My Gadget Life

Friday night David and I went to a free concert by the Boston Village Gamelan. If you’re not familiar with what a gamelan orchestra is, here’s the definition from “answers.com.”

gamelan: An Indonesian orchestra composed mainly of tuned percussion instruments such as bamboo xylophones, wooden or metal chimes, and gongs.

I heard them play once before at First Night a few years ago. This concert was more interesting than the one I remember because it included singing. What was really fun was watching a group of 4 men seated in the back who sang and clapped rhythms for certain sections and a young boy (maybe 6 years old) who sang and clapped with them. He was good and obviously having such a good time!

Also there were quite a few kids in the audience and since it was fairly informal, they laid on the floor in the front and drew pictures or stared at the musicians (who were also sitting on the floor). It was fun looking around at the audience and listening to the music.

Here is a sound sample (not of this concert, but of some gamelan somewhere on the Internet): http://alek.zipzap.ch/gamelan/s/jawa_sm.wav

Tonight I went to a wonderful concert by the “radical vocal trio” called “Charming Hostess.” I was intrigued, because I love a capella singing, and I sometimes miss the old days when I used to do a lot of choral singing myself. They were excellent, combining rhythmic breathing, clapping, tapping, and sounds, with very tight harmonies from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, mostly. You can hear some samples on their web site…. but the songs they did tonight were actually much better than those samples.