Say you’re cruising down the highway, and all of a sudden, music! The distance between the concrete blocks you’re driving on are all exactly the same – and the bump, bump, bump, bump of the car as it passes from block to block makes a sort of drum-beat. Or maybe you turn on your tractor, and the turning of the engine is so infectious that you just have to get our your guitar and jam along …

We’ve all had funny moments when life gives us an unexpected musical moment. There are even some theories that the whole idea of music started with repeated noises. When we were primitive cave-dwellers, hearing a foreign noise could be very distressing – could the origin of that noise be something that could kill us? But hearing it over and over again, in the same rhythm, or same pitches, relaxes our brains and tells us that no, that’s not a tiger prowling around our cave, that’s just the wind blowing the trees. A bit of a stretch yes, but that’s the really really short version.

One example of “unexpected music” that we’ve all probably had is the experience of riding in a train. So many moving parts, and such a constant speed, make train travel a mesmerizing rhythmic experience. Well, Arthur Honegger took that to the next level when he wrote “Pacific 231” – instead of sitting in a train and experiencing unexpected music, you can now sit in a hall and experience unexpected train travel. This piece needs no further description – you’ll know exactly what is going on as you listen – and what a great ending!

Continuing with this week’s anvil theme (see here and here), today I give you Alexander Moslov. Who said nothing good ever came out of the USSR?

The Iron Foundry was written shortly after the 1917 Russian Revolution, and is one of the last pieces in the brief futurist movement which swept through Europe around World War I. In short: it’s the music of industrial progress! Assembly lines, machines, manufacturing, factories.

Although it’s hard to hear, the anvil solo comes in at 2:30. NEEDS MORE ANVIL!!!!!

Yesterday‘s anvil-themed post prompted a person’s comment which introduced me to a piece I’ve never heard before which also features the anvil. And since this week is a brutal one for me (running a 60-kid Choir Camp), I’m going to run with the hard work / anvil theme here!

Despite his very German name, Gustav Holst was very English (in his compositional style). And while his most famous piece is without a doubt The Planets, wind players know and love his suites for band. These, like many of his pieces, use or imitate English folk songs (which was all the rage while he was alive, thanks to Ralph Vaughan Williams).

This video is particularly magnificent because 1) the anvil-player’s (anvilist?) attire 2) the cinematographic zoom-in on the anvilist at the end 3) the awesome, blacksmith-inspired gaze of the anvilist.