Glass music

What is the good use of glasses?



Vera Meyer plays the Glass Harmonica in Harvard Square, Boston, July, 2005. The instrument, an invention of Benjamin Franklin, was quickly banned after its inception. It was said to provoke insanity. The unique harmonics have also been said to import theraputic powers. It is also known as the "Glass Armonica".



Professional concert played just on wine glasses. The instrument is called glass harp or musical glasses. Glass duo ensemble:



And the best glass musician, Hannah:

Natalia Paruz

NATALIA.....
affectionately known as the 'Saw Lady', has spent over a decade bringing the rare art form of playing music on a carpenter's saw to audiences around the world.



She performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta, with the Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Air Moroccan Symphony Orchestra, the Riverside Orchesra and at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall with PDQ Bach composer Peter Schickele and with the Little Orchestra Society. November 2007 marked her Carnegie Hall debut as a musical saw soloist.

Television appearances include FOX (Good Day New York), ABC (Good Morning America), MTV (Andy Milonakis Show), VH1 (Behind the Music), History Channel (Tool Box).
Film appearances include 'Dummy' with Adrian Brody. Natalia's saw can be heard on the soundtracks of films such as El Carnaval Sodoma/Arthuro Ripstein and American Carny.
Radio performances include NPR (A Prairie Home Companion), XM Satelite Radio & WBAI.

Natalia received citations of honor from the New York City Council, the New York State Senate and a medal of honor from Paris, France.

She was chosen by Time Out New York, the Village Voice, the New York Press and the New York Resident for their Best of New York lists, and was featured in articles by the New York Times, the Boston Globe and Metro New York.

Natalia has recorded on Capitol Records, Universal Records and Atlantic Records with such artists as John Hiat.

Natalia's goal is not only to preserve the rare art form of playing music on a saw, but to also try and push it forward through the invention of better playing technique, fine-tuning the instrument, educating composers about the possibilities of composing for saw, and bringing the instrument to public awareness. This last part, bringing the instrument into public awareness, she does not only through performances on the legitimate stage/TV/radio but also by bringing the music of the musical saw directly to people where people are - on the street. By performing in the subway she brings the art form to people who might not otherwise be able to encounter it.

Congratulations Natalia! It's better to play music than cut off the trees! Aren't you a Greenpeace activist?

Musician robots

A trumpet-playing robot has been developed by Japanese car maker Toyota.



It showed off its musical creation at a Tokyo hotel, where the robot played When You Wish Upon a Star on a trumpet.

The machine is the latest in a series of robots developed by Japanese companies to showcase their prowess in humanoid robotics.

Sony and Honda have both used humanoid robots to as a platform to demonstrate their computing power and engineering know-how.

The Toyota robot stands 120 cm (48 inches) tall and does not yet have a cute name yet, unlike some of its rivals.

The company has provided few specific details about the technology used for the machine and did not reveal how much it spent developing the robot.

The robot has yet to be given a cute name. For now, it has no plans to sell or rent it. Instead it hopes to form a robot band to play at the 2005 World Exposition, being held in Aichi in central Japan.

"I'm confident that this will be a symbol of Toyota Group's technology," said Toyota President Fujio Cho.

The robot development race is highly competitive in Japan, with the market for bots estimated to be worth around $4.5bn.

Companies often use the humanoid models to generate publicity and highlight a company's technical abilities.

Rival car maker Honda has a walking robot called Asimo which has visited the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, France and Ireland as part of a world tour.

For its part, Sony has the all-singing and all-dancing Qrio, which can jog at a top speed of 14 metres per minute.



Toyota Motor Corp.'s new violin robot performs during a press unveiling in Tokyo Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007. Compared to a virtuoso, its rendition was a trifle stilted and, well, robotic. But Toyota's new robot plays a pretty solid "Pomp and Circumstance" on the violin. The 152-centimeter (five-foot)-tall all-white robot used its mechanical fingers to push the strings correctly and bowed with its other arm, coordinating the movements well.



It seems to have musical bent, having recently appeared for a photo opportunity conducting the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Whether it will be leading Toyota's robot musicians in the future is unknown.

Threadmills

Funny choregraphy from Threadmills...

Michel Petrucciani, In Memoriam

Michel Petrucciani (December 28, 1962, Orange, France – January 6, 1999, New York City, USA), was a French Jazz pianist.



Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family of a musical background. His father "Tony" played guitar and his brother Louis played bass. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and in his case short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. In his early career his father and brother occasionally carried him, literally, because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects though he considered it an advantage as it got rid of distractions, like sports, that other boys tended to become involved in.



At an early age he became enthusiastic about the works of Duke Ellington and wished to become a pianist like him. Although he trained for years as a classical pianist, jazz remained his interest. He had his first professional concert at 13. At this point in his life he was still quite fragile so had to be carried to and from the piano. In general his size meant that he required aids to reach the piano's pedals, but his hands were average in length. By age 18 he helped form a successful trio. He moved to the US in 1982. In the US he is credited with leading Charles Lloyd to resume playing actively and in 1986 he recorded a live album with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall. He also played with diverse figures in the US jazz scene including Dizzy Gillespie.

In 1994 he was granted a Légion d'honneur in Paris.

His own style was initially influenced by Bill Evans although some compare him to Keith Jarrett. He is often deemed to be among the best jazz pianists to ever come from France.

On the personal side he had three significant relationships. His first marriage to Italian pianist Gilda Buttà ended in divorce. He also fathered two children, one being a son named Alexandre. One of these children inherited his condition. He also had a stepson named Rachid Roperch.

Michel Petrucciani died at 36 from a pulmonary infection. He was interred in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.



God rest his soul!

Raul Midón, the world of the blinded eyes

Raul Midón (born March 14, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from New Mexico, based in New York City. He combines his distinct voice, strumming, beats, and a cappella sounds to create a one-man performance. His unique style shows influence of virtually every musical genre which came before him, including jazz, blues, R&B, and folk.



Midón was born prematurely in a rural hospital in Embudo, New Mexico to parents of Argentine and African American descent. His father was a dancer from Argentina. Midón and his twin brother Marco (now a NASA engineer) were blinded as infants after spending time in an incubator without adequate eye protection. The sounds of music became integral to Midón's life around age 4, when his father introduced him to the drum. Midón became an avid music lover and learned how to play the guitar while performing in rigorous educational programs, first at a school for the blind and then an elite Santa Fe academy while completing his last two years of high school. Midón then attended the University of Miami, which he selected for its prestigious jazz curriculum.

Midón began his career as a backup singer for several well known Top 40 acts, including Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and Jose Feliciano. Having toured with Shakira, and recorded with Alejandro Sanz in 2002, he set aside this career to pursue a solo career and moved to New York City. While focusing the majority of his time on his solo career, he has also worked with jazz legends Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Valentin, Dave Samuels, Herbie Hancock, and Claudio Roditi.

Soon after the release of his independent album, Midón was signed by Grammy Award-winning producer Arif Mardin (Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin) to Manhattan Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records owned by EMI. In Mardin's long career, Midón was his first signing of an artist. Mardin, along with his son, Joe, produced the critically acclaimed debut album of Midón entitled State of Mind.

Midón also did the theme song for Spike Lee's 2004 LGBT film, She Hate Me, titled "Adam n' Eve n' Eve".

Midón's album State of Mind was released on May 10th, 2005. The album features a guest performance with Stevie Wonder, one of his idols, and a song written in tribute to Donny Hathaway entitled "Sittin' In The Middle." Midon is an avid amateur radio enthusiast, and in this song he also incorporates his call sign (KB5ZOT) by using Morse code.

Midón's national television debut was on Late Show with David Letterman on June 28, 2005. He later went on to appear on other late night television shows in the U.S. and abroad.

Django Reinhardt with his 7 fingers...

Jean Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt (January 23, 1910 – May 16, 1953) was a Belgian Sinto Gypsy jazz guitarist. He was one of the first prominent jazz musicians to be born in Europe, and one of the most renowned jazz guitarists of all time. His most renowned works include "My Sweet", "Minor Swing", "Tears", "Belleville", "Djangology" and "Nuages" (French, meaning "Clouds").

Born in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium, Reinhardt spent most of his youth in gypsy encampments close to Paris, playing banjo, guitar and violin from an early age professionally at Bal-musette halls in Paris. He started first on the violin and eventually moved on to a banjo-guitar that had been given to him and his first known recordings (in 1928) were of him playing the banjo (a banjo guitar has six strings tuned in standard guitar tuning).

At the age of 18 Reinhardt was injured in a fire that ravaged the caravan he shared with Bella, his first wife. They were very poor, and to supplement their income Bella made imitation flowers out of celluloid and paper. Consequently, their home was full of this highly flammable material. Returning from a performance late one night, Django apparently knocked over a candle on his way to bed. While his family and neighbors were quick to pull him to safety, he received first- and second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralyzed and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burnt. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again and intended to amputate one of his legs. Reinhardt refused to have the surgery and left the hospital after a short time; he was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane.

His brother Joseph Reinhardt, an accomplished guitarist himself, bought Django a new guitar. With painful rehabilitation and practice Django relearned his craft in a completely new way, even as his third and fourth fingers remained partially paralyzed. Hence, he used to play solos with only two fingers, and managed to use the two injured ones for some chords.

In 1934, Louis Vola formed the "Quintette du Hot Club de France" with Reinhardt, violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt's brother Joseph and Roger Chaput on guitar, and himself on bass. Occasionally Chaput was replaced by Pierre "Baro" Ferret. The vocalist Freddie Taylor participated in a few songs, such as "Georgia On My Mind" and "Nagasaki". The concept of "lead guitar" (Django) and backing "rhythm guitar" (Joseph Reinhardt/Roger Chaput or Pierre Ferret) was born with that band. They also used their guitars for percussive sounds, as they had no true percussion section. The Quintet du Hot Club de France was one of the few well-known jazz bands to have no drums or percussion section.

Reinhardt later formed bands with more conventional instrumentations as with clarinet or saxophone, piano, bass and drums. He produced numerous recordings at this time with the quintet. But he played and recorded also with many American Jazz legends such as Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart (who later stayed in Paris), and a jam-session with jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Reinhardt could neither read nor write music, and was barely literate. Stéphane took the band's downtime to teach him.

As World War II was declared, the original quintet was on tour in the United Kingdom. Reinhardt returned to Paris at once, leaving his wife behind. Grappelli remained in the United Kingdom for the duration of the war and Reinhardt reformed the quintet in Paris with Hubert Rostaing on clarinet in place of Grappelli's violin.

Reinhardt survived World War II unscathed, unlike many other Gypsies who perished in the concentration death camps of the Nazis. It was especially hard for Django's people because jazz itself was not allowed under Hitler's regime. He had the help of a Luftwaffe official named Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, also known as "Doktor Jazz", who deeply admired his music. In 1943 Django married Sophie Ziegler in Salbris, with whom he had a son, Babik Reinhardt, who went on to become a respected guitarist in his own right.

After the war, Reinhardt rejoined Grappelli in the UK, and went on to tour the United States, opening for Duke Ellington, and playing at Carnegie Hall, with many notable musicians and composers such as Maury Deutsch. Despite Reinhardt's great pride in touring with Ellington (one of his two letters to Grappelli relates this excitement), he wasn't really integrated into the band, playing only a few tunes at the end of the show, with no special arrangements written personally for him. He was used to his brother, Joseph, carrying around his guitar for him and tuning it. Allegedly, Reinhardt was given an untuned guitar to play with (discovered after strumming a chord) and it took him five whole minutes to tune it. Also, he was used to playing a Selmer Modèle Jazz, the guitar he made famous, but he was required to play a new amplified model. After "going electric", the results were not as much liked by fans. He returned to France with broken dreams, but continued to play and make many recordings.

Django Reinhardt was among the first people in France to appreciate and understand the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie whom he sought after when he arrived in New York. Unfortunately they were all on tour.

After returning to France, Django spent the remainder of his days re-immersed in gypsy life, having found it difficult to adjust to the modern world. He would sometimes show up for concerts without a guitar or amp, or wander off to the park or beach, and on a few occasions he refused even to get out of bed. Reinhardt was known by his band, fans, and managers to be extremely unpredictable. He would often skip sold-out concerts to simply "walk to the beach" or "smell the dew". However, he did continue to compose and is still regarded as one the most advanced jazz guitarists.

In 1948, Reinhardt recruited a few Italian jazz players (on bass, piano, and snare drum) and recorded one of his most acclaimed contributions, "Djangology", once again with Stephane Grappelli on violin. However, his experience in the U.S. left him influenced greatly by American jazz, making him a different person than the man Grappelli had known. But on this recording, Reinhardt switched back to his old roots, once again playing the Acoustic Selmer-Maccaferri. This recording was recently discovered by jazz enthusiasts and is now available in the U.S. and Europe. Reinhardt and other guitarists of the Quintette du Hot Club de France used Selmer acoustic guitars.

In 1951, he retired to Samois-sur-Seine, France, near Fontainebleau. He lived there for two years until May 16, 1953, when, while returning from the Avon train station, he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. It took a full day for a doctor to arrive and Django was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau.

Mark Goffeney

This post isn't loony, but the boy is rather talented.

...Born without arms, Goffeney has been a performer as long as he can remember. Some of his earliest performances were between ages eight and thirteen, when he helped host Easter Seals and March of Dimes telethons. “I was their poster child,” he laughs. “So I think I got over the fear of performing. Well, actually, I never really got the fear of it.” He always knew he wanted to be a musician, but playing trombone in the school band didn’t satisfy his desire to rock. So a friend gave Goffeney a guitar demonstration, and he just imitated what he saw his friend do—only he imitated with his feet.

And his passion was stirred. From a ninth-grade band called High Octane that played pizza joints on the weekends, to a KISS-flavored hard rock group, to the debut of Big Toe, Goffeney has immersed himself in music however he could get it. He’s played solo. He’s played in retirement homes. He even learned to play the bass to increase his chances for joining a group. “Everybody was playing guitar in the ‘80s,” he explains. “And everybody wanted to play lead guitar, so it was hard to get in a band. So I started playing bass.”

Eventually, though, getting in wasn’t enough; Goffeney wanted to set his own pace. With another guitarist, he founded Big Toe in 1992, and seven years later PSB Records signed the band to a CD deal…on one condition. Goffeney had to work with Steve Dudas, former producer for Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne and Ringo Star, to refine the songs for the band’s self-titled album. “I got to sit on the same chair that Steven Tyler sat on when he was there,” says Goffeney. “Steve Dudas was very professional, very good. He let me know in no uncertain terms that I was an amateur and I needed to listen to him.”

Several years and many record sales later, Goffeney is no longer an amateur performer. He has appeared on television as an actor and a musician, and has spoken to audiences all over America advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. He played the principal role on FOX’s Emmy-nominated commercial Feet. The advertisement, aired during the 2000 and 2001 Super Bowls, was for the NFL website, and it told the story of a character named Roger who was so obsessed with the website that he did everything else with his feet—including changing his baby’s diaper. As a father of three, Goffeney is an expert at caring for children sans hands, so he played the feet. When the director announced the baby would wear cloth diapers, Goffeney didn’t bat an eye; his first diaper-changing experiences involved his baby brothers in the ’70s. But some mothers of the auditioning babies got jittery about the safety pins, which cost their children the role. “They waited for a mother who had nerves of steel,” Goffeney remembers. “They picked the baby based on the nervousness of the mom.” Because of his rare ability, Goffeney could command his salary for the role—quite a bit higher than the Screen Actors Guild standard FOX originally offered.

Cash is not always easy for musicians to come by, though. To pay the bills, Goffeney has worked in various jobs: as a telemarketer, in roofing, with adults with disabilities, with teenagers in transition. But his passion for playing didn’t die, and he eventually quit his day job to pursue performance full-time. “I would play anywhere they’d let me,” he remembers. As Big Toe scored more and more gigs, Goffeney moved his practice venue to Balboa Park, famous in San Diego for street entertainers. “We are actually licensed to play for tips,” he explains, and some days he brings home $200 to $300 in one day. “Sometimes I get a complex because some people might think I’m panhandling. But had I been born with arms, I still would have wanted to do this. I’m not going to not do it because not everybody gets it.” ... (Abilitymagazine).