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Topic: Question for old Oahu club members/Senior forumites |
Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 5 Aug 2008 10:28 am |
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| Does anyone who took lessons or played in the large group steel guitar orchestras of the 30s, 40s, & 50s have any audio recordings from those days? I'm doing a short sequence for a project on steel history that touches on amateur players and would like to be able to play something in the background. Thanks! |
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c c johnson
From:
killeen,tx usa * R.I.P.
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Posted 5 Aug 2008 11:47 am
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| I think no one would want to record those things; at tleast the eight I was in. As Herb Remington put it a couple hundred people would tune up within a few half tones of each other and murder whatever song it was. cc |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 5 Aug 2008 12:16 pm
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| Yes, but how can future generations ever know how truly horrible one hundred, amateur, out-of-tune steel players butchering Aloha Oe can sound if we have no recorded evidence? Is this unique cacophony lost to history? |
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Harry Dietrich
From:
Robesonia, Pennsylvania, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 5 Aug 2008 12:36 pm
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Worst then that...I was in an ALL accordian orchestra, with the exception of 2 steel players, when I was a kid taking music lessons, and we did a concert, (and I use the term loosely), at our city park band shell. Talk about a fiddling in your seat experience. Of course most of the spectators were our parents, so nobody threw any fruit. This was around 1948.
Harry     
P.S. Andy...thanks for the memories.  |
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Bob Hickish
From:
Port Ludlow, Washington, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 5 Aug 2008 4:41 pm
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Andy
Who could afford such a high tech item like a recorder in them days ?
if someone does have a recording , it could very well be on a wire .
I did attend that kind of instruction and know what your talking about . although
having that sound in the background would drive away anyone you may be
trying to attract to your program .
when playing in the class we all thought we sound like JB and it was the
other guy that was off .  
Hick |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 7 Aug 2008 7:09 am YOU are right!
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BOB.......you're right on the money! WIRE RECORDERS were the 'in-thing' back in those wonderful times. I'm sure they had some expensive tape models in the $3,500 price range (as I recall) but way out of reach for the average person, especially a struggling musician.
We used to have some 40-50 students participating in those weekly orchestra practices. Some would play rhythm on their round-hole, flat top guitars while another section in the room would play the melody. Great songs like: "The merry go 'round";
"Grandfather's Clock"........and movers, like that.
The strongest recollection to this young boy of 10, was the extremely attractive 'older woman' that would nurse her infant in the front center of the room where every student had a clear view. I sure miss her! |
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Wally Pfeifer
From:
Illinois, USA
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Posted 7 Aug 2008 7:39 am Nursing her infant
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Ray,- you dirty old man !
That was just part of animal and human survival. |
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Bob Hickish
From:
Port Ludlow, Washington, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 7 Aug 2008 8:18 am
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Ray
This my be topic drift But I remember her !
her name was Mrs Robinson !
The large class was something to behold - It was the
homework that was tuff , they knew there was little chance
for a student in the class environment . |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 7 Aug 2008 9:25 am In those olden days..................
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We were still playing with the FLAT bar......
and it seems like it was thing to do for atleast a half dozen copy-cats......to manage to drop their bar down into the hollow-body of the guitar.
This, of course, was followed by the loud banging from shaking the guitar upside down in an effort to get the bar 'out of the g'tar' once again. There were the timid shakers and there of course, was the more macho shakers that nearly knocked holes in the guitar.
Yes, those were the days.......... to be sure. |
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Bill Creller
From:
Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)
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Posted 8 Aug 2008 11:31 am
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I had some lessons in the mid forties, and the teacher had us play individually, and he played rhythm for each student at the event.
He always said a bunch of Hawaiian guitars together sounded like a cat fight I guess maybe he was right. |
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