Sunday, August 29, 2010

Musical Interlude



Being reminded of Renaissance rap led me to an early sampling keyboard, for which knowledge we have Athanasius Kircher to thank: "In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy."

Wikipedia(with another picture!) quotes Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin describing the mechanism of the Katzenklavier otherwise: "It held a bear that played the organ; instead of pipes, there were sixteen cat heads each with its body confined; the tails were sticking out and were held to be played as the strings on a piano, if a key was pressed on the keyboard, the corresponding tail would be pulled hard, and it would produce each time a lamentable meow."

The resident kitties have been placed in a protection program until the lads stop carrying around "pitch-determining" hammers.

11 comments:

Willy said...

This abominable orchestra arranged itself inside a theater where monkeys, wolves, deer and other animals danced to the sounds of this infernal music.

The birth of the discotheque.

Substance McGravitas said...

Oo ee oo aa aa.

tigris said...

Also

Smut Clyde said...

"pitch-determining" hammers.

I hope you're not accusing those Westham lads of tampering with the field.

mikey said...

Hmm. Interesting. It seems that, at some point in Europe, apparently some time after they determined that it was only safe to drink the ale, that there was something inherently musical about cats. The fact that there was very little empirical support for this premise didn't seem to serve as an obstacle to it's pursuit. I suspect the contribution of a papal emissary.

At that same time, they discovered in Italy that you could get the purest tones out of stringed instruments if you made their strings from feline intestines.

I have little doubt that a fierce debate was raging in the Budapest Post op-ed pages over whether feline musicality was a real phenomenon, and whether you should believe otherwise until representatives from alchemy and clergy could agree on its actual existence...

Hmmm. WV is flytio. Isn't that pretty much the australian pronunciation of SHUT UP SMUT

Smut Clyde said...

WV is flytio. Isn't that pretty much the australian pronunciation of SHUT UP SMUT

Australians are no good at flyting and they do not like it when they lose.
Also worth noting: asked to name his favourite poem or literary work, Neil Gaiman singled out the Flyting of Loki.

Another Kiwi said...

Prolonged exposure to this music can lead to catatonia.

Another Kiwi said...

I hope you're not accusing those Westham lads of tampering with the field.

They could play underwater at the moment and it wouldn't make any difference.

Substance McGravitas said...

It seems that, at some point in Europe, apparently some time after they determined that it was only safe to drink the ale, that there was something inherently musical about cats.

TRUE.

Smut Clyde said...

Athanasius Kircher rated for Jerry.

Unknown said...

Cat ale really took off until the illegality of introducing cat's pee pale ale to flyting contests. Hence the flyte; don't pee on my back and tell me it was a cat.

cogisher, real heavy thinking dude like Smut.