Behold the awesome power of this fully operational .....

[gurdymonkey]

.....HURDY GURDY? The amplifier arrived today. It came with its own 9V battery, it's about the size of my clock radio and it has a clip on the back which means it could be hung from a belt.

I think I'm going a-busking in the city tomorrow. The weather should be lovely and George and I could stand to get out of the house.

In other random musical news, I just finished watching the PBS Great Performances episode of Sting and lutenist Edin Karamazov performing John Dowland lute songs. I remember listening to sound samples of this on Amazon.com when I first heard about it and wondering why Karamazov's lute sounded so pristine and Sting sounded like he was at the bottom of a well with a sock in his mouth. The program was broadcast in stereo and Gaius' old TV produces pretty good sound quality and Sting STILL sounded like he was at the bottom of a well with a sock in his mouth. He's been singing this way since the Police days, it's just WAY more noticeable here. Karamazov is still terrific. The documentary information about Dowland provides a good overview, especially for those not familiar with the Elizabethan composer or the period he lived in. Bits of the program were clearly filmed with music-video sensibilities. I don't think I'm going to run right out and download it off ITunes when I've got a perfectly lovely collection by the Boston Camerata that I like very much indeed. On the other hand, His Blondeness clearly had his heart in the right place for the project and it may get people listening to Dowland who wouldn't normally have done so. That in itself is No Bad Thing.

Comments

[gottasing.livejournal.com]

I was intrigued to hear you describe Sting's singing in that way. I bought the CD and that's the first thing I thought-that Karamazov knew exactly how his lute should sound, but that Sting wasn't sure what to do, so he fell back on what he knew, ie tons of reverb.

I play the harp, and sometimes it's very difficult to get a modern recording engineer to understand what you want with an acoustic instrument. They're used to putting you in a completely dead space and adding tons of processing on the back end. That's probably a mindset Sting is used to.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

That's a distinct possibility. However, I was noticing - and it is very noticeable when one is used to listening to these songs performed by early music specialists - that Sting does not EE NUN CEE ATE. And there are the pop vocal mannerisms that sometimes work with this material and sometimes feel jarringly out of place.

Hey, "Fine Knacks" doesn't sound like an art song when I sing it either. Hopefully the audience can understand the words though. ;-D

Are you familiar with Richard Thompson's "1000 Years of Popular Song?" Now THAT one is fun.