The Scrape, the Drag, the Slide: 10 Songs

Much of what I seek in music these days is the sensation of a forthright physical action having been taken at a certain time in a certain place. That is to say, I want the note, but I seem to need the sound around the note. The express-lane to that sensation is the sound of the drag, the slide, the scrape. Electric guitars used to be my ideal for it: the Sex Pistols' "Holidays In the Sun," JFA's "Little Big Man," Boston’s "Peace of Mind," The Who's "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere." But they don’t own it. The scrape can be extrapolated to nearly any other instrument. Even the voice. Especially the voice.

Here are 10 songs that exemplify this idea:

1) Bo Diddley: "Road Runner" (1959.) Was it the first pick-slide in rock? Who else has made theirs go upward rather than downward?

2) Anne Hytta: "Gorr," from Draumsyn. "Scraping" is a rude word for what the Norwegian musician Anne Hytta does with the Hardanger fiddle, but I mean it in admiration. Her instrument has eight strings and thinner wood than a standard violin; she plays new and traditional music on it. If the scordatura tuning on a baroque violin gives you a kind of inner satisfaction, this may be the next step.

3) Marion Brown: "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun" (from Afternoon of a Georgia Faun.) From 1970, a frictive time in improvised music. All these musicians—including the saxophonist Brown as well as Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Bennie Maupin, and the singer Jeanne Lee—seem to be doing the scrape in collective sympathy.

4) Okkyung Lee: "Hollow Water" (from Ghil.) The hard stuff, from the cellist Okkyung Lee, now that you’ve warmed up.

5) Ashley Paul: "Blanquita" (from Lost in Shadows.) Ashley Paul, an American musician living in London, is a marvel: she plays guitar, reed instruments, percussion, and sings. Ultra-sensitive, cliché-averse, she keeps the sounds close to her.

6) Iancu Dumitrescu: "Pierres Sacrées." While Ceauçescu was being overthrown at the end of the 1980s the Romanian composer Iancu Dumitrescu was realizing this fantasia for prepared piano, metallic plates, and amplified distortion in a Bucharest studio.

7) Eartheater: "Inkling" (from Irisiri.) Alexandra Drewchin, a powerful singer and great phantasmagorical composer.

8) Savages (Sonny and Linda Sharrock): "Untitled 2" from WKCR studio recording on March 21, 1974.) The vocal scrape, in excelsis.

9) Dexter Gordon: "Scrapple From the Apple" (from Our Man In Paris.) Saxophonists can do it too.

10) Biliana Voutchkova/Michael Thieke: "Philadelphia" (from Blurred Music.) An excerpt from a highly recommended new triple-CD by the Bulgarian violinist Biliana Voutchkova and the German clarinetist Michael Thieke. What concentration, what care. Essentially they are breathing—which can also be a form of the scrape.