Sunday, February 6, 2011

Norma Beecroft


Norma Beecroft -- the Delia Derbyshire of Canada? More here.

9 comments:

  1. fantastic blog, congratulations! :)

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  2. i have been looking for composers like this for a long time. i live in canada and there was a show on the canadian broadcasting corporation(CBC) called "quirks & quarks. from 1975 until the early 90's the theme song was a nice moog piece. now its different-not as good really, but i cant find the composer of the original music ANYWHERE. i know its a longshot-but do you have any clue????

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    1. The guy who wrote the theme song for Quirks and Quarks was Michal Hasek and the song is called Naja. http://www.examiner.com/article/michal-hasek

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    2. I don't understand Hasek's claim about the theme, because the two tunes are not alike at all: one uses a synthesizer, and the other a guitar. Perhaps he was referring to incidental music and not the theme. Besides, I found the synthesizer tune on an Italian library LP from 1971, and Naja is from 1973.

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  3. hmmm, i don't know. sounds like a great show, though! would love to hear the tune.

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  4. I had never heard of Norma Beecroft before.
    I am now on a mission to find out as much as I can.
    Thanks for the post.

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  5. You can hear the first episode of Quirks & Quarks at CBC's archive site, currently linked at http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/601/. The original theme version can be heard in the background at the start, and more detail can be heard of it at the end of the show. To my ear, there are two "voices". One is a rapid beat that sounds a bit like Raymond Scott's invention the Circle Machine, heard here: http://raymondscott.com/circle.mp3. The other is the peculiar staccato melody that is sometimes punctuated with an up-pitching whistle.

    The theme was replaced with a saxophone remake, which itself was replaced by a quieter electronic remake that can be heard here: http://www.dogmazic.net/m3u/hitcounttitre.php?id=13191&ur=1&usr=

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    1. nicknicknickandnickAugust 14, 2014 at 4:52 PM

      The link to the first episode of Quirks & Quarks has changed:
      http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/601/
      The Raymond Scott link no longer works. The third link no longer works -- search for Avec d'ebunormes seins et des hippopotamesque by Raphael Gluckstein.

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  6. Thanks! This is awesome. Looking forward to exploring.

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