Stay tuned for Peter Shickley and Shickley Mix coming up next. These are the classical stations WQED-FM Pittsburgh and WQEJ Johnstown, WQED Multimedia.
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Now. 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. The bills for all this goodness are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts,
and by this fine radio station. Right here, where I am holed up and hunkered down, and whence my voice reaches you through the distributorial skills of PRI, Public Radio International.
When I was young, I used to help my mother do the vacuuming. We had a horizontal cylindrical canister type of vacuum cleaner, but it didn't have wheels on it. It just had runners, sort of like a sled.
So to make things easier, I used to carry the canister around while my mother did the actual vacuuming. Eventually. I noticed that the hum of the motor was a definite note, and I started singing to it.
I'd sing songs I knew, or I'd improvise melodies using the vacuum cleaner motor as a drone. A few years ago, I happened to see the folk music magazine Sing Out,
and Pete Seeger, in his column there, must have mentioned something about singing to the vacuum cleaner, because there were a couple of letters from people saying, Man, I've sung to the vacuum cleaner for years, I didn't know other people did that.
It's a very simple thing. It's a very satisfying thing. It's very elemental. And as a matter of fact, a drone, which is a long, sustained, unchanging note,
a drone supporting a melody is one of the world's most common musical textures. I suppose that, in industrial countries at least, the drone instruments most often heard are the vacuum cleaner,
the telephone, the fluorescent light, and the power station. But if you want to be boring and restrict yourself to things that everyone regards as musical instruments, I suppose this one would be at the top of the list.
Today's show is called Hold That Note. We're going to be dealing with drones.
The sound of the bagpipes, at least the Highland Pipes, is so well known that we'll let that brief example from the Battlefield Band suffice, especially since we've done a whole program on bagpipes.
A drone is usually on the bottom of the texture, beneath the melody and whatever else is going on.
In fact, in classical music, it's often called a pedal point, because it's such a natural for organists to hold a note on the pedals,
which tend to be low notes, while playing all sorts of fancy stuff above it with the hands. Here, I'll show you what that sounds like.
Now, unfortunately, the authentic instrument with which this state-of-the-art studio is equipped doesn't have a pedal console. So I'll just, let's see, I'll pick an organ stop here.
And then I'll put it here.
Like that.
Now, since you can't see me anyway, it should be easy for you to imagine that I'm holding that note on one of the pedals of an organ with my foot. And above it I'll play.
Oops.
It's easier with the foot. What would I do without the authentic instrument? Pedal points are often used at the ends of pieces. It's a wonderful way to do it.
way of really announcing that the ending is upon us without going bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum et cetera as Beethoven does. Here are a couple of examples
of pedal point endings. The end of a Bach organ toccata played by Tone Koopman and the end of
Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony with Andre Previn conducting the Royal Philharmonic.
Now there are five basic ways of making musical sounds. Singing, plucking, blowing, bowing,
and striking. And all those ways can be used to produce drones. As we will hear in...
Well, actually, rats. I just remembered that there's a technique of rubbing the heads of drums and tambourines to produce a sound. So I guess... I wish I hadn't thought of that.
Well, I'm gonna pretend I didn't. There are five basic ways of making musical sounds. Singing,
plucking, blowing, bowing, and striking. And our first suite features drones produced by four of
those methods. Singing, plucking, blowing, by the way the held note is on the top in that piece,
and bowing. The differently done drones suite lasts a little over nine minutes. See you then.
differently done drones bulgarian women ravi shankar fresco baldi and robert mandel playing
the hurdy-gurdy we began with a cut from a terrific cd called two girls started to sing
bulgarian village singing some of these girls by the way were born in 1898 uh this band was
band number three maikia yanna tanko playla something like that it's a song sung when they
were taking a rest from reaping and you may have noticed there that the melody went above and below the drum
now in a case like that the drone doesn't go literally continuously as you can do when you have an organ because the the women stop to take a breath but nevertheless one voice moves around
while the other stays pretty much on the same note then we had ravi shankar playing the
it's called thumri and and in this kind of an ensemble in addition to the sitar
that shankar is playing there's a tambura which is a simple stringed instrument that simply plays the same notes drone notes over and over again it's very it's very soft it's very much of a
background thing now of course when you're plucking a string you have to pluck it more than once here again unlike an organ you can't have an absolutely continuous sound without any
re-attack because the sound would simply disappear so you're constantly plucking but the tambura the way it's built you hardly hear the sound of the tambura it's very soft it's very soft it's very easy to hear the plucking it almost sounds like an organ and then of course there's the the tabla
playing which is the drums i also have to point out i'll give you three guesses i'll give you three guesses about when this album came out i'll read some of the liner notes here here are some
more of ravi shankar's enthralling psychedelicacies when one listens to his extraordinarily hypnotic music drawn into its vortex one wonders why people
turn to the hallucinogens one tunes in at the first exhilarating run of the cool waterfall of
a raga turns on but one never wants to drop out and it ends yes bring an open and relaxed mind
to this music it is many centuries old but as fresh and impelling and as new as tomorrow night's
dreams tune in and turn on hallucinogens done oh well you know what i mean then we're going to talk
about the first one from fresco baldy 17th century composer that was sergio vartolo playing the organ
a selection from the fury musicale the musical flowers of fresco baldy that was a curiae and there the pedal point if you want to call it that or the drone or the sustained note was on the top
and i will point out that the organ is a blowing instrument the organ sets up bellows which play pipes that have reeds in them like clarinets or oboes
or our flute kind of pipes so it's definitely a wind instrument and then finally we had a wonderful
instrument the hurdy-gurdy an estampi medieval dance and the hurdy-gurdy is basically a string
instrument which has one or two drone strings and one or two melody strings and you have these keys
you can hear them clicking which stop the melody strings just like the fingers do on a violin and meanwhile you're turning the instrument and you're playing the instrument and you're playing the
instrument you're turning a crank that turns a wooden wheel that that rubs up against the strings
and so the strings are really bowed by a wooden wheel hey you know actually bowing is rubbing
yeah bowing and rubbing are really the same thing right so my five basic ways of making music still
hold up there of course on the other hand there's producing tones electronically like a hammond organ synthesizer
This is a quagmire but one thing's for sure my name is Peter Shikley and the program is ShikleyMix from PRI public radio international
now for the last of what I'm persisting in calling the five basic methods of musical tone production striking for which we turn to one of the most popular percussion instruments ever invented the piano
it is to the Hammers strike the strings it's a percussion instrument This is a Schubert song in which the piano is imitating the instrument we just heard, the hurdy-gurdy.
The left hand keeps repeating the same note, the same two notes actually, it's a double drone, while the right hand plays a melody above it.
This song is wrenching by itself, but as the last of 24 songs in the dark, despairing cycle called Winter's Journey, it is absolutely devastating. The words go like this.
Over there, beyond the village, stands a hurdy-gurdy man, and with numb fingers he whines as best he can.
He staggers around, barefoot on the ice, and his little plate always stays empty.
No one wants to hear him, no one looks at him, and the dogs growl around the old man. And he lets it pass, lets everything be. Whines, and his hurdy-gurdy never stays still.
Strange old man. Should I come with you? Will you grind your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?
There is a layman standing behind the village
And with stiff fingers he turns what he can
He wanks back and forth on the hill
And his little plate stays in the house
No one can hear him, no one sees him
And the dogs bark and he lets it go
Everything as it is
And his layman stands in the house
And his little plate stays in the house
I call this sweet Drone On, which is not a pejorative phrase in my book. Be back in about nine and a half minutes.
After the planet Earth had taken shape and cooled off a bit, water began to form and collect on its surface.
Some time after that, our ancestors made their first exploratory trip to Earth
They found the land lifeless But the oceans were filled with strange and beautiful fish
As I walked off one evening
Among the spring and thyme I heard a fair pretty maiden Converse with Reynard Eileen
Her hair was black and her eye was blue Her lips like a blood-red wine
And he smiled as he looked upon them Did this lie bold Reynard Eileen?
I pray my lord be civil My company forsake For to my good opinion
I believe you are awake Ah, no, no rake am I cried he But I am
Brought up in Venus' train
But I'm searching for consuming All from the pious men
Her cherry cheek and her rubies They lost their former die
And she fell on her knees before him All on the mountain high And he'd not touched her but the once or twice
When she come to again And most eagerly she asked him Pray tell to me your name
If by chance you look for me By chance you look for me By chance you'll never me find For I'll be in my green castle
And quar for an hour dine And day and night she's followed him
His teeth so bright did shine As he led her over the mountain
Did this lie bold Reynard Eileen?
Drone on. The suite began with the opening of a work called A Zoo Called Earth.
The piece was written by the narrator Peter Schickely. It's a kid's piece performed by the Little Orchestra Society. Nino Anagnost conducting.
And the premiere of that piece, by the way, which was commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony, took place at the St. Louis Zoo. Then we heard Buffy St. Marie, Renerdine, a vampire legend.
And in addition to singing, she was playing the mouth bow, a bow with a metal string, in this case, which she holds up by her mouth and plucks it to get the drone, the continuous repeated note.
And when she isn't singing, she changes the cavity of her mouth, to get a Jew's harp kind of effect. So you get a little spooky melody up there above the drone. And then finally, a work by a composer,
or rather the end of a work by a composer called Siegfried Karg-Ellert from Fugue, Canzone and Epilogue. And I must say that that's a composer I've never heard of.
So I'd like to thank my friend Michael Barone for bringing that piece to my attention. Robert Norin was playing the organ at the Church of St. Jude, in Detroit, Michigan. Marla Smith playing the violin.
And the women of the choir of St. Mariner's Church in Detroit were singing. My name is Peter Schickely, and Schickely mixes the program from PRI, Public Radio International.
Hold that note. We're talking about drones here. And I'd like to go back to that wildest of drone instruments, the hurdy-gurdy. By the way, let me point out here that the term hurdy-gurdy
is sometimes used for two completely different kinds of instruments. The Italian guy, standing on a street corner with a monkey on a leash, was playing a barrel organ or street organ.
It had a music box kind of mechanism, turned by a crank, and it activated an actual little pipe organ. All you had to do to play it was turn the crank.
Now those guys were all over the Western world until about 1922, when Mussolini decided that they were demeaning to the Italian image. Anyway, the real hurdy-gurdy, as far as I'm concerned,
with drone and melody, strings bowed, as it were, by a wooden wheel, as we heard earlier in the program, has been around for centuries. It was usually associated with the lower classes,
but it enjoyed a real vogue during the middle of the 18th century when Marie Antoinette and her crowd became infatuated with what they saw as the simple life of peasants.
Haydn wrote 13 pieces for a kind of hurdy-gurdy called the lira organizzata. In the 19th century, Donizetti used it in an opera. But these days they usually substitute some other instruments for it.
Some hurdy-gurdies, and this is the best part, have a device called the trompette, which, when activated, causes a piece of wood to rattle against the bridge that holds the strings up,
so you get a really loud, raspy noise that sounds like a demonically raunchy kazoo. Here's a suite called Hurdy-Gurdy Heaven, three pieces from the 18th century.
Some parts of the first number sound pretty strange for an 18th century work. And that's because the drone note of the hurdy-gurdy keeps right on playing throughout the whole movement, even when the music goes into a key
whose main chord doesn't include that note. It's like your least favorite uncle who arrives and says, I'm here and I'm staying for two weeks. I mean, what can you do about it?
This suite, however, will only be around for about nine minutes.
Hurdy-Gurdy Heaven. We began with part of a sonata by Vivaldi called Il Pastor Fido. No, that is not about a member of the canine clergy.
Il Pastor Fido means the faithful shepherd. And there we heard the hurdy-gurdy being accompanied by a continuo, harpsichord. And after that, and by the way,
that was Nigel Eaton in the hurdy-gurdy. By the way, that trumpet, that raspy, kazoo-like effect, when you hear that being articulated, as we did in the last number two,
you do that by making a slight break in turning the crank. And that is regarded as by far the hardest part of learning how to play the hurdy-gurdy, is to do those little articulations.
Then we heard a Mozart dance from four minuets, K601, that was the second one, with a hurdy-gurdy in the middle. And it seems to me that Mozart very carefully had the melody and the drone doubled in other instruments
so he could play it without the hurdy-gurdy if there wasn't one around. And then finally, we heard Michel Corette, an 18th century composer, variations on Que vous direz-je, maman?
which we know as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. And in that case, we had the hurdy-gurdy was being accompanied by an organ. Robert Mandel on hurdy-gurdy,
Miklas Spanyi on organ. Now we've got a sort of an unusual little tidbit here. For tidbit time, you don't often hear the hurdy-gurdy, that's true enough,
but even less often do you hear the hurdy-gurdy with what we might call a modern continuo. Here's a bourree written by Nigel Eaton,
the hurdy-gurdy player we just heard.
Bourree by Nigel Eaton, and that was played by Nigel Eaton on the hurdy-gurdy, Ian Luff on bass guitar, and Lisa Povey keyboards.
Now you know we began this program with talking about singing to the vacuum cleaner. And during that last suite, I happened to notice that whoever cleaned this studio last left the vacuum in here.
So, you know, why take my word for it? If you don't already know the pleasures of singing to the vacuum cleaner, I'm going to show you. I brought it over here, let me turn it on.
Amazing grace How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
Oh, I was lost But now have found
Was blind But now can see
Boy, that feels good. Hey, here's another idea.
Boy, it's good to see this studio clean for a change. And that's Sickly Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
by the National Endowment for the Arts, 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 number 72.
And this is Peter Sickley saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. Hey, you're looking good. See you next week.
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned,
send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Sickly Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Sickly Mix. Care of Public Radio International,
100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, MN 55403.
PRI, Public Radio International.