When It Hurts So Bad / Why's It Feel So Good

Indianapolis has a radio station (WCIR 88.7 to be precise) that features a Concert Band Hour every Saturday morning from 7 to 8 in the AM.
Let me tell you from first-hand experience: it is a little jarring. (Although to be fair, it does wake you up.)

Anyway, my first (and probably only) encounter with Concert Band Hour concluded with a rousing performance of Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony. The part with the noisemaker had me pretty convinced the car was about to break down. Okay.



With dancers!



Or: mandolin orchestra version of the concert band piece.



And finally: The Remix. Obviously.

I don't know - if any unwanted holiday guests are still lingering around your house, I would play this on repeat for awhile and it just might do the trick!

Start To Push / Break Your Own Glass Ceiling

Ken Unsworth is an Australian artist who specializes in installation and sculpture works. "I'm not worried about meaning," he said in one interview. "I just like to make these strange things." Strange and often musical - turns out his late wife, an inspiration for many of his pieces, was a pianist. Examples A and B: "Rapture" (for piano, straw, burnt sheet music, and plastic mice) is a sculpture made of keyboard-stairs, and "Piano Trio (Teaching Three Pianos to Sing in Unison)" involves three grand pianos, motorized parts, three metronomes, and sheet music.

And then I give you Example C: Unsworth's 2009 exhibit "A Ringing Glass (Rilke)" includes an installation with twenty-eight toy pianos (I counted) suspended from the ceiling. The Schoenhut tinkle starts at 4:45, but the whole video is worth watching: even in the installations dealing with, oh you know, humanity and life and death and things, sound and music play a huge role:

I'm Not Your Toy

Modified Toy Orchestra: exactly what it sounds like. Plus, the BBC's got a behind-the-scenes video article.

The interesting part about this: "we take these [toys] and learn how to play them as instruments." As if there is an instrument buried inside every object if only you know how to make it sound. I like it.


(special thanks to Kevin!)