Getting Tooled Up, Part Two

My Christmas wish-list was an absurd collection of musical instruments and equipment, ranging from hi-tech gadgets to children's toys. Here's what my family kindly provided me with:

Clarinet

I love the clarinet for various reasons. It has a warm, expressive tone which is far more interesting and engaging than more attention-grabbing instruments such as the sax. It's also a beautiful artefact, with its mix of wood tubing and intricate metal keys, levers and stops. Mine is a “beginner's” model, which basically means it's (relatively) cheap and difficult to play. The lower notes in particular are nearly impossible straight out of the box. I suspect, however, that a few hundred hours of play will (a) improve the accuracy of my fingering and (b) break in the instrument itself. In any case, fighting against the medium is an integral part of my project: finding ways to get interesting music out of unpromising sources.

Anyway, here's Monty Sunshine playing at a level I'll never, ever, ever be able to match.

Stylophone

The first mass-market synth with a cheap and nasty tone. Basically a children's toy, though I'm not sure what sort of child would want to play with it these days. So it's a retro-toy, reeking of nostalgia for an outmoded future. I wonder what it sounds like through a few effects?

Stylophone Beat Box

The stylophone marches bravely into the 1980s with this charmingly basic drum and bass machine. You can build up complex loops with it, but there's no quantizing or even a metronome, so it's fiendishly difficult to get everything in time. Most of what you end up with sounds horrible, but occasionally it's interesting even if it's not what you intended. And therein lies its appeal: it's like the machine has a mind of its own.

German Market Percussion Section

Three simple percussion instruments bought at the Christmas German market in Milton Keynes. The mini-tambourine is usefully portable. The thing with plastic balls on it makes a sound like a pair of maracas, only softer. The third instrument has hollowed-out nut shells tied to it. I've no idea what it's called or exactly how you're meant to play it, but it makes an unusual clacking sound.

Melodica

A pleasingly simple cross between a harmonica and an accordion, I've already found it useful for working out chord progressions and simple melodies. Again, it tends to be known as a children's instrument, though it was widely used in 70's dub reggae and Steve Reich used it as the basis for his 1966 tape loop experiment, “Melodica”.