Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones: Experimental Musical Instruments

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: A book-and-CD package devoted to new and unheard of musical instruments, full of magnificent photographs, informative text and great music, every page and every track overflowing with ideas and originality. Some of the world's most interesting and inventive musical instrument makers appear in the book with music from them included on the CD. This will become a collector's item.

Rating:
Summary: A book & CD package on unusual musical instruments
Review: Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones is a book-and-CD package devoted to new and unheard-of musical instruments, full of magnificent photographs, informative text and great music, every page and every track overflowing with ideas and originality. (I can say these things without sounding egotistical, I hope, because it's not my work as author that I'm praising, but that of the included artists.) Thirty-seven of the world's most interesting and inventive musical instrument makers appear in the book, with music from eighteen of them included on the CD. A few examples: the opening track on the CD is Hans Reichel's Daxophone -- a more developed and elegantly crafted version of the ruler held firmly overhanging the edge of the desk, played, in this case, with a bow. Hans gets an incredible circus of sounds from this arrangement with irresistible musical results. The late Jamaican mento musician Sugarbelly Walker plays his bamboo saxophone with facility, style, passion and joy! . Susan Rawcliffe produces the strangest and most haunting of sounds on oddly shaped and acoustically complex ceramic wind instruments inspired by pre-Columbian flutes and whistles. Music and instruments from the great mid-century iconoclast Harry Partch are included, as well as the earlier Theremin, played by the leading virtuoso of its day, Clara Rockmore. The reviews of this collection have been more plentiful and more enthusiastic than I ever could have thought possible, SO ... I hope you'll give it a look and a listen.

Rating:
Summary: This is an amazing book about very creative people & music.
Review: Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones is a new CD and book celebrating 37 outrageously inventive designers and builders of new and unusual musical instruments. The package includes a 96-page book with over 90 photographs and a foreword by Tom Waits, and a 73-minute CD of entirely original performances by 18 of the artists featured in the book. All this comes packaged in a sturdy box that can also be played as an instrument (as demonstrated by Bart Hopkin on National Public Radio).

Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review: If you are interested in experimental musical instruments, or the variety of timbres available without resorting to electronics and synthesizers, this is the book/CD for you.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: What a wonderful collection of tremendous music!!! The package is beautiful and the booklet is very informative. The music is all very listenable. I've never heard of most of these artists and am impressed with their talent, genius, craftsmanship, art, and spirit. I highly recommend this collection to anyone with the least interest in music and music making!!!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: What a wonderful collection of tremendous music!!! The package is beautiful and the booklet is very informative. The music is all very listenable. I've never heard of most of these artists and am impressed with their talent, genius, craftsmanship, art, and spirit. I highly recommend this collection to anyone with the least interest in music and music making!!!