Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Voices of the Loon / Celtic Fiddle



You'll find a link to my Tumblr blog in the right column. I have been sharing various finds from Spotify to that site and will be highlighting certain albums here from time to time, not the least of which is William Barklow's Voices of the Loon. This is not music composition but animal communication; Barklow, a professor at Framingham State College in Massachusetts, has been studying the loon for years. This fantastic article from 1985 tells more:

http://new.yankeemagazine.com/article/man-who-listens-loons

Once you hear the voice of the loon, you can't unhear it - truly among the most fascinating animals of the north.

Voices of the Loon is available on Amazon here.

Rautavaara, Messiaen, Hovhaness, Beethoven, Respighi, Strauss, and so many others have composed music influenced by animal and bird sounds. This is a different experience entirely, an example of "the music of what happens."

If you'd like something else to hold your attention, here are forty fiddle tunes that I arranged in a playlist:



Click here for a web link to the playlist. These are men and women from Ireland, Scotland, England, the United States, and Canada (mainly the Atlantic Provinces, where you'll find plenty of traditional musicians).

I can listen to this for hours!!!

Cheers,
Angus

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