Old Man Harry

Harry Partch, Enclosure 2: Historic Speech-Music Recordings (compiled in 2000, Rhapsody)

Jack Pendarvis' recent explorations of the citherns, cithers, citterns, zithers, and kithara at his "blog" is my kind of exposed research. Lay it bare and let 'er rip.

It reminded me that I've been meaning to pull out the Harry Partch records from the non-existent cloud-shelves that are the Internet because Old Man Harry had his own anachro-musicological take on the kithara, demonstrated plainly here but with more flare at 0:19 in part 2 in the following dazzling act of documentation. The old man gets funky on the surrogate kithara.


Music Studio: Harry Partch, Part 1


Music Studio: Harry Partch, Part 2

If I had a studio like that I would never leave it. The long-haired camel above is not a Harry Partch instrument but instead just a long-haired camel from the Global Wildlife Center field trip last week.

Here he is going on about the ruthlessness of Wagner and offering a dream.

♫ Harry Partch, "Text and Music: A Wagnerian Wrestling Match" (Rhapsody)
♫ Harry Partch, "Ten Li Po Lyrics: 1 - A Dream" (Rhapsody)