That surge beginning in the 1950's: the impact, I would guess, of Wanda Landowska.
Does "harpsichord" include the tinny electronic kind so popular in '60's music? That would make the surge more plausible. There aren't many traditional harpsichords in pop culture, with rare exceptions (e.g., The Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane" or Lurch from The Addams Family). Sometimes it appears as background music, especially when something sinister is going on. It's also the invariable accompaniment to footage of spiders making webs.
I suppose people think the harpsichord is creepy. A shame, if true. Aside from the guitar, it's my favorite musical instrument. I don't play it, though, or anything else.
Who were those modern-day people who bought so many harpsichords? That would be as interesting a question as the matter of their sales. They couldn't have all been from the rarefied circle of William F. Buckley, Jr.
So, then, Randal: your advice is "Haydn, go seek"?
Harpsichord humor makes me think of that episode of Star Trek with the God-like being who thought Captain Kirk came to his planet in a 1600s era space ships. I want to say his name was Trelayne. I wish I could remember the actor's name; I think he passed away recently.
Come to think of it, that episode came out around 1966...
Jonathan--The Squire of Gothos! Yeah, the actor did just die recently--if I remember correctly he also played the Klingon captain in The Trouble With Tribbles. As relates to harpsichords, my guess is that the episode trails the phenomenon rather than leads it, because that's usually a safe bet with Star Trek (much as I love it).
Randal and antonello, I'm going to complain about the puns, but only to mask the fact that I can't keep up.
And antonello--I mean, the late 60s did see that whole wonderful "baroque pop" boom, The Left Banke and all that (not to mention The Baroque Beatles Book and other novelties), so real harpsichords were all over the place, briefly. I think it was around the same time that period performance became popular for baroque music, wasn't it? I would bet that the spike tapers off mostly because everyone realized at the same time how often harpsichords need tuning, heh.
I've only played a harpischord once--or I should say tried to play. It was when I was in high school, my piano teacher had one briefly that he was repairing for someone, I tried out some of the Bach I was playing at the time on it and my god was it difficult. The feel of it is utterly different. I would love to have one and really learn to play it, but considering that i don't even really remember how to play piano anymore (at least not in that way) I think it would be a challenge. Plus the tuning.
Ethan's working through his music collection in alphabetical order
The next five artists he'll be listening to:
The Clash The Clientele Jimmy Cliff Patsy Cline Clinic
(Project began May 29, 2010. Finished through the letter B on April 1, 2011 with 460 items catalogued on Rate Your Music.)
Ethan's reading
Samuel R. Delany Triton aka Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
Thoughts that aren't getting whole posts
- I just caught my cat licking one of my dirty shirts. When he saw I was watching, he pretended he'd been cleaning himself all along. -ethan 9/23/11
- I didn't know The Pixies covered "I've Been Waiting for You"! So on Heathen, David Bowie covered The Pixies AND a song they covered? Weird. -ethan 9/21/11
- Dangerous Visions is so goddamn macho. And like half the writers are military or "intelligence" or government or advertising dudes. It largely bites. -ethan 9/10/11
- I wish people would figure out that "HD" is not even close to "like you're actually there"--it's completely different from how we really see things. If they figured that out, maybe it would occasionally be used interestingly. -ethan 9/9/11
- Robinson Crusoe on Mars has its major problems, but it looks like a series of living Nicholas Roerich paintings. -ethan 9/3/11
- I just plain don't like Brian Aldiss. -ethan 8/31/11
- Here, at least, it was a good hurricane. I'm embarrassed by how happy I was when the electricity came back on. -ethan 8/28/11
- Is it my imagination or is IOZ way more open about genuinely caring about things since his return? -ethan 8/26/11
- Does Firefox constantly tell British people that they're spelling labour and programme and theatre wrong? -ethan 8/25/11
- There is a huge (and hugely important) difference between knowing that events a, b, and c happened between years x and y, and understanding that they were happening at the same time. -ethan 8/24/11
- Among the many things bugging me about the crappy novel I'm reading is that it keeps referring to a woman whose "late teens" were "forty years ago" as a "little old lady." Come on now, she's 59 at the oldest. -ethan 8/22/11
- Spending a day in the woods is the best thing in the world. -ethan 8/21/11
- Maria Mies: "Powerless groups, particularly if they are totally integrated within a system of power and exploitation, find it difficult to define reality differently from the powerful." -ethan 8/20/11
- The funniest sentence in Frankenstein: "I found that I could not compose a female without again devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition." -ethan 8/18/11
- Chumbawamba: "Nothing ever burned down by itself/Every fire needs a little bit of help." -ethan 8/18/11
- We'll see if I use this. Idea stolen from Davidly. -ethan 8/18/11
7 comments:
Looks like they're due for a comeback!
Why must you harpsichord on this?
In penance for such unfunny, I'm gonna bust out some Haydn.
That surge beginning in the 1950's: the impact, I would guess, of Wanda Landowska.
Does "harpsichord" include the tinny electronic kind so popular in '60's music? That would make the surge more plausible. There aren't many traditional harpsichords in pop culture, with rare exceptions (e.g., The Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane" or Lurch from The Addams Family). Sometimes it appears as background music, especially when something sinister is going on. It's also the invariable accompaniment to footage of spiders making webs.
I suppose people think the harpsichord is creepy. A shame, if true. Aside from the guitar, it's my favorite musical instrument. I don't play it, though, or anything else.
Who were those modern-day people who bought so many harpsichords? That would be as interesting a question as the matter of their sales. They couldn't have all been from the rarefied circle of William F. Buckley, Jr.
So, then, Randal: your advice is "Haydn, go seek"?
Harpsichord humor makes me think of that episode of Star Trek with the God-like being who thought Captain Kirk came to his planet in a 1600s era space ships. I want to say his name was Trelayne. I wish I could remember the actor's name; I think he passed away recently.
Come to think of it, that episode came out around 1966...
Jonathan--The Squire of Gothos! Yeah, the actor did just die recently--if I remember correctly he also played the Klingon captain in The Trouble With Tribbles. As relates to harpsichords, my guess is that the episode trails the phenomenon rather than leads it, because that's usually a safe bet with Star Trek (much as I love it).
Randal and antonello, I'm going to complain about the puns, but only to mask the fact that I can't keep up.
And antonello--I mean, the late 60s did see that whole wonderful "baroque pop" boom, The Left Banke and all that (not to mention The Baroque Beatles Book and other novelties), so real harpsichords were all over the place, briefly. I think it was around the same time that period performance became popular for baroque music, wasn't it? I would bet that the spike tapers off mostly because everyone realized at the same time how often harpsichords need tuning, heh.
I've only played a harpischord once--or I should say tried to play. It was when I was in high school, my piano teacher had one briefly that he was repairing for someone, I tried out some of the Bach I was playing at the time on it and my god was it difficult. The feel of it is utterly different. I would love to have one and really learn to play it, but considering that i don't even really remember how to play piano anymore (at least not in that way) I think it would be a challenge. Plus the tuning.
davidly--god, I wish.
PS I also of course have a feeling that the graph is slightly fictional...
Oh weird--apparently as I typed "The Left Banke," the re-formed band itself was 45 minutes away from playing in-studio at WFMU. Who fucking knew.
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