We’ve all done this — you’re sitting at a desk; all of a sudden, you have a primal urge to make music. Maybe you tap your toes, maybe you drum on the desk, maybe you just swing your body to the music playing in your head. One of my schoolmates would play the “William Tell Overture” in class by tapping on his teeth. If you asked him how he could play the correct pitches just by moving his mouth, his answer was “I just know it.” We all have some of that in us.

Humans can find ways to make music out of anything. Anything! When you consider that, then Thierry De Mey‘s piece “Table Music” isn’t so strange. It might be considered avant-garde since it doesn’t use traditional concert instruments, but in terms of form, it’s pretty conservative – a combination of old and new that has made this piece a relative hit!

Be sure to watch the video, and not just listen to the audio.

Austrian violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler is known as a hot-dog violinist and his compositions, both of which were warm, juicy, and sweet. His best-loved work is Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen, three short pieces for violin and piano that recall the sound of, well, Old Wieners (er, old Vienna).

Written in 1905, Kreisler knew this musical style was out of fashion. For some stupid reason, there is an unspoken rule that new Art Music needs to be fresh and forward-looking, and that imitating or stealing another’s music is bad. So, he attributed the work to Joseph Lanner, who was a genuine Old Wiener Alt-Wiener Viennese romantic, with no artificial fillers. Once the piece became famous, Kreisler removed Lanner’s name and took credit for the music.

I’m telling ya, you never sausage a great violinist!

Sorry, hippies. Somebody beat you to it.

Justin Holland (1819-1887), was a civil-rights activist, moving around the same circles as Frederic Douglass. He worked with whites to free slaves in the Underground Railroad. Oh yeah, and he also played a mean guitar.

He became nationally known for his guitar method books – his approach to teaching was considered very conservative for the time (sorry, hippies; I guess he was a square). And, while not a composer himself, he was famous for arranging famous works of other composers, including this one, which includes some popular tunes from Carl Maria von Weber‘s opera, Oberon.