John McGettigan & His Irish Minstrels

Have to admit I bought this for the innuendo potential, but it's a nice, if maudlin, little record.

It may put noses out of joint, but then I can always point you to all my previous Burns posts here! That should shut ye up!

A 78s Playlist (The Nine Best 78s on Music Makes Me)

*A CD comprised entirely of rare and unusual 78s is now available here!*

I've got a present for you. It's a 45-minute playlist to introduce you to the 78s available on the site.

Music Makes Me - A 78s Playlist

There's some comedy, melodrama, protest, classical, swing, popular song, folk and, some, well, bagpipes.

Think of it as a lovingly made mixtape, one that might encourage you to find more about the site and the artists presented (click here to see the tracklist).

And if you like that sort of thing - shellac, 78s, pre-vinyl scratchy records - if broadband noise is no obstacle to your aural enjoyment, then I present you with the best 78s posts Music Makes Me has to offer...

More after the jump >>

Countdown to Burns Night - IV - To A Mousie

To A Mousie - Ian Gilmour

The Star O'Robbie Burns - The Five Smith Brothers

Countdown to Burns Night - III - Tam O'Shanter

Tam O'Shanter - Meta Forrest

From the review from the January edition of Gramophone magazine, 1956:

Sassenachs, and other foreigners, may well find the poems, so beautifully spoken by Ian Gilmour and his wife, Meta Forrest, sometimes hard to understand without a copy of the poems.

Countdown to Burns Night - II - The Learig

The Learig - Margaret Fraser.

Countdown to Burns Night - I - Comin' Thru the Rye

For my countdown to Burns night I'm posting, as promised a long time ago, some more highlights from the Saltire Music Group's album An Evening With Robert Burns.(I first posted a track from the album back in April of last year.)

Although though I think Burns is an underrated poet, it's the performances here which I think are particularly compelling and deserve not just one night, but at least a night each to be fully enjoyed!

First up, Comin' Thru the Rye - Margaret Fraser.

A Guid New Year - More 78s from Scotland

A Guid New Year - The Five Smith Brothers

In the first part of our run-up to Burns Night, I'm posting The Five Smith Brothers' more-materialistic-than-Auld-Land-Syne ode to the New Year. Notice the unexpected clarinet.

More Scottish 78s here.

Bagpipe 78s

As is to compensate for their otherwise insalubrious timbre, it seems that the tone of the bagpipes are relatively unaffected by the broadband noise you get on a lot of 78s.

I'll put my neck out and wager that Pipe-Major Forsythe makes the most polarising instrument on earth sound quite agreeable.

Flowers of the Forest

The Barren Rocks of Aden

A Junior Anthology of English Verse - 1959 (1)

OK - so I got it for a snip at £4.99.

What's great about this album is the poems do work (as, arguably, good poetry should) read aloud.

The full title of the album is A Junior Anthology of English Verse - Part II (Jupiter) 1959.

The reader of the poem's name is in brackets.

Night Mail - Auden (John Laurie)

Forefathers - Edmund Blunden (Carleton Hobbs)

Jock of Haseldean - Sir Walter Scott (John Laurie)

Sam - Walter de la Mare (V.c)

I'm posting this one in three parts, so check out parts II and III in the next week or so.

The Saltire Music Group - An Evening with Robert Burns

I love this kind of thing! The Soldier's Song as performed here by Frederick Westcott seems a precursor to all those Incredible String Band knees-ups. I will post more of this later.

The Soldier's Song - Frederick Westcott

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