Classical Music is so romantic ! ! ! But can it really Rock ? ? ?
Classical music is something I really know nothing about ! ! ! But I do like most of the things I have heard. I like the sound of the instruments a lot and there is a great variety ! ! !
But what about classical orchestral instruments in Rock and Pop?
Of course there are lots of different instruments. Strings like violin, cello and double bass should be really easy to pick out and of course trumpets and trombones. But what about French Horns, violas, oboes and clarinets and some of the other stranger instruments like Bassoon. (I thought that was actually a type of monkey before I started to write this post ! ! ! )
So your Tuesday Spill Challenge is to nominate rock or pop tracks that feature orchestral instruments. I think we should exclude the piano as it is really a rock instrument also, and also exclude Traditional Jazz as they really often use orchestral instruments anyway.
So to start here is my choice, featuring a cello.
Have Fun ! ! !
Noanowa with Yumenoarika (how was the dream)
If you want to put the challenge next Tuesday – Please tell us in comment ! ! !
Great topic – spoiled rotten for choice!
Shiv said this was an oboe.
Violin -
Copey is the man, great choice AmyLee
The best use of a violin ever in the Realms of Rock, has to be the one Nigel Tufnell plays in this solo:
Can’t see that video in my country, but can you believe i still haven’t seen that movie yet? I will search a yank friendlier clip on youtube.
Here’s where i’m missing Fintan, because surely he remembers these guys. Question is when exactly does a violin become a fiddle.
Hope this falls in the right place. AmyLee re: Seatrain. While I remember the name & knew people who had seen them this is completely drawing a blank music wise. Might be because I was on the East coast when they were out west & then vice versa when they went to Mass.
I really loved Head Hang Low ! ! ! The Oboe is lovely ! ! !
In her ‘confrontational rock-chick’ phase, Polly ripped all the guitars and drums out from Man Size and replaced them with jagged strings. I don’t know if it’s still rock but it’s quite brilliant.
Oh Wow ! ! ! That was spookey ! ! ! It was like a theme from a horror movie ! ! !
I loved it ! ! !
Good topic, though a very wide one. Here’s an extraordinary piece of orchestration: Bjork with bassoons:
Actually, maybe these are saxes. Scratch that. I’m sure there’s a bassoon version somewhere – maybe on her Unplugged set (which is full of weird and wonderful things like marimbas, harps, gamelan and glass harmonicas). Will have a look…
Nope, definitely saxes: worth watching though:
I’ve just discovered that YouTube has that concert in its entirety, which may have just decided my plans for the evening. Seriously, would recommend this to anyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfU_GG3OXkI&feature=related
I love Bjork ! ! ! I will try and find the Bassoon version ! ! !
Spoiled for choice really, especially with my fondness for what is sometimes termed “chamber pop” which are bands who regularly use strings and other orchestral instruments to adorn their sound.
I’m plumping for Tindersticks “Another Night In” because once I was listening to it on a car journey and felt as if the string were caressing my ears and then each instrument seemed to give new meaning to the song (it was a dull journey)
Donds for anything ‘Sticks. Here’s a bassoon, and an oboe (and strings) for good measure:
big dond for that one, *sigh* I love the Tindersticks and I believe they’re playing live in London at the end of Feb, but I can’t see how I can go
I really enjoyed these tracks ! ! ! I like the basoon ! ! !
The reformed Tindersticks are more stripped down – wonder what Dicken is up to these days?
I’m not trying to have 2 goes, but surely Roxy Music are a shoo-in too, with Andy MacKay’s use of the oboe and saxaphone.
gah! Saxophone of course, distracted by Mr Staples doleful eyes.
As I recall, their first single. Loved it, but then Roy Wood left. End of that . . .
Horn section kicks in around 1:45. Who doesn’t like a bit of horn now & again?
” Who doesn’t like a bit of horn now & again?”
Exactly ! ! ! I love the horn sound. Maybe that is why I like Ska so much ! ! !
They are great on this track ! ! !
Us smutty Brits sometimes use “horn” as a cheap euphemism, Sakura.
Sorry, ’bout that.
Oh ! ! !
I learnt I new word ! ! !
Mind you, there are lots of Beatles’ songs, from Yesterday to Eleanor Rigby. Myself, I’d go for Strawberry Fields Forever or . . .
I forgot all those tracks the Beatles did with orchestras ! ! ! Thanks for reminding me of them. They are amongst my favourites ! ! !
“Any time you get to work with an orchestra, god, it’s a thrill. Something I could never have dreamt of in childhood, that I would have that kind of experience.” – Tom Petty
So this is his song about childhood, with an orchestra.
Dreamville by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
And to return the compliment, Sakura, here’s the one with the koto!
It’ll All Work Out by the same.
I loved both of these tracks ! ! ! The Koto in “It’ll All Work Out” really works well, I was surprised how well it fitted with western style music ! ! !
Last one from me. Here’s The Mothers Of Invention’s take on Little Richard’s Directly From My Heart To You, with Don “Sugarcane” Harris on lead violin.
No, no. Here it is . . .
Good call maestro webchorus
I know this is outside your Zappacompata Bility zone but I liked it when the Synclavier sessions made it onto proper orchestral turf and saw the Yellow Shark performances a couple of times.
That was excellent, though exhausting.
Of course the whole of Metallica’s S&M album is backed by a full orchestra, but I love the sitar-y beginning bit and the gothness of Wherever I May Roam.
That was great ! ! !
I am not familiar with that album from Metalica, but I will definitely check it out ! ! !
This probably won’t work as I’m trying to be clever from an iPhone but for me, it’s Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain. Those strings!
I’m a late convert to KJ, brilliant stuff
I like a bit of Bunnymen myself, they are lovely strings
The strings on the 12″ version of Never Stop, rock a little more.
I do like this very much ! ! !
I think the strings really add to the arrangement and blend into the song really nicely.
Keith West- Excerpt from a Teenage Opera.
Featuring the kalamahoop, duneburgle and whippet, on of the earliest attempts to mix rock music and orchestral.
Sakura, have you received my e-mail with Chinese tracks ? I seem to be having trouble sending it, keep getting “error” message.
Hi Mr P ! ! !
I really liked this track ! ! !
I did not get your mail – But I am getting mail from other people. I just mailed you actually. But last week there was a day when I could not mail you, but it was OK the next day . . . . Ummm .. . .
I hope it is OK later I am really looking forward to hearing them ! ! !
PS – I love the duneburgle ! ! ! Beethoven’s Duneburgle Concerto is one of my favourites ! ! !
I so love this. It reminds me of when I was I was kid and hearing it for the first time in the travelling grocer’s van when I was choosing lollipops. His name was Jack. Got all goosebumpy, see? Love that shirt. He was pretty hot, old Keith there… Oh the orchestration.Not bad.
Exclude jazz?!
The Go-Betweens’ Bye, Bye Pride features the superlative Amanda Brown on oboe.
DOND! (One of the first that came to mind, but thought I’d leave it for you)
Cheers! If you can find a clip please post, so much is blocked where I am. One other suggestion would be the Muttonbirds Thing well made, featuring Don Mcglashan’s euphonium.
With pleasure. One of the comments below the clip says: “And the greatest use of an oboe in a pop song award goes to…”
Er, where’s that link then?
I only really meant to exclude
Traditional Jazz as they so often were based around orchestral instruments anyway.
I know what you meant, only kidding… though early jazz moved pretty quickly into a fairly small group of instruments we don’t consider to be purely orchestral these days.. besides the clarinet, the violin/fiddle, and the tuba it was basically drums, bass, saxophones, pianos, banjos, trumpets, cornets, and trombones. A few bands like Django Reinhardt’s Hot Club five focussed exclusively on string instruments (I once saw a Japanese Hot Club Five tribute band, they were fantastic)
In the late forties- early fifties jazz+orchestra compositions became more commonplace; Charlie Parker recorded with strings, Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool recordings featured parts for french horn and tuba, Dave Brubeck did something similar. Musicians like Yusef Lateef (for example, on his Spartacus love theme, A.listed for the Ancient History RR) took up the oboe or the bassoon.
Jazz-rock brought in bass clarinets, acoustic and electric violins, the great Bob Stewart took up the tuba, as in this Arthur Blythe recording…
I really liked this!
I think I am becoming a fan of the oboe ! ! !
One of the first pop/R & B records to use strings was this by The Drifters.
Hi Mitch ! ! !
This is such a great track ! ! ! I love his voice and the strings give the track really sophisticated sound.
I really enjoyed it ! ! !
How about a rock band who’s singer is also a classical composer and conductor? Despite that they’ve only ever done a couple of tracks with a string section, here’s one
Killing Joke – Communion
Ah, here’s my personal fave Joke with strings: Taking the Eastern-sounding tablas (?? I think) motif from Communion one stage further, Invocation is Jaz’s answer to Zep’s Kashmir, if you ask me:
MAGNIFICENT! A monstrously huge sound, like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse once they’d traded up to armour-clad elephants.
That’s other Joke-with-strings track. They were always partial to a bit of Zep.
Probably so few as it’s tricky to orchestrate KJ’s usual style of start to end riffage – You normally wheel out the orchestral bits to change things up.
I enjoyed both the KJ tracks. Invocation was such a dramatic track ! ! ! I really loved it ! ! !
I’m another one spoilt for choice, so let’s get REALLY nostalgic: here’s one combining the strings with the rock guitar sound that made my lifetime musical choice for me just as I hit my teens.
That visual looks familiar! Somebody, er, use it as an avatar somewhere?
Qui? Moi? . . . Oui. D’accord.
I realy love the 10,000 Maniacs version of “Because the Night” from their “unplugged” album. Is it cheating to do “unplugged” with a (small) orchestra?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7a1ls_10-000-maniacs-because-the-night-mt_music
Dunno if that’ll work; it’s a DailyMotion video.
Well, you can follow the link.
But let’s try the embed code…
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x7a1ls
10,000 Maniacs – Because the Night (MTV… by clp23
That is a great version of a really wonderful song ! ! !
I can never get videos except Youtube to embed in a comment, but I did manage in my last post to find out how to do it for a post.
http://thespillblog.co.uk/2011/12/17/detective-sakura-investigates-yui-and-stereopony-just-the-facts-please-mam/
You change
to
[vimeo http:// then the link . . . ]
It is useful as for example Sony take away all the Youtube videos of YUI and a lot of their top acts, almost as soon as they appear but some sites keep them up longer depending on where they are I think.
Here’s Peter Hammill backed by orchestras for two rare orchestral outings.
And I’m pinching a second go, to beg for a full 24 minutes of your time:
Half of the total running time of The Best Album Ever Made ™, 80s synth-poppers Talk Talk traded any chance of further chart success to gobsmack us all with this initially-dumbfounding, subsequently-lauded, pigeonhole-defying masterpiece. [Nigel Kennedy on] Violin, bassoon, oboe, clarinet, cor anglais, and the magnificently-named shozyg all feature.
Hmmm? What’s that you say? No I hadn’t either. Here’s what Wiki has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Davies_(composer)
I’ve been looking everywhere for my shozyg.
Fab. Should have actually picked something by Mark Hollis.
I did listen to half ! ! ! And I really enjoyed it and I will listen properly later, but it is a really interesting track ! ! ! I am looking forward to listenign to it with more time ! ! !
Well, my initial thought was to return to my rock days and suggest something like Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra or Rainbow’s Difficult to Cure, but that may be missing the point. Then thought of my first ever favourite group, which regularly featured violin – electric violin, admittedly – and other strings. This is the best track I can find on YouTube – and I have no idea what it’s on about, but can only apologise…
I was thinking that the Metallica song had shades of Ultravox in it when I was playing it again earlier. now I am hearing this, I think I was wrong!
I never really managed to get into Ultravox, but I did like this track ! ! !
A much earlier Ultravox, where the violin is unmistakable…
Now this is my take – here’s the original:
Konono Nº1 – Kule Kule (Reprise)
and Jherek Bischoff vs Konono No. 1: Kule Kule (Orchestral Version)
and a short video of the original musicians to show the contrast of wired up car parts in comparison to an orchestra:
I really loved the African original version.
The instrument like a music box inside really reminded me of this absolutely wonderful track
YSN is playing here in March, coincidentally- hope I can make it to the concert.
First thoughts on this goes to the Moody Blues and the whole album Days of Future Past the whole album is atributed to them and the London Festival Orchestra.
It is the album that gave us one of the best orchestrated “pop” songs of all time……………“Nights in White Satin”.
Originally recorded in 1967.
Oh yum!
yeah, well and truly donded. That and Metallica were actually my first thoughts. Days of Future Passed is great.
As no one has mentioned this one yet – but i’m not entirely sure that it counts.
Great big dond……………Love that song.
Just finished Luke Haines ‘Post Everything: Outsider Rock and Roll’:
“northern dunces’, he’s not kind about The Verve, but very funny, and he could do something like this himself
tatanka – have you heard this? Luke Haines, presumably realising that nobody else was ever likely to release an orchestral medley of his songs, decided to do it himself:
I enjoyed Haines’ recent 80′s British pro-wrestling concept album.
The first one was wonderful. The orchestral one was too overblown for my taste.
They’re the first and last (hidden) tracks on the album ‘Das Capital, The song writing genius of Luke Haines and the Auteurs’. The album’s costs were finagled out of the incoming owners of Hut/Virgin (who’d ordered his sacking) through the commitment and sleight of hand of David Boyd
Oh, hell yes. I always fucking forget this is so ridiculously good. Loved that!
Luke Haines was a great ! ! ! And of course the Verve ! ! !
Dond from me too.
Hard to get much better than that.
O.K. maybe not totally orchestral, but you just got to love that brass sound……………………….
Again from the early 70′s Peter Skellern…..”Your a Lady”.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YPXPDDk7TI
Peter Skellern reminded me of the wind instrument club in my high school actually ! ! ! (Which is no bad thing – as Pairubu says ! ! ! )
Ok, RRJ got in early with the Hammill orchestras so I’m going with Lindsay Cooper’s bassoon and clarinets and Fred Frith’s violin. Anybody mention Robert Kirby’s string arrangements yet?
Probably better for observing the bassoon
I like the Basoon ! ! !
I really did think the Bassoon was type of monkey before, but I am not good with animals, When I was a kid I thought lions and tigers were the same but lions the men and tigers the girls ! ! !
Henry Cow were very interesting and challenging but I enjoyed it very much ! ! !
And, of course, being Irish Clannad could never resist using a harp at every opportunity.
Cello -
WOW ! ! ! So many great tracks ! ! ! I have listened to some but I need to rush to my stupid job now, but I will listen to the rest when I come home again ! ! !
Well, if everyone else is ignoring the rules & having more than one….
Here’s one from 2012:
David LaFlamme had been a soloist for the Salt Lake City Orchestra prior to forming It’s A Beautiful Day with his wife Linda in 1967. There are many orchestral moments in LaFlamme’s torched solo breaks. He played a five string violin and uses the added space to have shitloads of fun. I also really enjoy the plucked strings that they open with.
Also one of the classic album covers.
duh! Flute
Given a full orchestra to play with and a movie to score (Friends), Elton made a fine effort with a wonderful celebration of woodwinds then segues perfectly into a very, very Elton pop nugget that always leaves me yearning for just a bit more.
More violin and cello-
stings, harpsichord
Daryl Hall – Dreamtime (1986)
Baroque ELO-style psychedelia that was WAY out of its era. And a stylistic solo departure for Hall. And a trippy video to match, man.
Jack Nitzsche in the 60′s was a pioneer of using orchestral arrangements in pop music. This is one of the first that I became truly aware of how they can enhance a toon, rather than just play the background to it. It’s ‘Old Friends’ from S & G’s Bookends
Nitzsche also helped produce Buffalo Springfields’ ‘Expecting to Fly’ and Doris Day’s ‘Move Over Darlin’.
And how about this, which he penned himself: The Lonely Surfer.
Another track which was among the first to combine rock & roll/pop with strings was this one by Buddy Holly, which was posthumously released.
The sound was copied by many, most notably John Barry who did the backings on Adam Faith’s early hits such as “What Do You Want”.
I can’t remember a viola sounding this good anywhere else……..
oh and big donds for Luke and the Auteurs
great idea for a topic. Lots of noise bands include classical instruments and I’M sure Mnemonic can recommend a good Dirty Three track with some insane violin on it, but I’ll go for something from Noxagt, who are a Norwegian three-piece. They’ve changed now, but on their best album from 2004 they were bass, drums and seriously scraped metal viola:
An original challenge Sakura and I see people are remembering lots of music, this is my conribution
Celtas Cortos (name of a cheap brand of cigarrettes) was one of the first groups in Spain using the clasical instruments to do their music, a mixture of celtic, pop and rock that was very successful in the 90′s and still active.
They came from a music class in a high school where they met each other