Category: Music

I’ve spent the odd hour during lock down watching the Antiques Road Trip and therefore when one of the experts says that something that they have forund is Georgian, then I normally associate this with the period in British history from 1714 to c. 1830–37, named after the Hanoverian kings George I, George II, George […]

After yesterday’s delights of the Goddesses of Bagpipes, I thought we make take another excursus into the world of another under valued instrument the Hurdy Gurdy. The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single […]

I have never been a great fan of the ‘pipes’ as they are usually associated with the Scottish Bagpipe Bands playing versions of Amazing Grace. However I have recently come across the music of the so called ‘Goddesses of Bagpipes’ who have made me re-evaluate my opinion. So let’s begin with them playing together their […]

It was announced yesterday that Spencer Davis had died of pneumonia at the age of 81. I thought it might be appropriate to remember him and his contribution to music in the mid-1960’s. Davis was born in Swansea in July 1939. He began learning to play harmonica and accordion at the age of six. He […]

Kraftwerk (lit. “power station”) is a German band formed in Dusseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered as innovators and pioneers of electronic music, they were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany’s experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before […]

In 1968, the movies came to Cheltenham in the shape of Lindsay Anderson’s film If… starring Malcolm McDowell. It was set in Cheltenham College and my friend Shirley was one of the extras. The soundtrack of the movie featured the Sanctus from a setting of the mass from the Democratic Republic of Congo performed by […]

Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquess of the Gardens of Aranjuez, was born in Sagunto (Valencia), and completely lost his sight at the age of three after contracting diphtheria. He began to study piano and violin at the age of eight; harmony and composition from the age of 16. Although distinguished by having raised the Spanish […]

The blog returns with a bang after our short break in the West Country. Today we feature the Wagakki Band from Japan. They are a group of musicians who play rock music on traditional japanese instruments (Wagakki). Singer Suzuhana Yuko (who had been elected Miss Nico Nama in 2011), shakuhachi player (wooden flute) Kaminaga Daisuke, […]