Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn
A recent movie, Bucket List, was about a list of things to do before one dies (‘Kicks the bucket’). If you have such a list, either mental, on paper, or on your PC, here’s one thing you should add to yours – listen to Ommadawn several dozen times. I personally have listened to it several hundred times.
If you’ve
never heard of Mike Oldfield or Ommadawn, you may have heard of
Tubular bells, which he released 2 years earlier – and was
subsequently used in the movie The Exorcist.
Ommadawn was released in 1975. The piece is about 19 minutes long and almost impossible to describe with words - you have to experience it. Oldfield played most of the instruments himself. If you can find it, buy it. And listen to it with no distractions.
The first few dozen times you hear it, you’ll hear something you missed earlier. Don’t get hung up on the chanting and try to figure out what the words mean. They’re used mainly as an instrument – just another layer of sound. It really is a tapestry of sound. According to an entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ommadawn), Oldfield played the following instruments:
Acoustic bass, acoustic guitar, banjo, bouzouki, bodhrán, classical guitar, electric bass, electric guitars, electronic organs, glockenspiel, harp, mandolin, percussion, piano, spinet, steel guitar, synthesizers, twelve-string guitar.
Ommadawn was created before digital recording was readily available. He laid down track after track on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He started and stopped the tape so many times that, after a year’s work, the tape was too worn to use to master the album. So he started all over again. This time, he finished it in something like 3 months.
After hearing what music can really be like, you may understand why I frequently take ear plugs with me to restaurants and malls - and why we have no radio antennas on our 3 cars. I never listen to the radio. Most music today simply depresses me.