A little something from the world of Canadian musical theatre. Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a "sumptuous Klezmer-folk music-theatre hybrid" and it is very, very good.

Gorgeous.

Also, the engineering. The micing on the instruments. The mix.

I can only imagine how absolutely batshit it must be to hear this live.

I never knew chains dropped on a bin lid was something you could find in an orchestra. I fucking love this world.

Another way they do it is have the choir start standing in the audience and then walk backwards out of the hall.

...

Right? I know.

Our friend Mr. Ruger has some fun points on this topic; he introduced me to the score for The Matrix, for instance, where one of the key instruments is a waterphone.

(The Matrix actually makes several really interesting and, generally, pretty original sonic choices; frankly, I probably wouldn't even start with the waterphone, in the broader context of 'the sound of The Matrix' — I'd start with the saw-blade fanning-horn thing that happens when one horn chord fades into a dissonant-adjacent horn chord, and then talk about the highly-integrated handoff between concert-style and techno music [who said anything about Daft Punk and TRON?], and maybe the... look, we're not talking about this shit here, I'll shut up.)

If I recall correctly [from Alex's schpiel], when the composer says "this piece of music requires a fucking anvil to be hit with a fucking hammer," The Way Things Work is... they write it down in notation and write "Anvil Player" at the top of the sheet; if a notation doesn't exist, they invent it right then, and in any case, the thing that happens is they write down what someone is supposed to do with that anvil, because that's the composer's prerogative and it's the composer's art form. (T'was, anyway.)

An example from my own recollection might be the artillery sounds meant to be heard in the 1812 Overture. ("Meant" may be a strong word, but it's not something I'm making up.) You know this symphony; this part right here is the finale. Right where you think there should be a huge boom, and every time you think that — "buh-nuh nuh-nuh NUH-nuh nuh-nuh NAHH! NAHH! NAHH!" BOOM; repeat — the point is, the Russians are blowing up their own cities to spite the invading Napoleonic army. This "celebratory" musical vibe, which you've known your entire life — and which is celebratory, despite the following — is literally happening in the same context as, like, Rage Against The Machine screaming "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME." It's, like, psychotically making a final stand in an apparently-doomed fight to kill yourself before your enemy can kill you...

...and, in the case of the Russians in 1812, it worked. Ask me about Napoleon's retreat sometime. It's a schpiel.

(Never get involved in a land war in Asia.)

Anyway: Cannons! Artillery! When performed outdoors, anyway [ — if ever]. If I'm not mistaken, sometimes they even get local churches to ring their bells at certain points. It's a whole thing.

And it's in the score.

Music is cool.

Disclaimer: I could have been wrong about all of this — and if I was, what's changed since Down in Front, right?

I've been getting a little bored with the standard brass/bass/piano/drums hard bop lineup lately, so anything that deviates from it is very welcome. Cue my discovery of Allison Miller, whose lineup includes violin and clarinet.

Yep. Fantastic live!

I had it on vinyl back in the day. One of the biggest regrets I have is not going to see the Jeff Wayne live show when it was going. It had a projected face of Richard Burton above the orchestra - narrating as they played. It would have been sooo good!

edit: OOOOOOOllllllllaaaaaaahhh!

edit #2: The mother fucker is touring the uk next year! I thought he was brown bread!? Or atleast last I checked, he wasn't touring.  Earth invading aliens couldn't keep me away!

Last edited by Regan (2020-02-29 11:18:59)

A friend just introduced me to Pavel Chesnokov and, uh, fuck