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Guru Meditation Group: Members Posts: 55 Joined: May 2003 Posted: May 16 2003, 22:01 I always adored that specific feel and imagination with which Oldfield uses voices on his albums (not the pop singing, but the one from instrumental works). His word painting is extraordinary - that from the ending of Ommadawn for example (with affrican drums), or the vocal hums from Sentinel (O-O-Keh-O-O), or from Amarok... I also adore the tone color and 'personality' of his singers  - for example, that angelic voice from Incantations, exepcially the finale (and may I note that I find some of that style of singing at the place of Pet Shop Boys, which is one of my favorite pop music). Just the names of his albums Ommadawn and Amarok are some sort of music for themselves (as far as I know they mean nothing, but somehow sound very in the mood of the musical highlits from these albums). Does someone shares this impressions of mine? Greetings Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 22:37 I know excately what you mean!! I share the same thoughts. I always liked Sheba, which has those nonsense words in it which creates this special music. And also the He-ee in "Pacha Mamma". And what about those vocoded pieces in Amarok? Just brilliant! I've never liked lyrics in music. Guess I'm grown up with instrumental music. So this special way of singing is a great alternative. Lately I talked with some friends about lyrics... they think lyrics are very important and they always listen to it. I said I don't pay attention to it and love Mike's nonsense words more. They, however, didn't like this style.   -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

Music, the ancient language... Group: Musicians Posts: 407 Joined: Jan. 2003 Posted: May 17 2003, 09:44 Yep, also my thoughts. 'Painting with voices' is a very nice metaphore if you ask me. Not only the pretty voices, but also the agressive voice at the end of TBIII's outcast. I shiver when I hear it. I also think his voices are very mystical. I always tend to hear real lyricks in them! Not only the 'sexy woman' in TMB, but also the 'pa so' in Amarok, as I've mentioned on another topic. I keep hearing things like 'found someone' and 'found some better' and 'found someone awesome'... very weird. Is it as if the words are enchanted! And the strange thing is that I mostly don't pay attention to lyricks in songs (yes, because I mostly hate them)...   -------------- Read everything I write at own risk. I cannot be held responsible  for depressions and/or suicide attempts of any kind, caused by reading my posts. Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 17 2003, 11:34 Another thought shared Acient. Yes, my alltime favourite is the Amarok piece at 45 minutes, the So-fa-so part. -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

Guru Meditation Group: Members Posts: 55 Joined: May 2003 Posted: May 17 2003, 20:23 That's right, the part you find on 'elements' best-of compilation - one of the most magical music I ever heared! It made me feel undescribable (how Beatles could never with all their pop songs together   ) Greetings Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 18 2003, 07:07 Amen to that! -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

mainman Group: Members Posts: 1 Joined: May 2003 Posted: May 28 2003, 11:32 Music and lyrics should be as important as each other, I love the fact that TB is without singing but I also love the fact that Stimmung by Stockhausen (EXCUSE MY SPELLING) is all voice.. But has anyone heard I TRAWL THE MEGAHERTZ by Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout ? It combines 22 minutes of music with the most beautiful lyrics but it's not a song! It's stunning and after years of thrilling to TB I suspect this could be as influencial. It's being streamed from Prefabsprout.com [URL=http://www.prefabsprout.com/PoemNew.php] It combines the best of all worlds Back to top

ex member 419 Group: Members Posts: 1177 Joined: April 2008 Posted: Jan. 20 2010, 08:14 This is an old thread which for me sums up the beautiful vocals that accompany Mike's instrumentals. Instead of vocals leading and telling the story, the small vocal parts accentuate and strengthen the music. I prefer Mike's music these days as it is beautiful to listen to and doesn't suffer from pop fatigue (hits forgotten after a few months). I can play Mike's albums, always find some little theme that I hadn't heard before. His music never seems dated, his dedication to creating powerful, creative and unusual pieces has become his signature. Deb Back to top

The Caveman Group: Members Posts: 2178 Joined: Jan. 2008 Posted: Jan. 21 2010, 08:24 Good point Deb.The start of part 1 of Incantations springs to mind.That vocal chord (no pun intended)that builds note by note is sublime.Another one is the beautiful little female vocal part in the first section of TB part 2.  He has a way of using vocals as another instrument without neccesarily having lyrics.He stated in an old interview that he hated words in a rock context (also going on to say that he loved Whole Lotta Love untill Plant starts singing).Even when there are lyrics they don't have to mean anything,like Ommadawn or the section in Taurus II when maggie sings over a really happy energetic sounding peice.Of course on the same peice there's The Deep Deep Sound which goes to prove that he can do lyrics with proper words as well.Clever bugger   -------------- THE COMING OF THE GREAT WHITE HANDKERCHEIF IS NIGH. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Jan. 21 2010, 18:12 I agree with everyone here that Mike is awfully good at writing phonetical/nonsensical words, but I think that one of the reasons why he does that [a very good reason, IMHO!] is the sheer difficulty he always had to face when writing real lyrics. When he wrote "Five Miles Out" he filled up the whole lyric with aeronautical technical words. When he wrote "Moonlight Shadow" he had to buy a rhyming dictionary, darn it!! And of course "On Horseback" isn't a real song - it's a very autobiographical rap with a very nonsensical chorus. So (@ Caveman) I guess that what he was trying to do with Maggie's first section in Taurus II was to build a massive "power pop" song in the middle of the long instrumental composition, but he had trouble coming up with a sensible lyric and so he wrote a set of fake lyrics all based around the "A" vowel... "Sana, rosana, daloo bee rawana..." etc. But that section sounds great for the very fact that it hasn't got real lyrics - Michèle Torr's really pop version of the same piece, i.e., "Donne moi ta main...", trivializes the whole thing with a soapy and very conventional lyric. Of course Mike is not alone in using vocals but not lyrics - Karl Jenkins a.k.a. Adiemus has built seven wonderful albums by doing just that; one of Vangelis' best-known pieces is sung by a choir in fake Latin; Lisa Gerrard and Liz Fraser use meaningless phonetics all the time, and IMHO they're very good at it. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

The Caveman Group: Members Posts: 2178 Joined: Jan. 2008 Posted: Jan. 26 2010, 09:44 I was reading the interview with Tim Cross from Nov 07 and in it he claims to have prompted Mike's use of nonsense lyrics.he was specificallt talking about his work on QE2 (presumably Sheba on which he's creditted with the lyrics).This would make sense as (Ommadawn aside,the lyris of which were thought up by Clodagh Simmonds and can roughly be translated into Gaelic "daddy's in bed/the cat's drinking milk/I am the fool and i'm laughing")Mike's use of these type of lyrics to originate around 1980.Aside of course from Platinum's "yooba yabba yabba"scat singing bit and "do dum dop diddley doop m dop m dop"   -------------- THE COMING OF THE GREAT WHITE HANDKERCHEIF IS NIGH. Back to top

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