Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Entries Tagged as '*Music'

Duet for Slide Whistle and Trombone

July 14th, 2021 · Comments Off on Duet for Slide Whistle and Trombone

The slide whistle and the trombone seem made for each other. This duet shows off both of them, in four movements of 33 measures each.

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Tags: *Music · D

Duet for Garklein Recorder and Tuba

July 5th, 2021 · Comments Off on Duet for Garklein Recorder and Tuba

This spirited duet pairs the garklein recorder, the smallest member of the recorder family, with the tuba. The two contrasting sonorities are combined in unison, in harmony, in antiphony, and in canon, mostly in C major, before ending their tenuous alliance.  

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Tags: *Music · D

Mr. Toilet Is Your Friend

June 15th, 2021 · Comments Off on Mr. Toilet Is Your Friend

This little number was an occasional part of “Doug and Mike’s Adult Entertainment,” the puppet show I did for years with Michael Smith. Here I had to sing, operate a toilet puppet with my right hand, and play a small organ with my left hand.

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Tags: *Music · M

The Worse It Gets, the Better We Like It

April 29th, 2021 · Comments Off on The Worse It Gets, the Better We Like It

We have here a rousing song about humanity’s fundamental perversity. I often sang this back in the ’90s, with Carol Benner playing a vigorous obbligato on the viola.

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Tags: *Music · W

We All Work So Hard

April 15th, 2021 · Comments Off on We All Work So Hard

“We All Work So Hard” is a song taking umbrage at the work ethic. It can be found in The Doug Skinner Songbook, so you can sing it yourself.

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Tags: *Music · W

Fixative

February 22nd, 2021 · Comments Off on Fixative

A piano piece from my student days. These are some of the savory dissonances I was stirring up when I was 18.

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Tags: *Music · F

Amerigo and Isabella

February 15th, 2021 · 4 Comments

These verses about Amerigo Vespucci and Queen Isabella were originally published in Bedside Nonsense, from Black Scat Books. Here they are set to music, which I recently recorded with a Venezuelan cuatro. Note that for the sake of the meter “Amerigo” is pronounced in Americanese, as I was taught it in school, with the accent […]

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Tags: *Music · A

Introduction to “Laughter”

January 26th, 2021 · 2 Comments

I’m now recording another album of my songs, and wrote a piano introduction to the round “Laughter”: a chromatic harmonization of that diatonic tune.

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Tags: *Music · I

If Something Goes Wrong, Just Pretend It Didn’t Happen

January 14th, 2021 · Comments Off on If Something Goes Wrong, Just Pretend It Didn’t Happen

A song about coping with life’s difficulties. This too can be found on That Regrettable Weekend and in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

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Tags: *Music · I

When a Snowman Melts

December 24th, 2020 · 2 Comments

As the title indicates, a song about what happens when a snowman melts. I recorded this for Meg Reichardt’s Holiday Recording Party, in an arrangement for ukulele, ‘cello, and psaltery. If you follow that link, you can also hear my piano arrangement of “Underjordisk Musik,” a Norwegian folk tune traditionally attributed to the trolls in […]

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Tags: *Music · W