Your Custom Text Here
Masterpiece of building by the Baya weaver bird
Word of the week: A delightfully evocative noun that suggests neatness and cosiness, this obscure 17th century word from the Latin means nest and the building of, which can be connected not just to birds, but animals and even humans
Read more
Rick Moranis is confronted by the plant, played by Levi Stubbs, in Little Shop of Horrors (1986).
Word of the week: Rare, archaic, evocative, and great to get lips and tongue around, it means to satisfy or satiate a hungry person, usually in the context of food, but of course in song lyrics that can mean a whole lot more
Read more
A sweeping visual statement about this week’s word …
Word of the week: Some kind of norse telescope? An instrument to detect scandal? Neither. This week's archaic word originated in 1802 with an invention to automate chimney sweeping and to put dusty child labourers out of danger
Read more
Can you get a Handel on what this week’s word might be?
Word of the week: It's an obscure, archaic 19th-century word with a definition almost as strangely obvious and clear as what it describes isn't – poor, illegible handwriting, and bad spelling and grammar
Read more
Jarvis Cocker playfully addresses the issue of the volgivagant in a classic number from 1995
Word of the week: It’s an obsolete 17th-century term pertaining to the common masses and so-called more vulgar or baser tastes within the uneducated and poor, but something that remains as relevant today in the pursuits of cultural or political popularism
Read more
The yaffingale, or green woodpecker
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, southern English name for the European green woodpecker, picus viridis, that species of beautiful colour that taps on softer wood trunks to feed and nest, but how does such a bird come up in song?
Read more
Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer
Word of the week: Also known as the banjulele, this resonant cross between the banjo and ukelele was first build in 1917 and became especially popular in the 1920s and 30s
Read more
The true sound of Australia …
Word of the week: It's that unmistakable indigenous Australian hardwood trumpet "drone pipe" classified as a brass aerophone and among its extraordinary qualities, playing helps reduce snoring and obstructive sleep apne by strengthening the muscles of the upper airways
Read more
The esraj is a four-string version of the older dilruba
Word of the Week: It has a beautifully eerily, emotional sound that echoes the human voice, that comes not from vocal chords, but from bowed strings in this instrument from southern Asia – mainly music in Sikh, Punjab and eastern Bengal culture
Read more
Güiro - used in more genres than you might imagine
Word of the week: Used in Latin American music, but also by artists from David Bowie to The Rolling Stones, it’s idiophone made of resonant gourd or wood, is held through holes making a rhythmic, ratchet sound by scraping a stick across specially created ridges
Read more
Hurdy-gurdy
Word of the week: It sounds like a medieval insult, disease or even sexual position, but it's a basic form of the stringed instrument played with keys and by turning a hand-crank wheel that rubs against the strings like a mechanised violin
Read more
Tuvan musician Evgeny Saryglar on the igil
Word of the week: It's an elegant, bowed, two-stringed Tuvan musical instrument, central to the music of that southern Siberian region, emitting a haunting sound that often accompanies and is played by throat singers
Read more
Have you ‘herd’ this before?
Word of the week: It's a beautiful, haunting Scandinavian high-pitched, very musical vocal style, designed to resonantly call in herds of cows or goats from high pastures and long distances, sung out particularly by women
Read more
Sticking the boot in …
Word of the week: The Australian name for the Mendoza, Mendozer, Monkey Stick, Murrumbidgee River Rattler, or Zob Stick, this ultimate pub instrument is a shake-and-bang percussion stick or pole is mostly made from nailed-on beer bottle tops
Read more
A 16-string chromatic nyckelharpa
Word of the week: It's a traditional Swedish instrument that sounds similar to and is bowed like the violin, but with greater resonance, has 16 strings and as many as 37 wooden keys that fret the strings to make particular note
Read more
Plenty of puff: Monsieur le Curé and his Ophicleide
Word of the week: It's an obscure hybrid of tuba and saxophone and evolved from the serpent, this rich-toned keyed brass instrument has a mouthpiece that makes it part of the bugle family
Read more
What’s the scale? Snake songs …
Word of the week: Know your scales? It is also known as the murli or the been, this double-reedpipe instrument made from a gourd is primarily associated with snake charmers on the Indian subcontinent
Read more
A selection of quena flutes
Word of the week: It's an instrument that brings to mind the soaring condor and mountainous Andes – a haunting, beautiful sound emanating from this simple, traditional wooden flute
Read more
Rebecs
Word of the week: Most popular in the 13th-16th centuries, then largely replaced by the viol and violin, yet this beautiful wooden gut- and nylon-stringed instrument has a distinctive sound and still appears in some music today
Read more
Ukeke maker and player Mahi La Pierre
Word of the week: Unlike the ukelele, which was introduced by European sailors, this is the only true indigenous Hawaiian stringed instrument, evolving from hunting bow into one with plucked strings that becomes a mouth harp
Read more