Talerschwingen or talerrollen is a fascinating tradition used with yodeling in the east of Switzerland. The players take a 5 Swiss franc coin and throw it inside an earthenware bowl. The bowl is then slowly rotated as they sing. Three bowls of different pitches are often used in a performance. The sound created is inspired by the cow bells heard in the fields.
Enjoyed a late night showing with Jonathon Shelly in San Diego of “Feel like going home” by Martin Scorsese. A great look at the blues and it’s roots in Africa – some great archive material and some wonderful musical moments. If you like the Blues, then this is a must buy – I managed to find a copy this morning.
Paul and Yam Hudson enjoy using both traditional and modern styles of music and singing on their recordings. Their desire is to encourage the Thai church to write their own original Thai worship music. Check out a couple of songs …. Read More
Martin’s musical mystery tour – This month’s blog comes from a playlist from the skies! I have been flying a lot this year and spent a good few hours searching through the International music sections for new music and films. Yesterday on the way to San Francisco I found a new artist from Sweden I had not heard of before called Laleh. Her web site says “she was born in Iran, fleeing that war-torn country a year later, first to Azerbaijan, then to Minsk in former Sovjet, and finally, at the age of 9, to a refugee camp in Tidaholm, Sweden.”
Radio 4 often has some wonderful programs telling the stories behind the music – today there was a program by Julie Fowlis an acclaimed Hebridean musician and singer, talking about a project that is collating the amazing stories and musical heritage in Scotland. Tobar an Dulchais (translated as “a well of heritage”) is an incredible online resource which has been set up to preserve recordings in Scots, Gaelic and many other local dialects. At the moment they have a catalogue of 30,000 songs, music, stories and poetry which have been recorded since the 1930’s all over Scotland – all of which you can listen too online.
Thanks Larry (NZ) for finding this very interesting project from Mexico – taking objects that have been used for violence and having the creativity to see the possibilities of using them to make music.
At the beginning of August we had a wonderful trip to the Czech Republic – so check out the group Čechomor who have become famous by blending rock with Moravian traditional music.
Whilst recording a sound sculpture in Amarillo, Texas (using the new Zoom H6) – a very quiet and delicate sound, a computer opened up with it’s own unique melody, something we hadn’t expected!








