Musical vehicles

Subject: Musical vehicles
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Mar 19 - 06:09 PM

Not real ones. Just listening to a bit of Pavarotti and he was singing about his Nissan Dorma - bile...

Subject: RE: Musical vehicl
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Mar 19 - 06:11 PM

Whoops. Missed 'es' from the heading. Can a nice elf glue it on please?

Subject: RE: Musical vehicl
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Mar 19 - 06:25 PM

Stockhausen envisaged using an old Volkswagen chassis as a musical instrument. I think Mikrophonie I has actually been done that way, though I only know the recording with tam-tam instead. (It's a really beautiful piece).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikrophonie_(Stockhausen)

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 04:05 AM

Kraftwerk ?

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 07:55 AM

Another Stockhausen-related one: some time after Cornelius Cardew led the Scratch Orchestra off into Maoism, they staged a demonstration at a Stockhausen premiere in London by turning up on their bicycles and playing them. (I can't find a report of this - the rationale is in Cardew's text "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism").

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 09:24 AM

Hey hey.. it's the Monkeemobile ...

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 09:39 AM

Steam locomotives are very musical. The driving rhythm of the wheels and pistons... The finely tuned note of the whistle... The choking smoke so reminiscent of 1970s musical venues...

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 01:14 PM

Once hopped a boxcar to study train rhythms. The drivers are in 4/4 and the top of the boxcar on the railing sends out the clicking of the tracks in 12/8 time. This is all reminiscent of
African drumming in its counter rhythms.

The piano players in the road houses in the Southwest heard the drivers of the trains and develop a style of playing called "Fast Western" which became known as "Boogie Woogie".
Listen to an early recording of Wesley Wallace playing, I think the name was, "Train 913" or something like that. Somebody here might know of it.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 03:34 PM

There is one classical piece based on the polyrhythms of a steam engine, the scherzo of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. He was a train buff (went along with his OCD personality) and had a specific model of loco in mind, one with a triple-expansion engine. It's the most rhythmically complex music of its time.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 04:06 PM

Not a piece I'd willingly listen to any more but Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231 evokes a lot of train sounds and rhythyms.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 05:22 PM

For another (hyper-realistic) piece of train music, look for the Iranian tombak player Hossein Tehrani doing "Diesel" - only on paid-for services like Spotify or on CD as far as I know. The whole thing is (incredibly) done in one take on one drum.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Tangledwood
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 06:34 PM

Never thought about this before but way back there was a Morris Minor and the less popular (?) Morris Major. Was the Minor a Major with a lower third gear ratio?

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: RTim
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 06:40 PM

The 1965 Morris Traveller (Minor with Wooden back) I drove had 4 forward gears and was amazingly roomy inside. I only got rid of it because I was hit in the rear by a backing up Milk Float, and it broke one of the wooden corner pieces.....very sad!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jos
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 03:54 AM

Villa-Lobos, Bachianas Brasilieras - The Little Train of the Caipira

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: BobL
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 04:00 AM

Musical vehicles? You mean like the Honda Ac-Chord?

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 04:47 AM

Didn't the Morris Phrygian ever make it to the market?

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 07:37 AM

I once met Steve Forman (then on a composition fellowship at Glasgow University), who had supported himself for a year in Los Angeles after arriving with nothing by creating music for film soundtracks. The only instrument he used was his Mazdaphone, a hubcap he found in a streambed threaded with the springs from a discarded Bullworker. So, you don't even need a complete vehicle.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: John P
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 05:32 PM

Draw bridges with metal grates make a tone when you drive across them. I was once in a car with a person who had previously determined the note of the bridge when his car went across it at 25 mph. Before we got to the bridge he gave us all our notes (five of us) and we made a chord with a really deep bass as we drove across.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 06:34 PM

Not so much about vehicles that make a musical noise, but I remember the early Tinto Festivals where participants were encouraged to hop on a bicycle and pedal like hell to generate enough electricty to power the PA system used by the various bands performing!

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 03:42 AM

Didn't the Morris Phrygian ever make it to the market?

Er dunno, but there was a convertable (sic) which would make it a Morris Aeolian.

notable for its airs?

FWIW I always found getting a MM (actually a Morris 1000) into first gear was easier if the car rolled backwards a touch, never stationary or forwards.

FWIW (a bit more) there is a thread in this parish about musical roads.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 04:55 AM

There's that YouTube of a parked tractor chugging out the tempo for the bluegrass band to play Sweet Georgia Brown....

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: BobL
Date: 23 Mar 19 - 03:27 AM

I've heard a narrowboat owner use his Bolinder single to provide a beat. Trouble was, it worked on the "hit and miss" principle (fires when the speed drops) so the rhythm was a bit complex - think of the "Augurs of Spring" bit from Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", speeded-up.

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Mar 19 - 04:08 AM

One of my favourite Oklahoma boogie bands is The Tractors...


(gets coat)

Subject: RE: Musical vehicles
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Mar 19 - 03:43 AM

I've heard a narrowboat owner use his Bolinder single to provide a beat.

Tom Kitching and "Bolinder" - I have danced to it. Bought the record by Vicky Swan and Jonny Dyer called ............... Red House   (fanfare)