h a l f b a k e r yRenovating the wheel
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Orchestra, Complete
Includes vuvuzelas, bagpipes, kazoos, theremins, etc., with all the usual stuff. | |
I did a quick search to see if this Idea had been Baked,
but
all I could find were some proposals similar to this one,
but
not as complete.
I'd like to see a COMPLETE orchestra. Yes, it has all the
usual stringed instruments, wind instruments, brass
instruments, percussion instruments,
and so on, but it
also
has everything else that has ever been used to make
music. A pipe organ, for example. A calliope, and a
harpsichord, also. At least one theremin and electronic
synthesizer and glass armonica and carillon. Bagpipes,
vuvuzelas,
bongo drums,
cannons, and
kazoos, of course.
I have to stop lest this Idea be given the MFD for
promoting a List. But I think you've got the Idea,
now....
Bodily Functions | Matthew Herbert
http://www.allmusic...ctions-mw0000009568
uses a baby [calum, Dec 10 2013]
http://www.vegetableorchestra.org/
[pocmloc, Dec 10 2013]
The Unplayable Score: Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz
http://socks-studio...h-waltz-john-stump/
Included in the instrumentation - peanuts, explosives, penguins, bicycles, and cattle. [tatterdemalion, Dec 10 2013]
Going large ...
http://en.wikipedia.../Musica_universalis
... how will you include these? [pertinax, Dec 13 2013]
Cash register music
https://www.youtube...watch?v=sndo_wdc384
As mentioned in various annotations, many ordinary things can be musical in certain circumstances. [Vernon, Jul 10 2015]
Can't resist
spank_20percussion
spank percussion [Voice, Jul 10 2015]
[link]
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// everything else that has ever been used to
make music. // |
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This is an oxymoron. Bagpipes cannot, and
never have, be used to produce music. |
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Apart from that, it's not an unattractive idea,
especially the cannons. |
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Some work would be involved in re-scoring
orchestral works to make use of the range of
instruments; but no doubt John Williams
could write something pleasing to the ear. |
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As technology advances, and man spreads throughout
the universe, won't new instruments be added as
they meet the entry grade of enough written work? |
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Meh... You have made the mistaken assumption
that all instruments are compatible with each
other. For example, part of the character of many
instruments lies in their particular pitch classes, or
lack thereof. Pianos are commonly tuned in a well
temperament such as 12 EDO, harpsichords in a
non-circulating meantone, Jews harps and tromba
marinas in a raw harmonic series, bagpipes in a
diatonic just intonation, theremins
unconstrained, etc. - for good reasons. These are
woefully incompatible. You would need to make all
the instruments conform to some standard (which
would spoil the character of many, and is not even
possible in some cases), or the result would be
such severe out-of-tuneness as to make a mockery
of the word 'symphony'. |
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In fact, it's probably no coincidence that the list of
instruments in a standard symphony orchestra is
virtually identical to the list of 'classical'
instruments most commonly taught at schools etc.
The instruments that aren't compatible (because
they are too loud, too quiet, or too differently
tuned) with the violins, flutes, etc. fell out of
favour. Such instruments include viols (too quiet),
shawms (too loud), and tromba marinas
(incompatible tuning). |
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So, putting lots of different instruments ('all' is a
pretty big number; there are probably hundreds of
thousands of different instruments, although the
exact number is arbitrary, like the number of
spoken dialects) in an orchestra isn't not done
because no-one thought of it, but because it
doesn't really work. |
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Having said all of that, if you tuned a vast
multitude of divers instruments to a single
frequency (or whole number multiple thereof) and
had them play one glorious long drone, I'd gladly
join in. |
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Yes, from cannons and church bells, to classical Chinese gu qin, matching pitch and tuning would be a challenge. |
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Also have you ever been to an ethnological museum with a decent collection of musical instruments? There are _seriously_ many different types of instruments. |
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In fact I will go further than you [sm] and say that what is or is not a musical instrument is very much culturally determined. If a cannon can be a musical instrument, why not an AK-47, or a thermonuclear device? The chimes on an ice-cream van? The siren on a police car? The horn of the Queen Mary? A stick? As [calum] says, a baby? How about a dead baby? Power tools? A skylark high over a field in the middle of the English countryside? What is music anyway? |
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You may as well suggest an art gallery with every different type of visual object in it. Not really practical, possible, or particularly interesting. |
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I think it's an excellent idea to allow bagpipers to
mix with musicians. |
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Yes, but secretly; if the musicians find out,
the bagpipers will be beaten to death (in 4/4
time). |
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Not that that would necessarily be a bad
thing. |
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// (which would spoil the character of many,
and is not even possible in some cases) // |
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This is correct. It is clearly impossible to spoil
bagpipes, other than by making more of
them. |
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Would it include a whale chorus? |
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[spidermother], that's an interesting point. Let's
see...what do they say in the Army? Ah, "The
difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a
little longer." I'm willing to assume that if some
instrument is considered to be too loud, a minor
variant of it could be softer, yet still be called the
same name. |
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[pocmloc], perhaps a dividing line could be
declared in terms of, "was this thing intended to
be used for creating music?" That would let us
exclude a lot of noisy things, including, of course,
cannons. On the other hand, if some particular
thing, excluded for that reason, was used anyway,
and successfully (even famously), then the
"Orchestra, Complete" might well include it anyway
(cannons, that is, but also I know of at least one
composition from roughly the same era as the
"1812 Overture" that includes black-powder
gunshots). |
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//matching pitch and tuning would be a
challenge.// A challenge - and a shame. A local
(Australian resident) Greek music group once
invited a fairly elderly lyra player to join them at
the folk centre where I was fairly involved at the
time. He played some solo lyra for a while. I was
slowly getting used to his subtle, beautiful modal
intonation, when he was joined by the local group
(guitar, electric bass, etc). The lyra player looked
worried, because he was now out of tune with
the band; but he slowly adjusted his fingering,
until finally the magic was gone and they were all
just playing a bunch of boring notes that
happened to resemble Greek music. |
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I suppose I was using 'musical instrument' to mean
a device whose primary purpose is music *; thus,
while I've personally used guinea pigs (unharmed!),
drain pipes, dripping taps etc. to create music, I
wouldn't call those musical instruments, though.
(But what about the piece of down-pipe that I
picked out as having a nice resonance and from
which I evicted the spiders? Is that then a musical
instrument? ) |
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//siren// I once played in an impromptu trio for
two baroque recorders (long-held pitches) and a
fire alarm or something that started nearby. The
difference tones - clearly audible, sliding in
opposition to the alarm itself - were stunning. |
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* Simul-post with [Vernon] |
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I extend [pocmloc]'s observation - there is no definition of instrument that can be constructed that would allow this idea to be developed. Everything and anything can be an instrument. If you can hit it, it's at least percussion. And as your own example of cannons shows, [Vernon], any attempt to codify what counts as an instrument is doomed to failure. Typewriter, coffee percolator? How about an old tractor? |
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Also [-] because even when you've settled that question, the resultant music will be a gimmick laden cacaphony. |
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What about the unfeasably large crystal spheres? |
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I think it is fairly easy to define a musical
instrument. It is a device designed and built for
the production of music. Thus, found objects
may be used for music, but are not musical
instruments. Simple, really. |
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//"The difficult we do at once; the impossible
takes
a little longer."// |
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I was always told it was "The impossible we do at
once; miracles take a little longer.", but perhaps
standards have slipped. |
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You all seem very confident that you know what is music and what is not music. |
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You mis-read. I said it is easy to define a musical
instrument. |
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I'm reasonably convinced that it would be possible to incorporate sausages into this, from the chipola piccalo to the percussionists using bratwurst to hit the kettle drums. But, I am usually wrong. |
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But, based on that statement, not always. |
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Can we include the theatre itself as one of the
instruments? The Blue Man Group PVC Pipes? This is
an infinite list. |
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"I know what you're thinking - this is just gonna be
another banjo/magic show..." |
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"why not an AK-47, or a thermonuclear device? ... A stick? ... A skylark ..."
This made me think that in the only way that this could be truely implemented, it is already baked: The universe is the stage and any one person can hear only a very small part of the eternal symphony. But then that's philosophical hogwash. |
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Assuming a reasonbly limited scope, when combining instruments with different intonation into the orchestra, it seems like we should give equal opportunity. Sometimes it's nice to have the non-classical instruments play along with classical intonations to give new sounds to more classical music, but it seems like there would be a lot of creative space to explore in making the classical instruments adopt alternate intonations. My impression is that a lot of music in different styles is solo or small ensemble music, but that just creates a challenge for the composer/arranger to coherently incorporate a large orchestra into these different styles. |
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// It is a device designed and built for the production of music. Thus, found objects may be used for music, but are not musical instruments. Simple, really. |
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As I previously mentioned, that definition excludes many objects and devices which have been used successfully for musical purposes, even though they were not designed for that use. Should things which can be used in a musical way be excluded just because they weren't made for that purpose? I guess you can make that rule just because you have to draw a line somewhere, but it will always seem arbitrary. |
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Music (and instrumentation needed to produce it) is in the ear of the beholder. |
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Still a set-theory flaw here. Musical instruments can
be combined, and so the set remains infinite. |
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Shirley not. The set of all musical instruments must by definition include bagpipes, which are not musical instruments; and the set of musical instruments that does not include bagpipes is incomplete. |
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And thus is a paradox created. |
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Although in theory this would seem fabulous, there are way too many ancient and ethnic instruments for it to be possible to gather all at one time, besides the regular orchestra instuments. |
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[8th of 7], your mere claim, that bagpipes don't
qualify as musical instruments, is not proof that
they don't qualify as musical instruments. |
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I see a couple of possible problem-sources for why
someone might think as you do in this matter.
First, some things qualify as "an acquired taste", in
this case with the ears doing the tasting. For an
analogy, I personally don't like the taste of beer,
and I'm aware that lots of folks INITIALLY agree
with me on that. Most of them appear to be
willing to tolerate it until they acquire an
enjoyment of it; I wasn't one of them. Anyway,
I've noticed that when you listen to a recording of
bagpipes with the volume turned down a bit, they
sound more tolerable (to me, and more musical)
than when directly in their presence. |
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Second, too much of anything is always a bad
thing, even when a small amount can be a good
thing. If someone is constantly subjected to, say,
jet noise, it is possible that any initial enjoyment
(in small quantities), of that sound-of-power,
would be eroded to become hatred. |
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Do either of those situations apply to you, or do
you have some other explanation to support your
CLAIM? |
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//that definition excludes many objects and
devices which have been used successfully for
musical purposes, even though they were not
designed for that use. Should things which can be
used in a musical way be excluded just because
they weren't made for that purpose?// |
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Yes, that is entirely my point. If you want to
create a collection of all possible objects, that is
fine. But, for practical porpoises, a collection of
all musical instruments, as defined, is simpler. |
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Simpler perhaps but never complete, and he's got "complete" in all capitals so it must be important. You can create a definition for simplicity, but no definition exists that can be applied to this idea without breaking the idea. |
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// I personally don't like the taste of beer, and I'm aware that lots of folks INITIALLY agree with me on that. |
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Count me among them, [Vernon], given that you've just said as much, I'm willing to agree that you don't like the taste of beer, at least initially. |
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I'm from cider country me, so "zider I up, landlord". After for musical instruments collections, just get a synth. |
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If I were to play a perfect white noise static that
captures every frequency the ear can hear, would
that simplify this process? |
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A bit like having an Indianapolis 500 with anything able to move around the track able to enter. RVs, Unicycles, Kids toys, road trains, and race cars: On your mark, Get set, Go! |
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