Tuesday, May 26, 2009

AMAZEMENT FOR THE DAY

This came to me via my OTHER prolific e-mailer friend, Amar Talwar. It features the talents of eight people who use their voices alone to simulate all the musical instruments necessary to produce an astonishingly diverse medley of music.

This makes me wonder if the day may come when my particular vocal talent will find an audience ... *grin* ... I have for some years specialized in imitating The Song of the Humpback Whale.

My very first performance left an indelible impression on some guests who were visiting my mother, at her home in Madras. I had recently heard the NatGeo vinyl record insert that had come along with our subscription copy of the magazine, of the Humpback Whales' astounding vocalizations. This was waaaaay back ... in those dim days when every house actually had a working turntable and "music system" for playing LPs and EPs and other quaint flat discoid media. A couple of days later, I turned the TV on -- and there was the same NatGeo programme, this time with a video of the whales' performance! It was only natural that I should feel inspired to sing along, right?

Alas, I failed to notice that my mother was sitting in the adjoining drawing room, with a pair of Exceptionally Respectable (translation: uptight to the max) visiting relations -- not close family and no-one related directly to me -- drinking a morning cup of tea and making soft-voiced remarks about how best to straiten laces and stiffen upper lips. But their efforts were gradually drowned out entirely by my unearthly howls.

As the relatives sat with their faces turning many shades of pale green, perhaps fearing an imminent invasion of humpback whales, my mother stammered, "... that's my youngest daughter. Visiting from Bombay, you know. An artist ..."


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow wow wow. no wonder then that musicians often say that the voice is the ultim8 instrument.......... also, i was a bit anxious when i read that you were going to do a demonstration of the humpback whales........ but it turned out to only cover vocals huh. imagine how you could've got the "elders" blowin' wind :-) gt

Manjula Padmanabhan said...

Haha ...

I believe the elders never got over the performance!

I was busy teaching my little niecelet (my niece's daughter, four years old) the Ways of the Whale, in Madras this time. She's a fast learner, I am told. Practises all day long. But when I talk to her on the phone she says she can't "sing" effectively if I'm not there to inspire her.

For those of you out there who are inclined to give it a go, keep in mind that the important thing is VOLUME. Gotta be able to let the old lungs out for a ride ...

*grin*

Paul said...

An extremely talented band. I've forwarded the link to everyone on my mailing list.

Manjula Padmanabhan said...

I'd love to see the full performance!

Scherezade said...

Reminds me of Naturally 7 though that's mostly urban music.
Saw them at the TED meet. Pretty awesome stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNJlhtNpuiU

Manjula Padmanabhan said...

Tx Scherezade -- as you may discover, I not only followed your link but wandered a little farther too. And posted some of the results of that wandering in my next item. I also misspelt your name, I now realize -- but I'll have corrected it by the time you see this.

Anonymous said...

nice post. thanks.