Best unconventional sounds for use in song

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In my book, the most interesting music incorporates sounds that stray from the run of the mill.

Here are a few, cliche (in that un-cliche kind of way) or not:
-Crying
-Groaning
-A creaking gate
-Pigs squealing
-Snippits of conversation

Bear with me, it's late - I'm sure there are better examples out there. Can ya think of any? It would actually help me out as well. I'm putting together this Medulla-esque song at the moment, and any ideas for texture would be great!

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Saturday, 11 November 2006 07:25 (nineteen years ago)

musique concrète

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Saturday, 11 November 2006 07:30 (nineteen years ago)

so cool! i'm relieved to know there's like a term for this... it's been a passion of mine for a long time now, exploring such sounds

thanks

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Saturday, 11 November 2006 07:35 (nineteen years ago)

No prob. It's basically the foundation for the whole concept of "studio music" (music that's meant to exist solely as a work of the artist via manipulation of recorded sound, as opposed to written notes intended for live performance via instrument; the precursor to what is now electronic music).

Definitely get some Schaeffer and Varese; see if you can download/get your hands on a copy of the Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music compilation.

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Saturday, 11 November 2006 07:50 (nineteen years ago)

Do note though that much of it is free-form audio collage without much beat.

As for ideas for things, just get a small tape recorder and walk around all day recording things. Use anything--a flushing toilet, a cat eating food, snapping a carrot--anything at all. Whatever you think would sound nice. This album was created entirely with sounds of medical procedures and it's supposed to be really good.

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Saturday, 11 November 2006 07:55 (nineteen years ago)

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony & 2Pac's "Thug Love" has my favourite use of a shotgun cocked and fired sample: "CHK-CHK BOOM-BOOM". Photek's Modus Operandi's pretty sweet too.

― Whoof Vague-o-Rama (noodle vague), Saturday, 11 November 2006 10:27 (nineteen years ago)

"Thug Luv". lol spelling

― Whoof Vague-o-Rama (noodle vague), Saturday, 11 November 2006 10:28 (nineteen years ago)

Meat Punching!

― Joe (Joe), Saturday, 11 November 2006 13:40 (nineteen years ago)

farting? could you ever take a song seriously that prominently featured a fart or two for dramatic flair?

― Scorpion Tea (Dick Butkus), Saturday, 11 November 2006 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha you know, i was thinking about farting when i posted last night. that's crossing the line for me. unless you added like five effects to it so it ended up sounding like some kind of exotic drum.

um, yeah i mean i've always known that i'm a studio artist, mainly. and it makes sense that i love kate bush.

i'm onna have to check that stuff out. medical sounds! i love it.

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Saturday, 11 November 2006 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

Ramzi you should hear Camille's "Ta Doleur" on the subject of farty noises...

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Saturday, 11 November 2006 16:20 (nineteen years ago)

Herbert owns this thread...

― Stephen Bush (Stephen B.), Saturday, 11 November 2006 16:29 (nineteen years ago)

LOL i will definitely check that out at work later - this comp is effin slow.
i dunno who herbert is... bad of me?
well pink floyd has really done some good stuff with concrete, like that atom heart mother track or so much of animals. oh, animals...

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Saturday, 11 November 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, herbert and matmos.

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Saturday, 11 November 2006 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

are those REAL farts or mouth-farts? If real, that is quite excellent use of a fart.

― Scorpion Tea (Dick Butkus), Saturday, 11 November 2006 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

Yello made some rather amazing drum sounds out of the sound of a snowball hitting a window.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 11 November 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

A wall, I mean (or I guess the sound of breaking glass would have been the result)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 11 November 2006 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

xxpost

most likely mouthfarts. I did say farty NOISES.... I wasn't entirely sure, but they're most likely not from the bum

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Saturday, 11 November 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

babies laughing, kids on a school yard

― kevin says relax (daddy warbuxx), Sunday, 12 November 2006 00:13 (nineteen years ago)

2 pairs of footsteps - high heeled and work boot
(one set followed by another might create a creepy "stalker" drum beat)

― Totally Different Guy Now (Dick Butkus), Sunday, 12 November 2006 00:16 (nineteen years ago)

there's some real fart noises in the first track off "music from the body" by roger waters and ron geesin.

mp3 sample here: http://www.amazon.com/Music-Body-Roger-Waters-Geesin/dp/B000003BH2

― boom! i fucked your hard-drive (don), Sunday, 12 November 2006 00:54 (nineteen years ago)

Farts, belches, puking, spitting, etc as punctuation marks in a song -- "Lady Sniff," Butthole Surfers.

― Django Blowhardt (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 12 November 2006 00:59 (nineteen years ago)

I guess it would egotistical of me to mention that a track by my band (Matmos) called "the Purple Island" on our second album features every conceivable bodily function noise that we could gather, but oh well. More recently, Otto von Schirach has made a double 7" that goes through the sound of bodily functions quite thoroughly.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Sunday, 12 November 2006 01:19 (nineteen years ago)

Everything? Did you get queefing?

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Sunday, 12 November 2006 01:27 (nineteen years ago)

No, but that error on our part was fixed by using a cow's reproductive tract, uterus and vaginal lips to record dead cow queefs on the most recent album.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Sunday, 12 November 2006 01:30 (nineteen years ago)

now that is something worth hearing!

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 12 November 2006 06:38 (nineteen years ago)

Weird Al used handfarts in "Eat It" (and some other songs)

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 12 November 2006 08:07 (nineteen years ago)

Matmos owns this thread. Each album they do has some sort of sound concept behind it, the most exotic of which is probably A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure. For that album they took sounds recorded in surgery and incorporated them into catchy electronica. From one review:

"The record features the sounds of scalpels through flesh, fat being sucked through a liposuction tube, the buzz of eye surgery lasers and accupuncture point detectors, tones used for hearing aid tests, human and goat bones and a rat cage."

(Also, yay, this is my first ilm post! Numbah one! Numbah one! http://www.helpbytes.co.uk/images/mess6/smileys/36.gif)

― lick_my_stereolabia (nariposa), Sunday, 12 November 2006 12:10 (nineteen years ago)

Hahaha... congrats! You'll never be the same.

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 12 November 2006 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

I see you're already familiar with the ILM tradition of not reading the thread before you post on it, nariposa. ;)

― Whoof Vague-o-Rama (noodle vague), Sunday, 12 November 2006 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

I think Timbaland masturbates onto a mic in My Love, and several others.

I know that matmos does it (and hilariously credits it in the liner notes)

I like the sample on that Missy Eliot song "on & on" by (sigh) Pharrel. Its a bendy piece of plastic sound or something, I can't quite place it.

― Digestion is Easy (Digestion is Easy!), Sunday, 12 November 2006 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last A Long Time" uses chickens (I think) and some other sounds to great effect.

― Jim M (jmcgaw), Sunday, 12 November 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

Chickens are such a great tool for drama in music!

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 12 November 2006 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

hehe - it's so like wizard of oz in the psyche of auntie em or something

you know like, tumbleweeds on desert lands...

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 12 November 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

there's farting on the new matmos too, isn't there? on the valerie solanas track i think?

― A Giant Mechanical Ant (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Sunday, 12 November 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

The whole of Disco Inferno's "D.I. Go Pop" is full of unconventional sounds. The track "Starbound: All Burnt Out & Nowhere To Go" is especially interesting (to me)

― mwb (losingsoul), Sunday, 12 November 2006 19:22 (nineteen years ago)

Mr Learn has crickets sampled and put on a sequencer as a drumbeat. "We dont need no Smurf here" by Cosmo Vitelli has a creaky floor board, and theres always Drop by Cornelius... which seesm to be mentioned in every ILM message

― raw sweaters annoying brother (raw sweaters annoying brother), Sunday, 12 November 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

I love fleshing it out with some good old creaking

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 12 November 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

I like the sample on that Missy Eliot song "on & on" by (sigh) Pharrel. Its a bendy piece of plastic sound or something, I can't quite place it.

I thought that was a pennywhistle?

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Sunday, 12 November 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.discogs.com/release/656690

― naus (Robert T), Monday, 13 November 2006 01:59 (nineteen years ago)

On another board I frequent, a poster has been talking lovingly about recordings of beetles chewing wood pulp.

― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Monday, 13 November 2006 02:08 (nineteen years ago)

Found it; David Dunn - The Sound of Light in Trees

http://www.acousticecology.org/dunn/solit.html

― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Monday, 13 November 2006 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

Aphex Twin, "Carn Marth," tape loading noise from Sabre Wulf

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 13 November 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

tape loading... sexy

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

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