Presented by Shawn Klein
Airs The 4th Friday of the month at 17:30 UTC, repeated Saturday at 06:30 UTC and Monday at 16:30 UTC
A half-hour monthly show featuring interesting things and curiosities Shawn has found on the Internet, touching on a variety of subjects. Humanity’s first recordings of its own voice in the 1850s, the US government bouncing shortwave signals off the moon, an old world-war II era film about the use of radio during the war, auditory illusions, alternate musical scales, what noise does an ostrich make? And other unusual and rare sounds, These and much more are fair game on Odds and Sods.
This month, The Wonders of Musical Clocks, Music Boxes and more. part 1. We'll hear the first half of a video from The Wonders of Mechanical Music & Carousels Youtube channel where Craig Smith presents a variety of musical clocks that were made over the last 200 years. Growing up in the 70s and 80s with windup clocks that chimed and cuckooed, and a few toy music boxes, one of which played Raindrops Are Fallin' On My Head, I, your host of Odds and Sods Shawn Klein that is, had no idea they put music boxes and teeny tiny fluting organs in clocks centuries ago. Then I found videos of them on the Internet. Here's a bit of history to tide you over until the show comes up. The year 1789 and the Napoleonic Code, established in 1804, had profound impact on society: Old laws were scrapped, and as the feudal system was abolished, representation - previously coming with the soundtrack of fancy musical clocks - was no longer exclusive to nobility. The rise of the bourgeoisie began, as did the age of “free enterprise” and free choice of employment - coupled, of course, with technical innovations. In Vienna in the 1820s, music boxes were no longer exclusive to an elite group of wealthy aficionados, but also served as entertainment in upscale inns. Even Beethoven praised music boxes, which supposedly intoned contemporary compositions better than many a professional orchestra. Others, however, perceived the ubiquitous automata merely as annoying sources of noise. Music boxes were everywhere, you could find them in mantel clocks, frame clocks, or picture clocks, and that meant the industry was thriving: During the first half of the 19th century, around 40 musical clock manufacturing companies were registered in Vienna alone. In other parts of the world, mechanical musical instruments were sought-after collectors’ items, for example at royal courts in India. Dating from the late 18th century, the automaton known as “Tipu’s Tiger” shows a tiger attacking an employee of the British East India Company. Complete with sounds and movements matching the blood-stained scene, this early example of musical automata from India should probably be filed under “revenge technology”. Back in Europe, precious mechanical flute clocks have played a key role in affluent patrician circles since the 16th century. On display in private homes, one could find artisan masterpieces of all sizes, some with up to 82 pipes and three registers. They also came with dancing figures, or mother-of-pearl flower decorations. Luminaries such as Mozart, Bach and Beethoven wrote special pieces for this automated instrument. Accordingly, the musical clock (flute clock) can be regarded as the only rudimentary sound carrier of the era, thus serving as a key source of information on historical performance practice.
This month: still having fun with that listener request, so it's more bells. The revival of manual ringing in Spain, which is way more complex than just yanking a bell rope and then letting it swing back and forth as in much of western Europe and the USA, but it isn't change ringing in the English style either. One could say it's more like a mash of those and throw in the rhythms of eastern orthodox ringing too, but with various ways of ringing including ropes, clappers, fixed, swinging, you name it. And they're trying to bring back those old ways after decades of automation in Spanish towers. Then we'll finish with something you may or may not have heard of, and we'll find out how it's done. Muffled bells in the British style. You may have even heard bells half muffled, but you'll only hear them fully muffled in the British empire when a monarch dies, as was heard in 2022 when Queen Elizabeth died.
This month: Per a listener request, bells. We'll hear from David Bruce composer and why composers like bells. Not just classical, but jazz and even the traditional music of Latin America are inspired by the sound of bells. And, in the auditory illusions department, we'll meet a bell with a phantom F. It's a note your brain thinks is there, but it's actually not there.
This month: we continue comparing various periodicities in our universe. Color to sound, rhythm to harmony, and now we have the far slower rhythms of the orbits of planets converted to both harmony and rhythms we can hear. We'll be hearing about Canadian physics lecturer, astrophysicist and musician Matt RuMatt Russo's efforts to do just that, and other methods he's used to sonify space for us.
External links:
System Sounds:
https://www.system-sounds.com
System Sounds Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKOnxOJ0q03epTCbzwADIuA
Astronomy Sonification, Dr. Matt Russo:
https://www.astromattrusso.com
This month: It's a Thanksgiving edition of Odds and Sods, but we're not talking about United States ian native Americans, we're going to discover the amazing native instruments of Mexico that were created to emulate all the sounds of nature they heard all around them. Birds, wind, rain, thunder. And they weren't toys, they had many many uses in Mesoamerican life. We'll finish with World Drum Club and a modern artistic creation using many said instruments along with some modern acoustic items to simulate a rain storm.
This month: October and the spooky season rolls around again, and I hear that same old familiar wolf howl, but it's not in an old movie, it's in a brand new show, movie, cartoon or commercial. And there's that scream we've heard so many times before. We're talking about cliche sound effects this month. We'll hear about the loon, and why Hollywood loves it's creepy call and puts it in places a common loon has no business being, simply because it gives the scene a spooky or foreboding feel. Then we'll get into some more Common Film Sound Effects: Clichés and Overused. Finally, we'll hear all those devices they came up with to add sound to silent movies in theaters and on old time radio, and how 1 man was called in to use the ones in his collection to make a scene from Killers of the Flower Moon more authentic.
External links.
Valentino's Wolf Howls SFX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1egarWJUhg4
2 famous classic wolf howls sound effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcWMnJDS3F0
Valentino Coyote Howl SFX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOoQBWE7VJ4
This month: one more Microtonal show, but not a repeat, here's something new. This album should NOT work (or sound this good!) · Microtonal guitar Brendan Byrnes “Astral Bloom”. Youtube channel Make Weird Music Interviews Brendan Byrnes about his new microtonal album with plenty of musical nerdery to satisfy your inner tuning geek.
This month we continue where we left off back in June, with the repeat of May 2019's episode on xenharmonic/microtonal music, including examples of Arabic maqams or scales in their 24 tone system.
This month, more music and a repeat, as we hear my January 2019 show about xenharmonic music... that is, music not in our conventional western 12-tone system, and in this case particularly, in new systems the modern xenharmonic (or microtonal) community of composers is playing in.
This month... More auditory illusions? Yes, it's the unexpected part 3 of this little series on auditory illusions we've been listening through the past few months, because the algorithm gave me this one while I was washing dishes... but this one's different. It's all about illusions used in music, particularly classical music. This month's show also goes good with May 25th's episode of The Global Classical Hour as I'll be featuring 3 of the pieces from the 20th century Hungarian composer mentioned in this month's Odds and Sods, as György Ligeti loved using auditory illusions in his music. So buckle up for the next half hour, and join me on Sunday for the classical show if you need you some more György Ligeti!
External links:
David Bruce Composer on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@DBruce
György Ligeti on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Ligeti