Unusual Musical Instruments

On Arts Wednesday, Sylvia’s guest was eminent composer, Guy Gross, who collects, plays and composes with a huge number of unusual musical instruments. Below you can hear the conversation, Guy’s playing of the instruments in the studio and recordings where he has used them in his compositions.

In the next track, we hear the water phone played in a track from the original soundtrack of a television series Dangerous Remedy:

In this track Guy demonstrates the bamboo “conch” and in the following track, we hear it played in an excerpt from the soundtrack of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Now Guy talks about the simple Irish tin whistle and how he has modified it to change the sound.

In this track, we hear an excerpt from the soundtrack from the television series East West 101, featuring a reconfigured tin whistle.

Here, Guy talks about and plays the double-chamber ocarina and the nose flute.

Now we hear a track featuring the nose flute from the soundtrack of the television series Farscape,

In this last part of our conversation, Guy talks about and plays the musical saw. He also tells us about the shakuhachi and Chinese harp, which he played in a soundscape he composed and recorded for Crown Casino to sync with a water feature. The final track is an excerpt from that piece, entitled “Spring”.

Guy’s music room