Carl Haas returns tomorrow evening after the NPR News at 10 with a glimpse of some of the
significant works of Latin American composers. That's next time on Adventures in Good Music on WQED-FM Pittsburgh and WQEJ Johnstown, WQED Multimedia. Happy Thanksgiving.
Now stay tuned for Shickley Mix. Peter, are you ready?
Refrain from bovine birthing, man. Here's the theme.
Hello there, I'm Peter Shickley, and this is Shickley Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good,
it is good. But it can't sound good if you can't hear it, and you couldn't hear what you're about to hear if the bills weren't being paid, which they, however, are by the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and by this munificent radio station amid whose walls I serenely sit. Our program is launched to the four corners by PRI, Public Radio International.
Now, I don't know anything about anthropology, but I know what I like, and it seems to me that when you're talking about the list of human drives or human needs, music has to be right up there
with food, sex, and religion. People will play anything. Gourds, grass, shells, rocks, logs,
pods, vines, and silverware, as well as assorted animal parts. I'm not just talking about their horns, either. I saw an ethnic group performing yesterday, and one of the guys was playing a
rattle that turned out to be made of sheep ankle bones. A hardened bull scrotum. Waste not, want not.
Today's show is called Instrumental Exotica, and we're going to check out some of the rarer specimens in the Western Musical Zoo. The Mbuti Pygmies of Africa make hunting bows out of bent
saplings strung with vine, and long ago, some hunter noticed that if you hit the vine with the side of an arrow, you get a sound with a definite pitch. Then he discovered that if you put one end
of the bow on the ground, you get a sound with a definite pitch. And he discovered that if you put the other end of the bow on the ground, and hold your open mouth by the other end, and tap or pluck the vine, you get the basic note plus another higher note that you can control by changing the
cavity of your mouth. The Mbuti still play their hunting bows sometimes, but they also make special
bows for musical purposes. It's a pretty good bet that this is the origin of the instrument we now
call the Jew's harp, although nobody can figure out why we call it that. It has apparently been associated with the Jewish people, and no one has made a convincing case for the jaw's harp
derivation. In parts of England, it's called a gigaw, which comes perhaps from the German word
for fiddle, geige. In parts of Germany, a Jew's harp is called a maulgeige, mouth fiddle. Be that
as it may or may not be, it consists of a frame, usually three to five inches long, surrounding a vibrating tongue. You hold the thing in front of your open mouth and twang the tongue, and you
vary your mouth cavity. You can also vary the sound and rhythm by breathing in a particular way. Incidentally, when I say you, I mean you, not me. I play a lot of weird instruments,
but playing the standard kind of Jew's harp we have in this country involves holding something metal against your teeth and then making it vibrate. It gives me the creeps just to think
about it. But it's a great sound, and I'm glad somebody doesn't mind doing it. We're going to have a little bit of a break here in just a few minutes, and then we'll get back to you. So, we're going to have a little break here in just a few minutes, and then we'll get back to you. This is an instrument in which what you might call the accompaniment part of the sound,
the twang, is usually louder than the melodic part, the higher sort of whistly notes. So,
don't get fixated on the twang. Cherchez la tune. The jaw suite has four numbers and lasts about
eight minutes. The jaw suite, four numbers. They're a musician from Tuva, Wayne Hankin,
Guy Carawan, and Albrechtsen. So, we're going to have a little break here in just a few minutes, and then we'll get back to you. Going back to the first one there, that was from the Autonomous Republic of Tuva, a wooden
Jew's harp being played. By the way, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that if the tongue and the frame of a Jew's harp are made from the same material, we call it idioglotic. But if they're
from a different material, heteroglotic, of course, is the term. Okay, then next from an album by Wayne Hankin, Wayne Evan Hankin. And that was the first part of a cut
called Introduction, Pavane, and Piva. We heard just the introduction, which featured the lute and
the jaw's harp in C, since the basic tone of a Jew's harp, he calls it a jaw's harp, is always the same. They do come in different keys.
Then we had Guy Caron, an album called Green Rocky Road. And that was the beginning of a tune
called Pigtown Fling. And then finally, that was not PDQ Bach, folks. That was a for real piece by
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, who was a teacher of Beethoven. And it's a concerto for Jew's harp,
mandora, and orchestra. Mandora is a guitar-like instrument. That was Fritz Meyer playing Jew's harp, Dieter Kirsch playing the mandora.
With the Munich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Hans Stadelmayr. And it reminds me, you know, the
Jew's harp, the cavity of the mouth determines the pitch of the melodic part there. And I once did a concert in San Francisco, and a friend of mine who was playing in the concert said, I got this friend
who lives here, you've got to hear him. He pounds his knuckles on the top of his head, you know, and then changes the mouth cavity and he can play tunes. Well, I've heard of doing that. I can't do it myself. I got a real soft.
head, folks. But he came back after the concert, and he started doing it, but it was very noisy backstage. You really couldn't hear it. He said, oh, you can't hear this. And he goes over and he
grabs two Coke bottles, two empty Coke bottles, and starts beating himself on the top of the head
with the two Coke bottles playing. It takes all kinds of heads to make a world boy. Not on my head,
you don't. My head, by the way, belongs to Peter Shickley. The show is Shickley Mix. From PRI, Public Radio International.
Instrumental Exotica. We began this program with a hunting implement turned into a musical instrument, the bow. Another tool that has been put to musical use is the saw, just a good old carpenter's saw.
You know, there's a video artist named Nam June Pike. I wonder if he used to play this instrument.
I mean, because if he did, you could say, Nam was a saw man. That's pretty natural sounding for a palindrome. Isn't it? Nam was a saw man. You know, a lot of palindromes sound so stilted or awkward or don't make sense.
I mean, Abel was I, Ere I say. Okay, all right, all right. There are some times, I must admit, when I really can't argue with the irrelevancy alarm.
Okay, now, the way you play a saw is, and I've done this, you hold the handle between your knees. And let me tell you, you have to hold it very tight. Unless you really want to. Unless you really don't want any more children.
Then you bend the blade with one hand while you bow it with the other using a violin or cello bow. Originally, apparently, it was struck with a mallet, but now bowing is the standard method.
You get an ethereal, sort of ghostly sound, as you can hear in the three movements of the saw suite. I'll see you in about seven minutes.
There's a man of mystery roaming through this land. Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Far and near you hear of him, he's found on every hand. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Every city, town and village knows this boy by now.
There's a way to recognize him. Let me tell you how.
If you're past midnight dark, beside a graveyard goes. If someone whistles, that's a serious foe. Or on some dark and stormy night, while the tempest blows.
If someone whistles, that's a serious foe.
He sees all, knows all, gets in everywhere. Some night he might wait for you upon the stairs.
So if you're going down the cellar, walk upon your toes.
If someone whistles, that's a serious foe.
Mysterious foe.
I pray many times to the sea.
I pray full of flowers and 100 gold coins.
A tongue full of love and agony.
Just as this may have arised this moment,
I lose myself in the heart of some children.
One of your more abrupt endings there. The Saw Suite, which actually might also be called the Double Crumb Suite. Very unusual. We had Robert Crumb and George Crumb there.
The first one was Robert Crumb. And he's part of a group called Cheap Suit Serenaders. And Crumb plays banjo and vocals.
He is the Crumb, by the way, of the cartoonist who does Mr. Natural and other things. And they were doing a tune called Mysterious Mose. And then we had George Crumb.
By the way, when I say Robert Crumb, it's our Crumb. I don't know. Maybe it isn't Robert. George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children. Haunting piece that we've used before.
And this was the second song. It was Jan de Gaitani, by the way, mezzo-soprano, and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble under the direction of Arthur Weisberg.
The text of that second song, which is from Gracia Lorca, is I have lost myself in the sea many times with my ear full of freshly cut flowers, with my tongue full of love and agony.
I have lost myself in the sea many times. As I lose myself in the heart of certain children. And then finally, from an old LP called Super Saw.
And Super Saw turns out to be Jim Leonard. And he recorded this in his own studio and I think does all the instruments.
You know, reading the back of this, the liner notes of this album, I read that renowned composers have also included this, the song called Super Saw in some of their most inspiring compositions,
such as Cacciatorian Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra, and Crumb's The Ancient Voices of Children. Well, when I read that, I already knew the George Crumb piece, but not the Cacciatorian.
So I did some research and found that the Cacciatorian Concerto, although it has perhaps been performed using a saw, was actually written for an instrument called the flexotone,
which is even rarer than the saw. I had seen and heard flexotones used as a sort of a novelty sound effects kind of thing. But I guess I hadn't realized you could play a melody on it.
It consists of a metal tongue, maybe three inches wide and eight inches long, surrounded by a metal frame with a handle, sort of like the frame of an old fashioned potato masher.
Then on each side of the tongue is a flexible wire rod with a wooden ball on the end. So you flap this thing, and the tongue vibrates and the wooden balls strike the metal tongue.
And what you've got is one of your weirder instruments.
That was an excerpt from the second movement of Cacciatorian's piano concerto in D-flat major.
And that was Nehme Yervie conducting the Scottish National Orchestra with Konstantin Orbelian playing piano. And the, let's see,
the flexotonist is unidentified. Okay, our next exotic instrument is the slide whistle, which might be called the trombone of the flute family.
Or you might describe it as a cross between an alto recorder and a bicycle tire pump. It looks like a large tin whistle with a plunger whose handle curves back towards the player.
It's often used for cartoon sound effects. But playing actual melodies on it is actually quite tricky, since, you know, it's a little bit of a challenge. And, of course, compared to the trombone,
quite small changes in slide position result in large changes of pitch. Now, in spite of my natural modesty, I must confess to being a rather accomplished slide whistler.
As a matter of fact, I am perhaps the preeminent slide whistler of our time. If somebody needs a slide whistler, I'm the guy they call.
Once I happened to see the script of an art appreciation lecture, and at one point, I thought that it was a great idea to do it. But they were talking about Elizabeth Schickely, because it said, Slide Whistler's Mother. Oh, okay, all right, all right.
So it didn't. I made that up. Man, I can't have any fun around here. Well, the most unusual slide whistle I've ever played was when I wrote a score for the dance company, Palabolas.
Martha Clark and Robbie Barnett, the choreographers and dancers of the piece, had gotten to know the curator of the Pre-Columbian Collection at a small art museum.
And I actually got to write the score for, and play on myself for the recording, ocarinas and flutes and rattles that probably hadn't been played for a millennium.
What a kick. But the strangest of these instruments was a slide whistle that consisted of a hollow clay cylinder with a clay ball inside it.
The clay ball was loose enough to move, but almost as big as the opening inside. So if you started with the thing pointing down,
and then while you blew on it, raised the end up towards the ceiling, the ball rolled from one end of the tube to the other, causing the pitch to go,
nothing that exotic in our slide whistle suite. But there is one quite noteworthy aspect to it, and that concerns the middle one of these three pieces. At least in our culture,
it's very unusual to hear the slide whistle used in a serious context. I'll be back in five.
The slide whistle suite. By the way, at the end there, we hear a little Jew's harp as well as a slide whistle. But we began with PDQ Bach, an excerpt from the erotica variations, with David Wee playing the piano
and yours truly playing the slide whistle. Then from Ravel's beautiful opera L'Enfant et les Sortilèges,
which regular listeners to this show have heard several excerpts from, that was the scene where it moves from the house into the garden, and you hear the birds and the insects.
And that was the Orchestre National de la RTF, if that's the way you say RTF, under the direction of Lorne Mazel.
And then finally the love and spoonful tune called Henry Thomas. My name is Peter Schickely. The show is Schickely Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
The next and last suite on this leg of our unending series, our unending quest for instrumental exotica, involves the first successful electronic instruments.
By electronic I mean that electricity is used not simply to amplify the sound, as in an electric guitar, but to generate the sound.
In 1920, a bizarre instrument called the etherophone was unveiled to the public in St. Petersburg. It later became known as the theremin, after its inventor.
The difference between a purple cow and a theremin being played is that I'd like to see the latter. It must be quite something. You see, the player never touches the instrument.
The pitch is determined by how close the right hand of the player is to a vertical antenna, and the volume by the left hand in relation to a metal loop.
So the performer must look something like a classical Indian dancer. If I remember correctly, there was a rock group in the 60s that used a theremin. It had one of my favorite rock group names,
Lothar and the Hand People. I'm calling this the theremin suite, even though the third of its four movements employs the ond martino, a closely related instrument that can be played either with a keyboard
or if you want to swoop and slide around with a finger ring attached to a ribbon. Very exotic stuff. The basic sound is virtually indistinguishable from that of the theremin.
Actually, they both sound quite a bit like the musical saw. The highly eclectic, highly electric theremin suite lasts about 12 minutes. I'll be back.
Because... Good, good, good, good vibrations, yeah Good, good, good, good vibrations, yeah
Good, good, good, good vibrations, oh
I bet I know what's she's like
And I can't feel how right she'd be for me
It's weird how she comes in so strong
And I wonder what she's picking up from me
I hope it's good, good, good, good
The Theremin Suite.
We began with a cut from an album called The Art of the Theremin in which Clara Rockmore played the swan from Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals.
Nadia Reisenberg played the piano. I usually try to avoid transcriptions, but here the whole album is transcriptions on the one hand, but on the other hand, it really gives you a chance
to hear the theremin close up in a way that you can't in the other more orchestral recordings. The second one, music from Spellbound by Miklos Rocha. The Spellbound Concerto was being...
played by Daniel Odney, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra was under the direction of Kenneth Alwyn. And then we had Olivier Messiaen
from his monumental Tarangalila Symphony. That was the seventh movement, Tarangalila Deux, which is French for two when you say it right.
And then finally, the Beach Boys and Good Vibrations. And if you're a big fan of that song, as I am, you will have noticed that something was funny about it. And that's because this is an early take.
The CD of Good Vibrations is on a CD that has both Smiley Smile and Wild Honey on it. Those were the names of the LPs. They've got them on one CD,
and there are a whole bunch of bonus cuts at the end, outtakes and alternate takes. This was an early take of Good Vibrations with Brian Wilson himself singing the lead.
And it's sort of nice to hear it with a freewheeling, lead like that, rather than the beautiful, but a little bit machine-tooled, later version. Okay, now we do have time for a little tidbit here,
or at least almost time for a little tidbit. We're going to hear some Spike Jonze. And what's exotic here is not the cowbells. Cowbells have been around for years, particularly on cows. But most composers treat cowbells
as if they didn't have a particular pitch, when actually they do. So Spike Jonze had a set of tuned cowbells, made so he could actually play a melody on the cowbells. We don't have time for the whole thing,
we're going to skip the vocal at the beginning. But here's Morpheus, the music of Offenbach, according to Spike Jonze.
Hey!
Spike Jones, Morpheus. Now, I've left the best part for last. I didn't tell you that I actually have a theremin here in the studio, and I'm going to play you a solo on this fantastic instrument.
It's got the antenna here. I put my right hand near the antenna and the left hand near the metal loop to control the volume.
And nothing's happening. Let's see. I can't seem to get any sound out of this thing here. Maybe I better put on the theme.
Well, turns out I forgot to plug it in. It's too late now. That's Shickley Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Department of State.
And by this radio station and its members. And not only that, our program is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with record numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program 67.
And this is Peter Shickley saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Shickley Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Shickley Mix.
Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.
PRI, Public Radio International.