The calliope, that strange carnival organ that only seems to play goofy, off-kilter, slightly menacing “carnival music.” Truth be told, I know nothing about the instrument, such as what makes a calliope a calliope. To be even more truthful, if you can handle it, I wasn’t even sure if a calliope was an instrument or a style of music. A 12-second scan of YouTube results for the search term calliope tells me it’s an instrument.
Rather than investigate the inner workings of a calliope, I prefer to follow what got me thinking about this thing in the first place. I was listening to a favorite song from childhood that involves a brief, carnival-sounding, calliope-like instrumental break. I’m not sure if an actual calliope was used in the recording of this instrumental break, but it has that sound, that rhythm, and those clusters of notes that suggest clowns; rickety amusement rides; the smell of sawdust, animal droppings, and cotton candy; and parents looking like they’re questioning whether they did the right thing by bringing the kids to this place.
Along with the song that came on my iPod tonight, I thought of one other song that features a definite carnival-style, calliope-like break. It’s also a song I was fascinated by as a kid, yet it doesn’t hold up as well as the first one I thought of tonight. Beside those two songs, I strongly doubt that there are more than two or three other examples of this device. BEWARE:
