a silent summer

This summer, I was quite spooked by the total absence of wasps around here, and after I read that they have also been missing elsewhere in the UK, that was a good enough excuse to write up a feature on their ecological importance. And start it in my own garden.

The wonderful world of wasps

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 17, 9 September 2024, Pages R795-R797

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2024.

The thread for 2023 is here .

The common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) is widely seen as a nuisance, especially in the late summer, when its workers are desperate for sugary food. (Photo: © Roman Eisele (CC BY-SA 4.0).)

two bass recorders

Just two days after I posted about the recorder family, a long-awaited email came in telling me that the two recorders I had ordered back in September were now ready for delivery. As I love my Triebert alto, I had ordered the Triebert bass as a birthday treat and the garklein to complete the size range at the smaller end. And in February, as I was losing faith in that delivery ever arriving, I found the Thomann bass for € 70 at a fleamarket in Germany.

So now I have two bass recorders to compare, and the funny thing is they are externally identical (apart from the two-colour scheme in the Thomann while the Triebert is all matt black), clearly molded from the same cast (or whatever the process is to make plastic recorders) but a few details reveal that the Triebert may be getting a better quality control treatment.

• The keys are very flimsy and noisy on the Thomann, which Sarah Jeffery also criticised in her review, and blamed on the plastic material. Funny thing is, the keys on the Triebert are the same plastic in the same shape, and they are much firmer to the touch and consequently don't make that horrid noise when they're released. Peering underneath I notice a subtle difference in the metal spring: straight for the Thomann, kinked in the Triebert. So at some point I will take the Thomann keys apart and see if it helps if I make the springs more kinky.
• The joints are fitting perfectly in the Triebert. In the Thomann, the first joint from bottom is a bit tight, the second a bit loose, an the one near the kink (which can stay connected for packing up but is needed to access all places for cleaning) was so tight that I first believed it was glued together and didn't dare to force it open. Only after I saw that the Triebert came apart effortlessly at this joint did I manage to do the same with the Thomann.

Both are really easy to play and sound nice and breezy. You could use them for meditation like a didgeridoo just blowing the bottom F.

As Sarah has explained in her video, the tuning around B and Bb doesn't work with the standard fingering printed on the sheet that comes with the instrument (but funnily enough doesn't even mention the existence of bass recorders, it is marked for sopranino through to tenor!), but this can be compensated with clever fingering (eg no little finger for the Bb). Both come with identical accessories, only that each company had its brand name printed on the bag. Which I find hilarious as it shows each screaming "we made this" when clearly they didn't. I also note that both instruments came with a cleaning rod that is the size used for tenor recorders and concert flutes (it has the mark that you need for adjusting the cork on the flute). A slightly longer stick would be handy for the bass. Another DIY project I guess.

Oh and I could in principle assemble a vast number of hybrid instruments from the different parts, although for the aesthetic I do prefer the all black style of the Triebert.

So in summary, online shop prices are a factor 2.6 apart (£ 105 vs £ 275) and what you get for the higher price is a slightly better quality, but maybe not 2.6 times better? Note that the Yamaha YRB302II Bass Recorder is available at an intermediate price between these two, but by the looks of the photos online I guess it may also come from the same factory as these two?

And here's the updated family portrait, now including all recorders (except one ancient school soprano that has gone missing years ago but must be in the house somewhere):

Basses: Thomann, Triebert; tenor: Yamaha; altos: Triebert, Moeck; sopranos: Moeck, Schneider; sopranino: Yamaha; garklein: Triebert - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, Triebert bass and garklein from the Early Music Shop, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, except my old school recorder and the Moeck alto in German fingering.

PS When I took the Thomann bass to a session earlier this month, a folkie friend told me she currently has three bass recorders to sell - these things are like London buses ...

PPS I've now added the all instruments tags to this entry - think I'm giving up on the formal structure of that series (which portrayed the oldest 21 instruments of our household in chronological order until Covid came along) and will now add instruments if and when I feel inspired to write about them. More exciting to write about the new arrivals than about the yamaha keyboard I bought twenty years ago. I've now also added the tag to the entries about Jenny the cello and two of the rescue fiddles I adopted.

vintage postcards

I got a bit obsessed with vintage postcards when I researched my lost cities series, and word got out, so a generous Santa helped me build a collection of beautiful books with such postcards, covering some of the lost cities and some others too:

The books typically date from the late 1970s, but those of the two cities that are no longer part of Germany (Breslau and Königsberg) date from the 1990s. Hence they all qualify for my much-neglected antiquarian tag. I still haven't quite figured out the rules predicting which places got into the series and which didn't. Regensburg, for instance, didn't make it. There may be an element of luck in that too.

a battered old violin

After successfully restoring my late aunt's violin and playing it for a few months, I started thinking I'd like to do some more pirate lutherie and put up a call for broken string instruments on the local Freegle group. This was first posted in May 2023 and gets auto-reposted regularly - and sometimes I update it.

Now, for the first time I have actually obtained an instrument from somebody in response to this post, a battered old violin:

There wasn't much background info available. The person who kindly replied to my Freegle call had inherited from their late uncle who was a pianist, and they weren't sure why he had a violin at all, as he wasn’t known to have played it. Other relatives had it looked at by Oxford Violins who said it is not valuable. Judging by the case (woodpulp/cardboard lined with felt, see photo) it could be from the 1930s like my aunt's but in a higher price bracket. No mark or label of any kind. The bow (hair cut out) is by Herrmann , a known maker family in Vogtland, Germany.

Intriguingly, the case contained an itemised luthier’s bill from Dec 1985 for

rehair   £ 12.65
repair to violin
shoot fingerboard, new bridge
clean & polish, glue seams, tailgut   £ 103.50
set strings   £ 10.33
4 adjusters   £ 2.05
total cost   £128.53,

which is almost £400 in 2024 pounds. Extrapolating from today’s cost of bow rehairs would even suggest £ 700. The bill is from John & Arthur Beare in London, who have a reputation as specialists in old violins according to their Wikipedia entry.

UPDATE 5.5.2025: more about this company in the obituary of Charles Beare who died in April 2025. I'm feeling quite honoured to think that he may have touched this violin as well as all those Stradivari and Guarneri instruments mentioned in the obituary. 2nd update: Guardian obituary

After them, somebody less qualified must have messed with the instrument, as I found all four strings attached to wrong pegs. At least the soundpost solidly in place and the bridge was kept separately in the case, so I was able to set it up in less than one hour.

The body is battered and scarred with various repairs but solid. The instrument settled in within 24 hours and sounds lovely to my not very demanding ears - even with the old strings which may well date from 1985 - notably better in the lower register than the other violins I've played so far. The old school tailpiece is fitted with 4 adjusters (as per the luthier's bill). The chinrest has an awkward shape with a rather steep edge. It has no cork,just glued paper on the clamp side and two felt tabs on the chin side. The case contained two packs of rosin: one Hiddersine unused, one Sonella in fragments, also a mute made of horn. And three unidentified spare strings.

Only one moan so far. Taking off the chinrest to look at the seam underneath it (which was ok), I discovered that somebody appears to have renovated (presumably sanded and re-varnished?) the top without taking off the chinrest. Like wallpapering around a small item of furniture. I think the appropriate pirate luthier response to this is: Arrrrrrgh. I'm slightly worried now that the same person may have effed up other things I haven't discovered yet, such as using the wrong kind of varnish or glue. Then again, can't complain about a gift horse and all that. I am aiming to keep this one to play it myself, but have already lent out another one that I restored to a young musician. If and when I am able to rescue more stray instruments the general plan is to make them available to players on a non-profit basis.

all about the bass

It emerged recently that Cowley Orchestra owns a double bass, which had been lent out to members of another orchestra and forgotten about. Now it has been returned and as I vaguely remember I had double bass lessons for a few years, forty years ago, I offered to host it until we’ve figured out what to do with it. Conceivably, if any bass player came to Oxford without a bass, they could borrow it and hopefully play with us on Wednesdays.

So, well, the instrument looks like this (adding bass-holder to the many uses of a cajón):

and it came with a whole bag of sheet music and learning material like this one copyright 1949:

Some of these are marked and dated by Captain E. W. Geidt who lived in Bradmore Road, North Oxford, with dates between 1957 and 1961. I am told that he used to move the double bass around in a wheelbarrow and that his daughter also played with Cowley before my time, so either of them appears to have donated / bequeathed the instrument to us. The internet seems to think EW stands for Edward Wollaston, but as these are also the middle names of the eponymous ethics advisor to a disgraced former prime minister, we’ll just have to call the bass “the Captain”.

The instrument looks in good shape for its age, and appears to be well made and still solid throughout. There are even purfling-style inlays running up its neck which look like a luxury feature to me:

I am not quite happy with the bow though, which appears to be breaking up:

and the frog is too small for the German-style bow hold which I prefer. The green book shown above calls this style the Bottesini bow and the kind I used way back when the Dragonetti bow, adding that the latter "is not much used in this country."

Other accessories that came with it include a very lovely home-made wooden spike holder:

as well as five packs of rosin probably dating from as many different decades, guarded by a dead beetle (could be a maybeetle/cockchafer, not sure?):

I tried playing a few lines of the Simandl etudes which I played a lot back in the days, but realised it’s pretty exhausting, so I guess I won’t try to play this at orchestra …

Here it is then, waiting for a more energetic player and just about fitting in the cello corner (the cello found space in a different corner):

an old family fiddle

The last time I visited my aunt at Tulette (Drome, France), we were talking about the young cellist in my family, and it suddenly occurred to her that she once had a violin, growing up in Aachen in the 1930s, never got on with it, but the instrument was still buried in her attic in Tulette.

When her house was cleared out after she died, my cousin found this violin and was surprised as he hadn’t heard the story of his mother’s failure to learn the instrument back in Aachen. In June I visited my cousin and retrieved said violin with a view to bring it back to life. It looked like this:

i.e. soundpost, bridge, chinrest, and three strings missing, no bow, a bit scratched, but otherwise ok. In the photo it sports an improvised bridge I made from half a bamboo ring. I kind of like the dark look with the light borders and I don’t mind the scratches. So I took it to a luthier for an appraisal and was quoted £250 (plus strings) to get it into shape, with the perspective that it might be worth up to £500 in perfect condition. Not a really good instrument but “good enough for folk” as we like to say in folk circles, semi-ironically.

While I was pondering whether or not to do this, I discovered at Oxfam an old book on The Making of Stringed Instruments for £ 4 (George Buchanan, 1989). As it happens, it contains a very useful page on the part I thought I couldn’t do, namely putting the soundpost inside the instrument. I cut the post from a random bit of wood I had lying around. Turns out with a bit of wire bent to make a holder, a tool I made from a broken spoke, and four or five attempts, I was able to fit it in. One crucial bit of information from the book was that one can easily unplug the peg that holds the tailpiece, and thus get a hole through which one can actually see the placement of the soundpost very nicely.

I bought a bridge online for £ 2.50, and the book was again very helpful on how to shape it correctly. I had a set of violin strings sitting around which I put on (I kept the historic E string though, see how long it lasts!), and now it’s beginning to look like a proper violin:

(in the battered historic case which is lovely but not very practical for sessions, it doesn't offer much protection and doesn't have shoulder straps)

And it may be me having a Pygmalion moment here, but I do like the sound of it. Will practice a little to be able to record a video that’s not too much out of tune. UPDATE: Here's my attempt at playing Bear dance and Hunt the squirrel on day 7 of trying to play the fiddle.

Meanwhile I spotted a Stentor student fiddle at Gumtree sold for £ 25 from an address where I cycle past every week, so I picked that up on my way – it came with two bows, and I’ll probably use the case and the chinrest for the old fiddle. It also had two packs of rosin, one new and one maybe used three times.

Oh, and with hindsight, looking at the old photos taken in my grandmother’s flat at Idar-Oberstein, I recognise the violin case sitting on top of the piano (eg here and here). Better than the attic, and I do wonder whether it was ever used in those years (until 1961).

Along with Heinrich the cello, Frieda the piano, and Blue the guitar, this is the fourth instrument we have that’s been in the family for more than half a century (and I’m not even counting my school recorder, which isn’t a very good one). In this sense, this should have been episode 3 in the much-neglected all instruments series, but it comes in at number 22. Oh, and maybe I should list my house as a shelter for neglected instruments.

Update 2.12.2022 After I figured out where the gears and the brakes are on this thing, I began to realise that the historic E string didn't sound as good as the new strings, so I replaced that one as well. And with the full set of new (Dominant) strings, the instrument is really sounding quite lovely. Oh, and I'm creating a violin tag, as I feel I will obsess about this instrument some more.

the view from above

An aerial photo showing my house and dating from 1947 has become available from Historic England, and as the site doesn't let me steal it, I'll just have to embed it here:

That's Marston Road running alongside the right edge of the frame, and Parsons Pleasure near the middle of the left edge.

I've previously summarised what we know about the history of the house here (not much progress since then).

poly-oc

All our instruments series, episode 21


So, well, a year ago I started this series thinking with just under 50 instruments and 52 weeks to a year, I should get through in a year or so. In the event, I got 20 done and the total number of instruments in the house went up by a dozen, so give me another four years and I may have caught up.

Anyhow, we're still stuck in the 00s, which is when the young musician was at primary school and learned to play a plastic ocarina called poly-oc (TM). I think the school handed out both the instruments and the instruction book, as I don't recall buying either. They were produced from 1988-2004 according to this website, so we just caught the tail end of them.



It irritates me that I don't really understand the physics of the ocarina - so wouldn't be able without the fingering table to tell you which combination of open holes might produce which note. (The Ocarina Workshop website says the location of the holes doesn't matter, and they are all different sizes, so is it just the combined size of the open holes that determines the pitch?)

Still, the book has a little diagram for each note, so even I can play a tune with that help. So for the video I tried Au clair de la lune.

the Galway method

All our instruments series, episode 20

In the early 00s, still, the young musician got a tin whistle starter kit as a present from her cello teacher, including a tin whistle in D with James Galway's signature on it and a 16-page brochure with Galway's method. I'm a little bit allergic to the pompous "the man with the golden flute" image that has been created around Galway, so I find it refreshing that he also bothered with cheaper instruments like the tin whistle at some point.



The book has the address of Rose-Morris & Co. - that's still the name of a shop in London, but I think back in the days they were also instrument makers, so they may or may not have made the whistle. The company history is here with all sorts of exciting instruments, but I find no reference to whistles.

For the video I've attempted to play the Muiñeira Freixido, a traditional tune from the repertoire of our Galician session, which fits exactly within the bottom octave of the whistle:



I enjoy playing whistles every once in a while, although I am not all too keen on the sound of this one. I'm sure better ones will cross my path. I often have this one in my bag when I go out to play, just in case somebody needs a whistle.

rattle and hum

All our instruments series, episode 19


Some time back in the early 00s, I visited the PMT shop on Cowley Road, with a view to buy an electronic keyboard for the young musicians, but was left more confused than I had been before (I did buy a keyboard eventually but not on that day and not in this shop, will get back to that further down the line). So while I was wondering about touch-sensitive keys and pre-programmed accompaniments, I spotted an array of brightly coloured tambourines, and bought the yellow one as a displacement activity. I remember the shop assistant was amused by the plot twist.

It's from a US company called RhythmTech, and the range is called True Colors - looks like they still make them in 5 different colours and you can still buy the yellow one eg from Amazon (although I think it was a lot cheaper back then). Apparently the company's founder invented the crescent shape tambourine in an effort to have the centre of gravity of the instrument closer to the wrist and make playing less tiring, see the company's about page.

Although I haven't played it much (and certainly not enough to feel the pressing need for an energy-saving crescent shaped one), the tambourine has enjoyed its moments in the spotlight, as I brought it to the Misa Campesina, where the conductor used it a few times in the rehearsals and in the performance.



For the video I just gave it a quick shake - these things are really quite loud ...

x is for ...

All our instruments series, episode 18

... no not for xylophone, we've had that already, and I only have one (not counting silly toy versions). X is for xaphoon, and here's my xaphoon story:

In July 2002, I was heading to Paris for a microbiology conference, via Germany to deposit various kids with various grandparents. At the start of the journey, however, I put my back out moving luggage around on trains, and the extended travels over three days didn't help, so I arrived in Paris not being able to sit. Instead of attending the conference, I spent the first few days dividing my time between walking around (a bit) and lying flat on my back (a lot) on the nice slope along the side of the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg).

Arriving at my lying down place one day I was puzzled to hear somebody playing a saxophone very loud and clear but not seeing any saxophone. Following my ears while wondering what was wrong with my eyes I found a guy who was selling this new invention, the pocket sax, aka Xaphoon, out of his bag and demonstrating it in the street. Another customer attracted by the sound tried it and also produced a very convincing sax sound from this recorder-size instrument. So I bought one - I think it cost me 25 euros, and nowadays Hobgoblin sells them for £109, so it was a good investment. Although in my hands it doesn't really sound like a saxophone. But then again, in my hands a saxophone doesn't sound like one either.



Looking up the Wikipedia entry, I found out it really was quite a new invention when I bought it. The instrument molded from ABS resin was only made from the spring of 2000. Previously, the inventor, Brian Wittman, had made bamboo xaphoons at his home in Hawaii.

I do like it but never really got the hang of playing it properly. I'm facing two problems, firstly I don't really like the pressure of a reed on my lower lip, which limits each practice session to five minutes, and secondly, while the right hand is straight recorder fingering (German system, so very simple), the left hand fingering is weird. Unlike a recorder, the xaphoon wants four fingers on the left hand put down for G, and lifting fingers off one at a time you then get A Bb (!) and C, and then the thumb comes off before the index finger for D and E. Which is probably to do with the fact that the thumb hole is located at the height where recorders have the first finger hole and vice versa. So very confusing if you're used to recorders.

Anyhow. As I haven't had much practice, this video is really just a demonstration of what the xaphoon sounds like when it is played badly. Enjoy.

let it rain

All our instruments series, episode 17

I was meaning to progress with this series faster than the number of instruments under my roof increases, but I am losing this race (more than 40 instruments behind at the moment). Anyhow, after that slightly challenging set of panpipes here's another find from the lovely Tumi shop which I am still missing (it's been gone for more than a decade):



It is still listed at Tumi online as rainstick medium, but sadly sold out.

It wasn't terribly popular with the children, first because it is a bit short for a rainstick and then because we also had a big one made from transparent plastics where you could watch the beads percolating as well as listen to their sound, which was more attractive as a toy. (In fact I still have that one, too, but as it is clearly a toy and also a bit unwieldy as a percussion instrument, I haven't put it on my list of musical instruments.)

However, the medium rainstick is in the elite group of instruments that get to go out regularly, as it lives in the box of random percussion instruments that I take to Galician sessions. And I do remember seeing people using it at the sessions, so all's well that ends well.

Here's a demonstration of the sound (note that it sounds a lot better when it touches the wooden shelf which also supports the camera):

just blow

All our instruments series, episode 16

Approaching the millennium, we're now firmly in the realm of instruments bought for the children with various flimsy excuses. This one was a present for the young flautist in the family, but never found much use. Trying to record a half-decent video with it, I realised why - it isn't all that easy to get a proper sound out of it. Even though I spend a fair amount of time each day producing sounds by blowing across a similar-sized hole on a flute, this set of panpipes seems to want a different kind of embouchure or angle or I don't know what. I'm only playing the bottom row anyway, as the access to the top row seems to be limited by my chin colliding with the pipes of the bottom row. So this instrument seems to be trouble all round, but it is very decorative dangling from the shelves.



(The background texture in this photo is another instrument to be discussed later in the series ... )

It doesn't have any marks re origin or maker, and I can't remember where I bought it. May have been from Tumi, who had a lovely Latin American / Fairtrade shop in Little Clarendon Street in the 90s. Nowadays I believe the company still exists but only trades online. Oooh, good guess, here are the pipes, still: Zampona 11/12, although sadly sold out at the moment.

So, anyhow, here's my rather embarrassing series of attempts to play some notes on it:



I do like the sound though, on the rare occasions when I manage to produce it.

a wide ranging instrument

All our instruments series, episode 15

Next up is another harmonica - we've had this one since the early noughties, but I don't quite remember how it came into the family. I'm quite sure I didn't buy it, but may have been a present the children received from their grandparents.

The writing on it says Bontempi Classic - Made in China, so that was all I knew about it. Wikipedia tells me that Bontempi is actually an Italian company founded in 1937 and famous for cheap instruments and musical toys. They still have a harmonica that looks exactly like ours.



Looking at it now for this series, to figure out what it can do, I realised it has an amazing range, covering a C major scale over 3 octaves and a bit from a low C to a squeaky E (plus, weirdly, the G below the beginning of the scale). That's more than I can do on my flute, although I believe proper flautists can also reach the fourth octave E with extended techniques. Unfortunately, the arrangement of notes obtained from inward vs. outward airflow appears to be a bit illogical, or at least different from what I am used to with my lovely Hohner Echo harmonica, so whenever I try to play something on this one, the attempt ends in confusion. So in the video I just demonstrate the range. I do wonder what you would want the range for ... (maybe two musicians getting along really well could play a duet cheek by jowl?)





PS This is the third harmonica in this series and you'll be relieved to learn that it also the last one - I only have these three and have no plans to buy any more.

i'm a tenor

All our instruments series, episode 14


ok, I'm not a tenor, but this recorder is one. I bought it in 2001 to play very simple flute duets with the young flautist in the family, but two years later I upgraded to a cheap flute, so this tenor never got to play that many duets.

It is a fairly standard Yamaha plastic thing with Baroque fingering (as opposed to the German fingering which I learned at school. There is an element in the sound of these plastic recorders that I don't like - later on in the series I'll come to recorders that I am much more excited about but I guess this one is ok, considering that it's a lot cheaper than the cheapest flute. I haven't taken it to any sessions so far, but I guess I should take it out every once in a while.

The Japanese company Yamaha, as I learned from Wikipedia, was founded in 1887 as a piano and reed organ manufacturing business and is now the world's largest maker of musical instruments. The eponymous motor cycles company is a spin-out from the corporation.



For the video I've played a C major scale over 2 octaves (only learned up to the E at school but have expanded my recorder technique a bit recently) and O son do ar by Luar na lubre, a tune that I often play but not on this instrument.

bongos

All our instruments series, episode 13


This lovely pair of bongos is an example of an instrument that I really like but don't take out of the house because it's quite heavy (for what it does).

We bought this for the children back in the 1990s, when there was still the Russell Acott music shop (It moved from the High Stree to Botley business park in 1998 and closed in 2011, after 200 years). There's a tiny tear in one of the drumskins but otherwise they have kept surprisingly well for a quarter of a century. Amazingly, all 8 rubber feet are still in place.




Wikipedia tells me that bongos originated in Cuba, but I have no idea where this particular pair was made, there seems to be no indication of a brand of any kind.

Just some random drum noises to give an impression of the sound (and my non-existent percussion skills):

next generation

All our instruments series, episode 12


After the instruments that already accompanied my misspent youth, we're proceeding in the chronological order to those acquired for the benefit of our children. The first of which is a lovely xylophone dating from 1992. But you can still get essentially the same model from the maker Sonor, which is another company from East Germany (Weißenfels an der Saale ) that moved westwards to Aue in Westphalia after 1945 (history is here).




The instrument counts as an alto and covers the C major scale from c1 to a2, and we have a Bb and both F# sticks for key changes. It has miraculously survived a sequence of three toddlers climbing over it and ripping off the sound bars, so I can recommend it to any young family.

In the video I've had a go at O du lieber Augustin - a tune we played at a session just this week, and upon looking it up I learned that the original Viennese song is about a bagpiper in Vienna during the Plague, who was thrown into a mass grave by mistake and survived thanks to playing his bagpipes - quite a story. Although the song is standard nursery rhyme fare in Germany, I had never heard the story behind it. I am told the English folk tradition links the tune to the words (strangely rhyming with the Augustin lyrics): You can't put your muck in our dustbin ...
And the second tune is Ganivelle, which we play at the French session.

tarka flute

All our instruments series, episode 9


Here's another recorder-type instrument that I've had since the 1980s at least, but I never even knew a thing about it (we didn't have wikipedia back then!). Based on the decoration style I assumed it was Mesoamerican, but I now found out it is a Tarka and they are believed to originate in Bolivia.



You can see immediately that the six holes are at equal distances and of equal size, so there is no way I could play notes of a Western type melody or scale, but it does allow some nice contrasting sounds. I am told in Bolivia it is used in carnival festivities. But as carnival has been and gone, I improvised some more subdued sounds on it:



Hey, I actually like the video. I should do improvised sounds more often in this series, rather than trying a set piece and making lots of mistakes.

ploink ploink

All our instruments series, episode 7

It appears that at some distant point in the 20th century, I fancied playing the banjo, and being very lazy, I didn't want to learn new fingerings, so I mentioned that there are banjos with guitar tuning, and sure enough I got a guitar banjo.



There are certainly times when I enjoy making that sharp ploinky sound, but I never quite liked it enough to put any effort into improving. The steel strings are very unpleasant under the fingers, the shape is awkward, the whole thing is too heavy, and strumming guitar chords on it sounds dreadful.

Also, while the drum head is a US brand (Remo), it pointedly distances itself from the rest of the instrument with the inscription "banjo head only" under the brand name. I assume they did this because the rest is cheaply made Korean stuff (Arirang), which is now becoming obvious as the plastic knobs of the machine heads have a tendency to break when you try to tune.

If all of that doesn't put you off banjos forever, here's my attempt at playing John Ryan's polka:



One day though I'll take the thing to a session just to shock people. First I'll actually have to practise a tune though, that's the problem.

I should also mention that a photo of this banjo played a pivotal role at the very beginning of the whole folk craziness going on in my family, so I'll give the old Arirang some credit for that.

first synthesizer

All our instruments series, episode 6

After five instruments made in Germany, here comes one from Japan and a very special one too. I visited the Museum of musical automata (Deutsches Musikautomatenmuseum) at Bruchsal, Germany, last summer and discovered they have not one but two specimens of the Casio VL-1 in their showcases. It counts as an automaton because you can program music on it, but its bigger claim to faim is that it was the first ever commercially available digital synthesizer. I've had it for nearly 40 years and didn't realise it was so important. Essentially I thought I had a calculator that could play tunes and make funny noises.



Own photo (I chose a close-up this time, cutting off the speaker and the calculator screen on the left, which aren't very interesting. For a pic of the whole instrument (not mine, but looking exactly identical), see Wikipedia).


Anybody old enough to remember tne new wave of German pop in the 1980s (Nena et al.) may have heard it in Da Da Da by Trio. Failing that, Wikipedia lists lots of other tracks on which the instrument was used. Versions disagree on its age by the way: the German Wiki says it was produced 1981-84, the English edition says it was released in June 1979. I definitely had mine no later than 1981. (Also, dear Wikipedia, why the past tense in the description how it works, mine works perfectly fine to this day!)


Its piano-esque keyboard covers 2.5 octaves, but the range can be moved up or down an octave, so that makes 4.5. Set sounds include approximations of piano, flute, violin, guitar, and a "fantasy" instrument. With flute and piano you can guess what it's aiming to be, but for the violin and guitar sound it's less obvious. But most importantly, what makes it a synth is the ADSR mode where you put an 8-digit number into the memory of the calculator, which determines the shape of the tone. One major limitation is that it is monophonic, playing only one note at the time, although you can play that note over a programmed rhythm.

For my video, I have defined my own, sharp synth sound to have a go at Popcorn (ADSR parameters: 71105500), and I've used the "flute" sound to play the song "Une jeune fillette" from the soundtrack of the early music movie Tous les matins du monde. I've also demonstrated the other set sounds and some of the rhythms, and let the machine play its demo track. (I'm using the pencils to press the keys so you can see what's going on, otherwise my hands would obscure much of the instrument!)