Proving that you don’t have be technically proficient to make incredible, soul-shaking music, here are five albums by untrained amateurs that will blow your mind. I almost NEVER say this about music or film or art or anything, but I don’t think I’m overstating things too much when I say that the first two albums in this post have changed my life. And the other three are pretty damn good too! I’m VERY excited to present these to you.

The Langley Schools Music Project - Innocence and Despair (2001/1976-7)

In 1976 and 1977, music teacher Hans Fenger recorded two elementary school music classes singing and playing a handful of instruments in a gymnasium in Langley, British Columbia. But unlike most music teachers, Fenger’s approach to teaching music was fairly radical. “I knew virtually nothing about conventional music education, and didn’t know how to teach singing,” he says, “Above all, I knew nothing of what children’s music was supposed to be. But the kids had a grasp of what they liked: emotion, drama, and making music as a group. Whether the results were good, bad, in tune or out was no big deal — they had élan. This was not the way music was traditionally taught. But then I never liked conventional ‘children’s music,’ which is condescending and ignores the reality of children’s lives, which can be dark and scary. These children hated ‘cute.’ They cherished songs that evoked loneliness and sadness.” He let the children pick their own songs (all pop songs from the ’60s and ’70s), accompanying themselves with sparse, minimal instrumentation: open-tuned electric bass, a stripped down drum kit, electric laptop steel guitar, xylophones and metallophones, hand cymbals, tambourines and claves, and acoustic guitar and piano played by Fenger himself. The results are astounding. With the sole exception of “I Get Around,” EVERY SINGLE SONG on this album is better than the original. I’m not fucking kidding. These kids make these songs their own. They transform them into something spiritual, something profound, something no trained professional in a studio could ever even dream of capturing. When that weird tremelo guitar scrape noise comes in on “Space Odditty,” you feel like outer space has actually been transported into that gymnasium. In “Sweet Caroline,” when those notorious three notes come in, and they’re played by… a xylophone (?!), it COMPLETELY transforms the song from the crowd-pleasing anthem you hear at sports games into this utterly incredible, heart-breakingly sad ballad. “In My Room” makes so much sense being sung by children, you’ll wonder what the hell Brian Wilson was thinking singing it himself. On a few songs they get so excited, they stop singing and start just plain shouting - and you want to shout along with them… and if there’s no one around, sometimes you do. And sometimes if there’s no one around, you don’t even pretend that you’re totally tearing up listening to a Wings song. And sometimes they hit a wrong note, or their voices crack when they try singing the high parts, or when they try singing the low parts, or the instruments are totally out of sync with the singers or with each other - BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER. In fact, it makes it better. It couldn’t possibly be any other way. GET. THIS. ALBUM.
LINK REMOVED AT REQUEST OF BAR-NONE RECORDS - YOU CAN  BUY THE CD HERE.

The Phi-Mu Washboard Band - “…Just Because” (196?)

Originally unearthed and made available by the good folks at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog during their incredible 365 Days Project, this all-too-brief LP features a rag-tag gang of early ’60s sorority sisters on ukulele, washboard, comb kazzoo and more (one girl is actually listed as playing “sticks”) playing folk and popular songs. It alternates between boisterous, foot-stomping group numbers and melancholy solo songs - all of them totally endearing and charming. The emotion in those girls voices is just completely fucking unbelievable. You can HEAR them smiling through some of these songs! And I don’t think I’ve ever been able to sing along to “Chilly Winds” all the way through without choking up. My favorite track though HAS to be “I Can Smile” (actually a one-minute rendition of Paul Evans’ “Happy Go Lucky Me”) - beats the original NO CONTEST. The cynicism and sarcasm in her voice is just… oh my god! It’s so good! I must have listened to this album 100 times by now. You will too. Promise.
DOWNLOAD IT

Building Music - Various Songs (2003-2008)

Like a modern day, avant-garde version of the Langley project: Paul Rubenstein (”Mr. R”) teaches a class called “Building Music” to high school and middle school kids in Brooklyn and Queens, where they learn how to build their own instruments (mostly guitars and oscillators) and amplifiers. All the instruments are tuned to a microtonal seven-tone equal temperament scale, and he records the students improvising together. The results are hard to believe. WEIRD AS SHIT! Obviously, these songs are a very different kind of amazing from the kind of amazing possessed by the Langley Schools or Phi-Mu albums, but they’re without a doubt amazing none the less. These tracks recall no-wave, early industrial music, gamelan, Glenn Branca, Jandek, Jackie-O Motherfucker, No-Neck Blues Band, Konono N°1, and a whole slew of avant-garde and modern and contemporary classical music, from the idiosyncratic innovations of Harry Partch and Moondog, to the minimalism of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Tony Conrad. But they add a rough around the edges, school kid charm that makes them far more inviting and less pretentious than any of those things. This “album” is a compilation I made of some of my favorite tracks, ripped from videos on Mr. R’s YouTube account and downloaded from his website. I suggest visiting both. Looking at these instruments and actually watching these kids play them is a pleasure.
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Octo-pipers - 1959 (1959)

Kind of like a younger, more straitlaced Phi-Mu band: The Octo-pipers are a chorus made up of high school senior girls, sometimes accompanying themselves very sparsely with guitar, banjo, and marracas. Like the Phi-Mu album, this was originally posted on Beware of the Blog, and also like that album, the Octo-pipers here play a number of folk and pop numbers (including a “Roaring Twenties Medley”!). The vocals are a lot more “churchy” and “stuffy” than the rambunctious, happy-go-lucky Phi-Mus, which makes for a few pretty weird renditions of some familiar songs (their version of “Sloop John B” is great!). Not quite as fun, but very pretty. The thing about this album though is that all these songs go by and they’re pretty good and enjoyable and everything, but then you get to the last track, “Saro Jane,” and you’re just like “woah wtf! this is awesome!” and you listen to it on repeat for half an hour. Ultimately, this is the perfect album to listen to when you’re taking a break from listening to the Phi-Mu Washboard Band.
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Old Skull - Get Outta School (1989)

Three 9 and 10 year old kids, encouraged by their punk musician fathers, form a punk band, get a record contract, and become a novelty hit, touring with Sonic Youth, GWAR, and The Flaming Lips, and getting airplay on MTV. From the subject matter of these songs (AIDS, homelessness, Christianity), it’s pretty apparent that the kids’ dads had a strong guiding hand. Still, whether they’re actually pissed off about the stuff they’re shouting about, or if they’re just trying to play the role of how they think a punk band should act and sound, they definitely have attitude. These kids rock! The music is obviously simplistic, noisy, and ramshackle, but to be honest, doesn’t really sound all that much less put together than your average shitty crust punk band twice their age. The lyrics, while trying to be serious, often wind up being hilarious (”They make you feel dumb and I’m pissed off! […] Ronald Regan sucks! I hate you, Ronald Regan!”), but you can’t help but cheer them along. Some people think this album is unlistenable. It’s definitely not something to listen to all the way through, but I think in short bursts it’s pretty fun (or if nothing else, cute and amusing). Apparently one of the kids from this band ran over my friend on his bike a few years ago. Standout track: “Homeless.”
DOWNLOAD IT

The tip of the iceberg…
When “wild child” Victor of Aveyron was discovered naked in the woods and unveiled to the 18th century scientific community, he was dubbed “the forbidden experiment.” Obviously, no one would ever will such a fate upon a child, and yet during a time when philosophic and scientific debates over language acquisition, “civilized versus savage,” and “nature versus nurture” were in full swing, his case seemed to offer extraordinary insight. In a way, every time a child picks up an instrument, it is a “forbidden experiment.” When an individual has such limited exposure to music, what kind of music do they produce? When they have limited or no knowledge of how to “correctly” play an instrument, how do they attempt to play it? What sounds can they wring from it that a more skilled musician might not think to? How much of what we find pleasing or interesting musically is inherent and how much is a social construction? Can the musical “blank slate” of childhood be used as a way of stripping away long-ingrained ideas about what music can and “should” be?

It’s a fascination with these questions that’s led me on a never-ending hunt for music made by kids. Not just recordings where adults try to get kids to play pitch perfect, cutesy songs, but music where the kids really go all out, where they don’t let their inabilities stop them from expressing themselves, where their heart and soul shines through the imperfections of their sound. All the really weird, interesting music made by children. In the process of this search, I’ve found out about a bunch of recordings that I haven’t yet been able to get my hands on, or just haven’t yet listened to. I can’t recommend any of these, but if you’re into this sort of thing, you might want to check them out…
–  Nancy Dupree & Co. - Ghetto Reality (1969)
– Arnie Lawrence and the Children of All Ages - Inside an Hour Glass (1970)
– Free Jazz Und Kinder - 15 Kinder & Brötzmann, Van Hove, Bennink (1972)
– Thunderbooy - Thuunderboy (1973)
– The Children of the Inpatient Music Therapy Program, University of Michigan’s Children’s Psychiatric Hospital - Christmas at C.P.H. (1978)
– Nichole and the Dreamcatchers + Various Artists - Krimus Karuls (1982)
– Various Artists - Big Music, Little Musicians!: Compositions and Improvisations by Oakland Elementary School Children (1994)
– Kids of Widney High - Special Music From Special Kids (1999)
– Dave Soldier and Da Hip Hop Rascalz - Da Hip Hop Rascalz (2006)
– Various Artists - Kindermusik: Improvised Music by Babies (2007)
– los meterRruidos -  el disco de los meterRruidos (2007)
– Human Skab - Stay Thirsty LP (2009)
– Human Skab - Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags (2009)

(If you have any recommendations for more - Please! Let me know!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I hope that the music here brings you as much enjoyment, fulfillment, and inspiration as it’s brought me. Now, just for fun, here are some photos of the various groups mentioned in this post…

the Langley Schools kids:

The Phi-Mu Washboard Band:

Octo-pipers:

the Building Music kids:

Old Skull:

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 am and is filed under Music, Outsider/Amateur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.