Octobass. Deep.

How low can you go? Meet the Octobass, not to be confused with the Double Bass or Triple Contrabass Viol. The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) has the only known working Octobass in capitivity. The instrument is so large it must be played using pedals and levers. The lowest note on a bass viol rumbles out at a frequency of 442 Hz. The lowest note of the octabass hits your gut at 25 Hz.

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“This is an octobass – it’s so low it will turn your insides to jelly,” Tim Edwards, Classic FM

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Guitar Sales Are Growing

For the past decade, guitars have been a glut on the market, seen as boomer relics of rock music’s bygone ages. COVID home confinement has changed that:

“A half-year into a pandemic that has threatened to sink entire industries, people are turning to the guitar as a quarantine companion and psychological salve, spurring a surge in sales for some of the most storied companies (Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor) that has shocked even industry veterans.

‘I would never have predicted that we would be looking at having a record year,’ said Andy Mooney, the chief executive of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, the Los Angeles-based guitar giant that has equipped Rock & Roll Hall of Famers since Buddy Holly strapped on a 1954 sunburst Fender Stratocaster back in the tail-fin 1950s.”

—  “Guitars Are Back, Baby!” Alex Williams, New York Times

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Image (“The Electric Guitar Lesson, after Renoir”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Pianos

Pianos used to be in homes of all social classes, but now it’s a luxury for those with room for them. Some pianos have migrated to great open spaces, like London’s St. Pancras railway station. A Financial Times video.

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Marlene Dietrich, Musician

Marlene Dietrich und ihrem Singenden Säge.

h/t: Andrea James, Boing boing

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Found in the Trash: Music & Children

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, Paraguay.

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LandFillharmonicMovie.com

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Gibson Guitars Caught Smuggling

Gibson Guitars agreed to pay penalties totaling over $$600,000 for smuggling exotic endangered wood into the United States in violation of the century-old Lacey Act. The Act was amended in 2008 to ban importation of illegally harvested hardwoods like Madagascar ebony. Gibson builds many well-known guitar models including the ES-355 (B.B. King and Chuck Berry play it) and the Les Paul, and many of these guitars have ebony fretboards. Madagascar has forbidden logging of its slow-growing ebony since 2006, meaning US importation from that date forward was illegal.

In order to avoid criminal prosecution, Gibson acknowledged that it imported exotic wood in violation of environmental laws, paid the Justice Department $300,000 in penalties, forfeited claims to over $250,000 worth of wood seized by the Feds, and contributed $50,000 to a foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.

At least Gibson didn’t get caught smuggling illegal weapons into the country. Blackwater did that.

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