Noteworthy Instruments: the theremin

I've been wanting to do a noteworthy instruments on the theremin for a while, but this week Felicia Day beat me to it. I'll just let her explain. If you want to skip ahead, the theremin lesson starts at about the 4 minute mark.

Here's another type of theremin, in arguably the most famous use of it (though I'm not convinced that this audio actually goes with this video). Enjoy!

Noteworthy Instruments: Gamelan gong kebyar

Closeup of a gangsa, the most numerous instrument in a gamelan ensemble. The player hits the bar with the hammer and then dampens with the other hand. Dampening can be hardest part.

This Saturday, April 18, I’m playing in a gamelan concert. A gamelan is a type of percussion ensemble from Indonesia. There are two main types of gamelan: Balinese, from the island of Bali, and Javanese, from the island of Java. University of Hawaii at Manoa has both type of ensembles, but I’m in the Balinese one. Now, there are actually many types of Balinese gamelan ensembles, so to be more specific, I’m playing gamelan gong keybyar, known for being flashy having sudden changes in dynamics and tempo. The need for flashiness may come from Bali being a tourist destination for over 100 years; there are some forms of “traditional” music in Bali that were invented for tourists. This is not the first time I’ve played gamelan gong kebyar; I also was a founding member of BYU’s gamelan Bintang Wahyu, where “founding member” means none of us had any idea what was going on, at least at first.

Indonesia and Bali (source: lemoic.com)

Here’s a performance of one of the pieces we’re going to play this Saturday. This ensemble is slightly different than our ensemble, but you get the idea. Oh, and they are playing much faster than us for most of the piece, called Sekar Gendot (8 minutes):

How does a gamelan ensemble work? I won’t go into detail about the names of the instruments, but the basic idea is that there is really only one melody, and that all the other instruments are elaborations of the melody. The middle has the main melody, and the higher instruments play a faster version of the melody while the lower instruments play a slower version of the melody on down until the gong. There are also some drums that keep the group together and act as conductors, giving tempo and cues. Finally, you may notice there are a few instruments that aren’t percussion—some bamboo flutes and bowed string instruments.

A Western audience may think that the instruments sound out of tune. They are “out of tune” on purpose; instruments are actually built in pairs, with one tuned slightly higher than the other, so the audience hears a wave-like sound when the two instruments are played together. It creates a unique sound.

Another important part of Balinese gamelan is interlocking parts. The higher instruments actually have pairs of pairs, and one off-tuned pair will play parts that fill in the fast notes from the other pair, so the music sounds faster than an individual player, while also sounding more complex.

The final result is a sound that is very unlike Western music. One more thing to notice: no one uses written music. Gamelan music is traditionally learned orally, which is how I have learned how to play. This can be frustrating at times, especially people like me who are used to reading everything.

Noteworthy Instruments: the Celtic harp

The Trinity harp, at Trinity college, Dublin

This week, I went to see Patrick Ball, one of my favorite storytellers, perform. He’s an American who tells stories about Ireland and plays the Celtic harp. Among the stories about Ireland and the little folk, he told about how he came to the Celtic harp, the playing of which has undergone a renaissance in the past 40 years. After the peak of the Celtic harp’s popularity in the middle ages, Ball explained, it fell out of favor in Ireland and hadn’t been heard in 200 years. Ball’s involvement actually started with an American engineer who was laid off by Boeing and ending up taking minute measurements of ancient harps in Dublin, such as the Trinity harp (which appears on Ireland’s currency and Guinness beer). Ball then ran into the American, Jay Witcher selling harp reconstructions at a renaissance fair (fitting) and Ball was enchanted with the sound of the instrument.

Something that Ball didn’t mention was that harps did not die out in Ireland; in the 1800s, however, the old, metal-string style of Celtic harp was supplanted by a smaller, gut-stringed classical-influenced style harp. Despite the change of models, the harp continued to be a symbol of Ireland, as it had been the symbol of Irish royalty in the middle ages; the new harp replaced the old one in the tradition, some people thinking that the new harp was the old one. Perhaps one reason for the switch is that the Irish had lost their royalty, so the Irish upper class were emulating other European royalty, who in the 1800s turned to art music of the German style. Perhaps for the same reason, the old Irish style of harp playing was lost around the same time period, too (though 200 years was a bit of a stretch).

So how can they reconstruct a tradition that no one has seen or heard in over a century? Well, there were two good clues: first, some surviving models, and 2nd, a man named Edward Bunting.

There are several surviving Celtic harps from the 15th century, the most famous being the Trinity harp (ironically, evidence suggests that the Trinity harp was made actually in Scotland.). It’s actually kind of amazing that any harps survive, because the tension needed for the strings means that harps basically rip themselves apart over time. While recreations of these old harps had been attempted earlier in the 20th century, Witcher’s was the most scientific to that date and probably came closer to the original sound than other recreations.

As for us reconstructing how the harpers played music hundreds of year ago, in 1792 harpers in Ireland realized that their tradition was fading out, and held a festival in Belfast where ten of the remaining old-tradition harpists came and played. Edward Bunting, an organist, was employed to transcribe what until then had been mostly an oral tradition (many harpers were even blind). Bunting continued collecting after that, and he later published his collection of transcriptions and lengthy commentary as The Ancient Music Ireland. While Bunting may have altered a few of his transcriptions to fit his own musical training, he did manage to preserve something that was just about to become lost to history.

So, if you do manage to hear a Celtic harp sometime, remember it’s probably thanks to Witcher, an American engineer, and Bunting, a church organist.

Vocab: transcribe

For more information see:
http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/history/
http://digitalresearch.lib.unc.edu/exhibits/show/aparlier/catalogue_entries/trinity_college_harp

Noteworthy Instruments: the Banjolele

For a long stretch last year, part of my work was cataloging sheet music from the early 20th century. On many pieces from that time period, I saw a curious note—that the music could be played on a "banjulele banjo. " I wasn't sure what that instrument was, and assumed it was extinct. But lo and behold, while I was at the musical Assassins, one of the characters whipped one out and started strumming.

The banjolele (a.k.a the banjulele banjo, or the banjo uke) was invented in 1917 by Alvin D. Keech. It features ukulele strings on a miniature-sized banjo frame. The instrument became very popular with vaudeville performers, because it was small like a ukulele, but had more volume. The instrument reached the peak of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, and was popular enough, obviously, that it showed up on sheet music (though I never saw music with banjo-uke tabs, just chord symbols). And it turns out that the instrument has not gone away. There are lots of people out there still strumming away on their banjoleles.

Here's a demonstration of someone playing a banjolele:

If you are really hardcore, you might also check out this banjolele cover of 50 Cent's "In Da Club".

Probably the most famous champion of the banjolele was Beatle George Harrison. You can see a video of him playing one here. Harrison used to give away ukulele and banjoleles, and often had two on his person at all times—so he could play with someone else. At Paul McCartney's concerts, Paul often plays George's songs on the ukulele as a tribute.

Vocab: strings, banjo, cove

Noteworthy Instruments: The Viola Organista

The outer workings of the viola organista. Photo: Tomasz Wiech/AFP

I'm sure many of you have seen the video of the viola organista as it was circulated on social media this week. The instrument, which is part of the chordophone family, is basically a harpsichord or piano whose strings are vibrated with a spinning wheel instead of plucked or struck. The spinning wheel is meant to imitate the bowing mechanic on many string instruments.

The instrument's builder and designer, Slawomir Zubrzycki, claims to have been inspired by Leonard Da Vinci's notebooks. However, lest you think this is a major breakthrough in instrument technology, it should be noted that bowed keyboard instruments have been made before, as early as 1575 by Hans Hyden and as recently as 2009. For a great essay on the background of bowed keyboard instruments, see this blogpost from The History Blog. The post also features the best video of the inner workings of the instrument, narrated (in Polish, unfortunately) by Zubrzycki. Take a look!

But wait, remember my Noteworthy Instrument post on the hurdy-gurdy? The hurdy-gurdy operates using the same principles. They both feature a rotating wheel which causes strings to vibrate. The only major differences is smaller range and lack of keyboard. And while the viola organista probably does not have a future as more than a novelty instrument, the hurdy-gurdy will continue to inspire generations to come…as a novelty instrument, too, I guess.

What did you think of the viola organista?

Vocab: chordophone, harpsichord, keyboard, bowing

Noteworthy Instruments: The Stalacpipe Organ (Stone Celesta)

Me and the "organ" console in the cave. It's dark, because it's a cave.

This week, I had an unexpected musical experience while visiting the very touristy Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia. Near the end of our tour, an organ console appeared in front of us. Apparently, a Mr. Leland Sprinkle (I am not making this up), a Pentagon scientist, got the idea to create a musical instrument out of the surrounding stalactites, and spent his spare time for 36 years hitting them with hammers and trimming until he had 37 usable notes. Then, he hooked up an organ console to small electric hammers that hit the stalactites when the keys were pressed. The folks at the caverns call it (dubiously) the world's largest musical instrument because some of the stalactites are very far away from the console. Here's a picture of the mechanism:

The "stalacpipe" mechanism, with hammer on top.

They called the instrument the "stalacpipe organ." Some of you might be wondering, can this instrument really be an organ, since it does not use air vibrating through pipes to create sound? Well, those of you wondering this might be right. While an organ doesn't necessarily need pipes, it does need air (not counting the electronic ones that imitate naturally-occurring sounds). The "stalacpipe organ" is really more like a celesta, an idiophone that uses mechanical mallets to strike stone instead of metal. But I guess the stalacelesta doesn't really sound as cute. Also, if there were only 37 notes, there is probably no need for the 4 manuals and many stops (much less foot pedals) shown here; they are really just for show.

We did not hear a live performance of the instrument, only a playerless program of "A Mightly Fortress is Our God." While I could tell the instrument sorely needed some repairs, the sound was eerie and cool (which I guess I could say about the caves as a whole...). It was also very quiet, but that fit the atmosphere of the caves. While in modern times, we have basically stopped using stone to make music, there is a long history of stone musical instruments, and I could see (or hear) why. Click here for a recording of the instrument (I assume the loud pops are drops of water hitting the ground).

Have any of you seen the stalacpipe organ, and what did you think? Have you seen any other instruments like this made out of naturally-occurring objects? Please leave comments below, as opposed to the Face
book post!

Vocab: organ, celesta, idiophone, organ manuals and stops, mallets

Noteworthy Instruments: the hurdy-gurdy

It's time for Noteworthy Instruments, where I talk about musical instruments that aren't your normal western orchestral fare. While I like the traditional clarinet, viola, electric guitar, and glockenspiel, there are lots of other instruments that deserve attention. In October, I wrote about the shamisen (if you didn't watch the Yoshida Brothers video, you really missed out). 

This week's treasure: the hurdy-gurdy.

The hurdy-gurdy is about a thousand years old. Also called a wheel fiddle, the player produces sound by turning a crank which rubs a wheel against the strings. A hurdy-gurdy has several strings, a couple of which are drones, making this instrument sound a lot like bagpipes. It's amazing how many old instruments in many traditions have drones.

Caroline Phillips gives a great introduction to this lesser-known instrument in this six-minute TED talk, which is also embedded below (the last few minutes are a commercial):

Watch the talk! As an added bonus, she sings a song in Basque. Here's another playing demonstration with a different hurdy-gurdy; there's no standard way to construct them (for more detailed info on the hurdy-gurdy, see wikipedia). I love how the comments below the video are in three different languages.

Classical music has its own famous hurdy-gurdy song, Franz Schubert's "Der Leiermann" (the Hurdy-Gurdy Man) from his song cycle Winterreise. Although the accompaniment for this song was written for piano, the whole song could be played with a drone. Sting did a strange English version of Schubert's song on his album If On a Winter's Night, but accompanied by an accordion instead of a hurdy-gurdy. Which is weird, because knows how to play one—he played a hurdy-gurdy for the 2004 academy awards:

Photo credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images

So for those of you who watched the academy awards that year and wondered "what the heck is that unusual-but-awesome instrument?", which I'm sure is what most people were thinking, now you know—the hurdy-gurdy.

Next week, I'm going to tackle the music of Les Mis.

Vocab: drone

Vocab: the Shamisen

Since Asian music is popular topic at the moment, I thought I might introduce an instrument that you might not be aware of—the shamisen.

A shamisen, from Flikr

It's a Japanese traditional instrument, and you play it by plucking the strings, like a guitar. Instead of plucking with fingers, though, the player uses a large plectrum. The plectrum makes the shamisen's sound more twangy than it might normally be. I'm not talking a country or spoken "twang," but the onomatopoeic "twang" sound heard when releasing an arrow from a bow. The shamisen only has three strings, no frets, and traditionally the body is covered with a skin: dog, cat, or snake. Like many Japanese traditional objects, the shamisen originally came from China. Here's a video of some famous contemporary shamisen players, the Yoshida brothers:

This is a great opportunity to talk about folk-popular hybridity (of the many things I could say about this video). The above musical object (a technical term for what we are studying, in this case the music video), is a combination of folk music and popular song construction. Music can also go the other way, putting a popular song in a folk music setting. Like this second musical object:

In both cases, the instruments and styles used are different from what you might expect. The second is an extreme (and funny) example, but it might provoke a question: What is the difference between folk and popular musics? The answer would be a large enough subject for a book, but in the interest of time, I think the two above objects show that there are less differences than you might think. At one time, folk music was popular music. We might say that folk music is the popular music of the past, though of course it is more complicated than that.

What do you think about the shamisen or popular/folk hybrids? Do you enjoy it when musicians mix up genres?

Vocab: plectrum, musical object, onomatopoeic

Special thanks to Megan Hill for introducing me to the Yoshida brothers.