Your Favourite Instrument?
Posted by David Wright on 1 April 2008 - 7:57pm.
It's a simple question, but do you have a favourite instrument?
I'm a strong lover of all things brass, but have over the past few years fallen in love with the sound of the accordian; used particularly effectively by The Gotan Project in recent years.
I suspect the guitar will come in as a popular choice, but you never know, the Hawaiian nose flute, may also be a popular choice.
Any clips also welcome, the performer below has a typing speed of 750 wpm.
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After The Who...
...released Join Together, the Jew's harps were fair fleeing out of the door of the tiny, tatty, shop on Maidenhead's Station Approach as if they'd been tipped off about the promised land. The shopkeeper even moved the penknives and sovereign rings to one side to make enough room in the window to exploit this sudden phenomenon. Never saw one before or since, so I vote Jew's harp and if I can't have that I'll take the oboe.
A pedant writes
The Gotan Project sound isn't an accordion proper; it's the traditional tango instrument, a bandoneon, smaller than an accordion but bigger than a concertina. It has a characteristic mournful sound - more like a Larry Adleresque harmonica than a pumping accordion.
Here's a rather cool clip about it:
Here's some beautiful bandoneón playing
in a piece written by the unassailable tango maestro Astor Piazzolla, also featuring Yo Yo Ma on cello - which I think I have settled on as the instrument that gets me *right there* most often...
Accordian Failure
Sadly, the clip doesn't work, have you any others?
Whoops
Sorry, message above was intended for the clip futher up. Thanks for this, beautiful stuff, any other accordian recommendations?
You just can't find this kind of music in Scarborough.
System Failure
Thanks, but the clip doesn't work, have you any others?
When that happens...
and you get the "Sorry but this clip is no longer available", try double-clicking on the image and it'll open the full YouTube page rather than the embedded link. Then it should work.
From the fringes......
....an enthusiast writes: just give me bagpipes and banjo and I'm a happy man. Not necessarily in the same song.
bagpipes and a banjo?
Crikey, if you were Bertie Wooster, can you *imagine* what Jeeves would have to say about that!
Real drums, loose
Modern recordings seem always to employ a click track which means that a loose and 'real' feel from the drummer is lost, replaced by immaculate precision and exact but formulaic fills. I miss real drummers even if they might speed up a bit when the song gets going and their heart races in time with the drama of the song.
I noticed this very recently when my Elbow and Felice Bros CDs arrived on the same day. The latter has that loose feel (albeit with quite limited drums) and when I switched to the former it felt that it might as well have been a drum machine.
Lets hear it for real drums!
Dave Mattacks, Simon Kirke, Jaki Liebezeit (sp?), Sly Dunbar, to give a quartet across the genres. Am I alone, however, in finding that most jazz drummers are a bit annoying, whether the Billy Cobhams or the 50's habit of a dble bass and a drum solo in every bloody track......
Keep Music Live
Agree with your comments re the drumming on Elbow. A lot of the tracks do have a slightly sequenced feel to them.
gob iron
The harmonica for me... some things I like:
Warren Zevon's solo on Splendid Isolation
Juke by Little Walter, also his solo on Muddy's I'm Ready
Mighty Long Time by Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller)
Anything by, or featuring Sonny Terry
Dylan on the Albert Hall concert
Ryan Adams track I Taught Myself how to Grow Old (no idea who plays on this)
John Hammond's solo on Pony by Tom Waits
...and many more.
Theremin
...hand's down.