The time is 11 o'clock. Shickley Mix is next. Well, are you ready, Mr. Shickley? What difference does it make? 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.
And goodness gracious, how good it is to be able to say that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this peachy keen radio station,
which provides me with the wherewithalial infrastructure necessary to produce these supersaturated clusters of musicological ontology, which clusters are then thrown to the winds and wolves
by PRI, Public Radio International. You know, for the sake of mental health, it's a good idea to be careful and consciously aware of your successes,
your talents and accomplishments, as well as your failings. Sometimes I get to feeling pretty low. I start thinking about how, as a composer,
I don't have any students to carry on the tradition. And, well, here I am over 60 years old, and my music is not recorded in its entirety like Mozart's and Webern's. And even as a comedian,
I don't have a whole book devoted to my witticisms, the way Richard Nixon did, but when I'm feeling down like that, all I have to do is remind myself
that there is one thing that I'm very, very good at. I can call cows. I'm not kidding. I can come upon a field with cows in it, pull the car over to the side of the road,
walk over to the fence and start mooing. And nine times out of ten, the cows will look up, listen for 10 or 15 seconds, and then start walking over towards me. Back in the early 50s,
my brother and our friend Ernie and I, right around the time, as a matter of fact, that the three of us recorded the Sanka Cantata, which was the beginning of the great P.D. Kubach revival, David and Ernie and I made an eight-millimeter movie
called How High Brows Thou, Brown Cow. The title line came from a poem in the comic strip Pogo. The film was shot on location north of Fargo, and the plot was my brother played an artist
who sets up his easel at the edge of a bovine-filled field and starts mooing. Painting the bucolic scene. I played a guy who, for no apparent reason, pulls up about 50 yards down the road,
gets out of his car and starts mooing to the cows. It was a silent movie, by the way, except for an independently recorded musical score, but the idea came across. It was pretty obvious what I was doing.
Before long, the cows start moving over towards me, and the artist is infuriated by this disruption of the visual composition of the scene he was painting.
One shot shows the cows running towards me. It takes a lot to make a cow run. Now, let me tell you this, folks, that the reason, the only reason, that How High Brows Thou, Brown Cow
was never up for an Oscar in the special effects category is because there were no special effects. The only thing that caused those cows to walk and then run was my mooing.
Fortunately, there was a fence between me and them. I say fortunately because, you know, I'm a cow, and, you know, I'm a cow. There were a lot of disappointed cows on the other side of that fence. So anyway, then the enraged painter starts running after the cow caller,
and from then on, it's a typical Hollywood action flick, One Big Chase. Although, I don't think there is a fraction small enough to represent the budget of our film
as compared to that of a Hollywood action flick. Let's see, eight millimeter film was about maybe 10 bucks a pop at most, and that movie was a single reeler, I think. And our parents were paying for the gas.
My character did end up sitting in about a foot and a half of water in a muddy ditch beside the road, but I doubt if I had to throw those clothes away. I don't know, maybe the shoes. You know, with my brother and friends,
and later my wife and other friends, I was involved in a lot of eight and 16 millimeter movies between the ages of 12 and 31. I should get those things transferred to video.
Although, I'm very old fashioned about that. The movie image is so much more beautiful than the video. Even those home movies, some of them look gorgeous.
I can remember in 1964, we made one in Berkeley called Yo Jumbo, and the... Okay, okay, okay. It's hard to argue with the old irrelevancy alarm this time.
But I did have a reason for stepping into this cow business. I just wanted to point out that throughout history, various human beings have gotten very good at imitating various other animals.
Now, of course, I'm sure that one of the oldest uses of that talent was to improve the supper menu. But it's also often an expression of admiration for the animal.
And I'll bet that the practice of adapting animal sounds to human music is at least as old as the line about how courtship is when a man chases a woman until she catches him.
We're talking about cave persons here. But what we're interested in on today's show is not simple imitations of animals and other things, on the one hand, or songs about animals and other things, on the other hand,
but rather a combination of those two things. Songs in which the human voice actually imitates animals and other things. We'll start with the avian sweetlet,
whose two numbers last about seven and a half minutes. See you then.
Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo La compré por la mañana y a la tarde se perdió
Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo
Co-ó-ocinos lá, mis vecinos, los que estáis alrededor
Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo
¿Habéis visto una gallina que ayer tarde se perdió?
Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo
Yo no siento la gallina, ni el dinero que costó
Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clo
Thank you.
If they would only let me disconnect this phone during the show. Hello? Well, who is this?
Look, it's very rude to start a conversation with who is this. You tell me who you are and I'll tell you who I am. Okay, how do you do?
I'm Peter Shickley, the host of Shickley Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. Well, look... Okay, that's very interesting, but now that you've got me on the phone, what do you want?
Oh, no, I'm sorry. Well, it's just... It's not the place, you know. It's sorry, but I really ought to get on with the show. Goodbye.
I was afraid that would happen. I suppose now everybody wants to hear me call cows. Listen, folks, it's one thing out there in the middle of the country, but... It's sitting in a radio studio.
You know, you can't help but feel self-conscious. By the way, I should probably mention... that I've tried it in Switzerland and Sweden, and those European cows don't seem to understand my accent.
And, you know, I'm not even saying that what I do sounds exactly like a cow. I'm just saying that it has a demonstrable effect on cows, even though I'm not going to demonstrate it.
Today's show is called Vox Omnia, and we're talking about how the human voice can, or at least tries to, imitate almost anything, and often does so in a musical context.
I'm not going to tell you what animals are going to be imitated next, but I call this pair of pieces the Philino-Simeon Sweetlet. Oh, yeah, and that's right.
We do have a very old recording alert here. The second one is a very old recording. V-O-R. I'll be back in about nine minutes.
Meow. Meow.
Meow.
Meow. Meow.
Meow.
Meow. Meow.
Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.
Meow.
Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.
Meow.
Okay, the Filaino Simeon Sweetlet. I bet I gave it away there, didn't I?
It began with the cat's duet, the Duetto Buffo di Due Gatti by Rossini. At least it's always been said to be by Rossini.
Now, according to the liner notes on this album, On Wings of Song, it's duets with Felicity Lott and Anne Murray.
According to these liner notes, it is now ascribed to a certain Robert Lucas Pearsall. So maybe it isn't by Rossini after all.
Anyway, it's an often performed fun piece for classical singers. And then we had from Bali, the Ketyak, the Monkey Dance.
And this is the Gamelan Orchestra and Singers of Pliatan, Indonesia. And this is the Gamelan Orchestra and Singers of Pliatan, Indonesia. And imitation certainly doesn't get much more literal than that.
Okay, and now it's tidbit time here in the peaceable kingdom. Like everything else, the art of imitating animals has been taken over by technology. A hunter can buy a duck call in a sporting goods store.
He doesn't have to learn how to do it with his mouth. But that ten buck duck call is... Hey, I wonder if you can get a ten duck buck call. I doubt it. Anyway, that ten buck duck call...
...is small potatoes compared to a sampler. With digital sampling technology, you can record any sound at all, including any animal sound,
and play it back at any pitch you want. This kind of thing is done all the time now. The world has truly become sampler's planet. We've all heard humans imitate animals.
But these days, perhaps for the first time in history, we can hear animals imitating humans. This seal, for instance, feels good.
James Brown's I Got You, also known as I Feel Good, performed by Sealy Dan. From an album called Barnyard Beat on Kid Rhino, appropriately enough.
Although, actually, the rhinoceros is one of the few animals that is not, as far as I can recall, represented on the album.
Well, to be truthful, there are a lot of animals not represented.
Such as the alpaca, the bush baby, the crayfish, the dingo, the emu, the ferret, the gecko, the hellbender, the ibis.
The jaguar, the kangaroo, the lemmink, the marmot, the nyala, the octopus, the panda, the quagga, the rabbit and Peter Schiekely, the host of Schiekely Mix.
From PRI Public Radio International. Vox omnia. Humans are not content to imitate other animals. They'll use their voices to imitate other instruments.
What if, for instance, you are some Russian peasants, and you want to dance, but there are no instruments handy. Well, you set up a soloist in a vocal group and the vocal group
imitates a balalaika with their voices.
Podyazyk, performed by an amateur vocal group in the Volgogod district of Russia. Apparently, they call it a dance to the tongue when singers imitate instruments for dancing. But you know,
they're really imitating the instrument in a very general way. Here are some humans really imitating instruments. I guess I'll call it the instrumental soloist.
Sweet. And before I start it rolling, I want to point out that the first number is completely a cappella. No instruments at all. Now, the upper voices, although they're singing instrumental
lines, are not even trying to imitate instruments. But I want to make sure you know that there is nobody playing bass or drums on the first cut. See you in ten.
Hold the tiger, hold the tiger, hold the tiger, hold the tiger, hold the tiger, hold the tiger.
Where's that tiger? Where's that tiger? Is that tiger? Where's that tiger? Is that tiger? Where's that tiger? Is that tiger?
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
well even if you don't know french some of the words are pretty recognizable there especially
towards the end but various parts of it sound to me as if they could be a horse race and the
birdhouse at the zoo and some of those Balinese monkeys and that phone phone phone could have been
somebody imitating Charlie Mingus or some other heavy-duty bass player but of course it's called the war I'm sure you heard victoire at the end there I'm gonna play it again but first here are
the lyrics first we start with fun fire with fun fun that's all right I'm gonna play it again but it's all just translated as noises of battle here this is by the way the king singer singing
and then to the standard straightway advanced spur on your mounts ye cavalry and then more
battle noises blast and boom bombards and cannons thunder great curtals and falcons to help our
countrymen more noises of battle that's the phone phone phone part courage courage strike your blows pilfer plunder dub and Lear I must say I don't know what dubbing means I'm sure
they don't mean overdubbing kill to the death take courage strike kill gentle gallants be valiant
strike on press on grind your steel gobble them up alarm alarm they are in confusion they are lost
they are showing their heels pursue the cowards the jangling rabble they are defeated victory to
noble King Francis pursue all is lost by God this is to commemorate an actual battle that took place
in I guess dub is like I hear by W Knight of the Realm or something anyway so the end is victory
to noble King Francis pursue all is lost by God and if you're wondering about that sudden change
of mood all is lost by God the last few words are in German in the original so I suppose that they are being spoken by the vanquished foreign
let's get back to the
Donne prie, donne gros portes aux consulats, aux sublèges compagnon, les compagnon, les compagnon, les compagnon, les compagnon, les compagnon, les consulat.
Thank you.
The King's Singers, performing La Guerre by Jeannequin, who wrote it as a four-voice piece, and then another composer named Verdelot came along and added a fifth voice. They used to do that kind of thing.
Well, let's go out with another little bit from that. Let's go out with that Barnyard Beat album. Let's see. Maybe The Lion Sleeps Tonight, performed by Lion L. Ritchie,
which actually features a lot of birds who are actually playing the melody. Hello? Hello, sir. All right. I have to.
I don't have much time left, okay? I will. Okay. All right. It was like this. It goes.
Okay.
That little crack in the voice, I think, is what really got the cows running. Me.
Me.
Me. Me.
Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.
Me.
Me. Me.
Me.
Me. Me. 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.
Thank you, 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 album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 118. And this is Peter Shikley 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.
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Shikley Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Shikley Mix. Care of Public Radio International,
100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.
PRI, Public Radio International.