excerpt from 'Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character' pp. 148 (143 words)
excerpt from 'Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character' pp. 148 (143 words)
| part of | Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character |
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| in pages | 148 |
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At the period I refer to there were a good many of these dingy Oriental soloists about town [London], to me quite indistinguishable from one another. They all looked exactly alike, and did exactly the same things; things, I am bound to say, almost unbearable to a child afflicted with a musical ear. Their melodies were composed of random notes, alternately howled and moaned to dismal monosyllables, all vowels and liquids, something after this manner:" La-la-lo-na-ma-na-lo-la," and so on ad infinitum, with the dub, dub, dub, dub of the rolly-polly drum obbligato all the while, as intolerably iterative as the thumping of the pistons in the innermost parts of an ocean steamer struggling along at high pressure against a head wind and a heavy sea — thumps which generate responsive throbs in the temple and qualms in the midriff of the unseaworthy passenger. |
| appears in search results as | excerpt from 'Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character' pp. 148 (143 words) |
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