National anthem on an electric violin made out of a bat
April 27, 2012 6:00 PM   Subscribe

If you were watching the Orioles-A's game from Camden Yards tonight, you saw a guy playing the National Anthem on an electric violin made out of a baseball bat. This is how that looks and sounds. This is the guy talking about and showing off his Louisville Slugger violin. And this is the Washington Post profile of Glenn Donnellan, a violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra and the maker and player of the world's only electric baseball bat violin.
posted by escabeche (15 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Halp, my face
posted by nathancaswell at 6:07 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]


Previously.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:23 PM on April 27, 2012


Brilliant! Love both posts!
posted by FLAG (BASTARD WATER.) (Acorus Adulterinus.) at 6:33 PM on April 27, 2012


So good someone should post it again. Or sidebar it, for the baseball/violin crowd?
posted by vrakatar at 7:18 PM on April 27, 2012


That was far and away the most pleasing rendition of Star Spangled banner that I've ever heard. That guy is kickass player, the bat fiddle sounds fucking great, and the melody just works so much better as an instrumental, freed of those clunky and near-unsingable lyrics.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:26 PM on April 27, 2012


Rockin'. 0:49 onward made me smile.
posted by 3FLryan at 7:32 PM on April 27, 2012


(from the first link)
posted by 3FLryan at 7:33 PM on April 27, 2012


world's only electric baseball bat violin.

USA! USA!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:43 PM on April 27, 2012


he was flat on "ramparts", no?
posted by nathancaswell at 7:55 PM on April 27, 2012


he was flat on "ramparts", no?

No, no! He was merely experimenting with the microtonalism that Francis Scott Key's score originally called for!

(next year he'll be performing Key's little-known twelve-tone version of the piece)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:04 PM on April 27, 2012


Following that up, two years from now he's scheduled to perform John Cage's famous reworking of the song, The Star Spangled 2'47", where he will simply stand in the field holding the bat violin, while the crowd in the bleachers remains silent and alert to all the ambient sounds of the stadium. Performances of this work, however, have been all too often marred by shouts of "HOT DOGS! GET'CHER HOT DOGS!"
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:10 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]


But Cage's masterful reworking of Key's score really comes to life in Camden Yards, where fans stand silently until 1:15, when they roar out "O!" then return to another minute and a half of silence.
posted by postel's law at 8:29 PM on April 27, 2012 [3 favorites]


Is "creative" reworking of a national anthem a strictly American thing?

Does the current Robin Sparkles ever drag out "O Canada" for 30 seconds too long?

I only really ever hear other national anthems at the Olympics, where they seem to play it straight for the most part.
I'm curious now.
posted by madajb at 9:27 PM on April 27, 2012


At least someone at an O's game is did something useful with a bat.
posted by HumanComplex at 8:35 AM on April 28, 2012


I assume you are referring here to the Orioles' opponents, who have been held to 3.95 runs per game so far, the third-lowest total in the American League.
posted by escabeche at 8:42 AM on April 28, 2012


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