Re: Electronic Barrel Organs
By Robbie Rhodes
Claus Kucher in Vienna has tendencies like most of us when he writes: his mind moves faster than his typing fingers! I am a relative novice at the German language, so I enlisted aid from a German friend to explain further what is happening in his letter (digest 950901).
Claus is a member of the "School of Viennese Songs" [I think that's the name of a club] which meets regularly at the restaurant, "Zum Werkelmann", operated by Wolfgang Geissler. "Werkelmann" means "workman", so the restaurent is "At the Workman's". I think in Austrian it also connotes the man who turns the crank of the barrel-organ, so "Werkelmaenner" means the "Hurdy-Gurdy Men".
"Drehorgel" is the proper German term for the small hand-cranked barrel organ, and "Leierkasten" is the old-time generic word for any small hurdy-gurdy; the term comes from an ancient mechanical violin, not unlike a Mills Violana or an "Arthur Godfrey ukelele" with push-buttons!
Wolfgang Geissler has organized the 13th annual convention at the "Bohemian Park" in Vienna, which is a BIG amusement park much like Tivoli, with [they say] the largest Ferris Wheel in the world. "Stachelwalze" means "spiked cylinder", another name for barrel-organ or -piano or music box.
Some of the owners of electronically-controlled organs asked Claus if he could make arrangements of Austrian folk songs, and I have offered to help decipher the EPROM memory format for him. The little organs do not accept Midi wireline signals.
Claus transmitted a cute Midi song file to me, and I've asked him if it will be okay to share it with everyone. The German title is "Einmal im Monat damit pfeife ich auf dem Jazz", which I thought meant, "Once a month I whistle about jazz." Well, my German friend pointed out that I had encounted yet another quaint German or Bavarian expression: the correct translation is (in polite English), "Once a month I don't give a damn about jazz!"
Ah, so. The lyrics accompaning the song file seem to tell about a young man whose father tells him to get a date and go to the Wine-Garden district to "unwind". But the text got clobbered in transmission due to incompatible German vs. American computer keyboards -- every vowel became some unprintable character -- so I've asked Claus for a re-transmission, with a rough English translation. It's got to be a good, funny song!
-- Robbie Rhodes
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(Message sent Tue 5 Sep 1995, 02:37:03 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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