Think of a musical instrument

[koganbot]

Think of a musical instrument.

What was the first instrument that crossed your mind when I instructed you just now to think of a musical instrument?

(See comments.)

Comments

[koganbot]

Since I'm the one who gave the instruction, there was no way for a spontaneous image or thought of a particular instrument to cross my mind in response. But I'll bet if someone else had said, "Think of an instrument," either violin or guitar would have been there first — even if someone in the next room were playing a harmonica at the same time, or I were listening to severe techno on the computer.

I was born in Connecticut (east coast USA) in 1954; heritage Jewish, parents intellectuals, their main listening classical; dad played the violin in a university orchestra (though not for a living). I took piano and violin lessons as a child; quit in favor of guitar (unlessoned), when folk and then rock took me over. Picked up bass later; the character of my bass playing was very different from that of my guitar playing. More ebullient, less caustic. Once, over at my friend Patty's apartment, I picked up a small mbira (thumb piano) she had sitting around, and played a three against two rhythm. Patty thought I was a natural for it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

harpsichord!

Obviously I have 2/3rds of a massive history of music and technology lying unfinished in my flat and have thought about instruments and instrumentation -- and how particular devices for sound creation and manipulation evolve -- a LOT: i think i get to harpsichord because in my head i organise the development of the piano as being exemplary of the cross-over from hand-made to machine-made, and harpsichord comes before piano

[koganbot]

Was curious if John Miller Chernoff's African Rhythm And African Sensibility is also lying around your flat. I think you've mentioned it. I had a copy, but a couple of decades ago it took a short vacation in someone else's apartment, I forget whose, and it never returned. I ask because I have a memory, right or wrong, of Chernoff recalling seeing a lone character approaching in the distance, drum in hand, and the person next to Chernoff saying, "Oh good! Music!" or something of the sort. Chernoff's comment to us, the readers, was that he doubted that in America a single drum* would have gotten that reaction: "Music!"

But I may be misremembering severely.

*With no band or orchestra in sight, that is.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

don't suppose you remember whereabouts in the book it is?

[koganbot]

I'd guess it would be near the start, and I think that's what my memory would tell me. But that might be my "memory" reconstructing where I would expect it to be, as opposed to where it really is.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

found it: yes it's on the very first page if you don't count the introduction (=p.27), but it's not a lone character with a drum, it's a group of drummers

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

GREAT book btw, must reread